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She sighed in her sleep and curled closer, nestling her cheek against his chest He understood as responsible for the sudden change in her demeanor, what had caused the laainst the wolf Not trust, no, not fro to see so); circumstances alone had driven her into his arreatest threat Now there was a greater threat, and he was suddenly her only ally against it

Noto his strength Unconscious, vulnerable, entrusted to his care while her h, in fact, that he--who had no patience with physical discomfort--would put up with pain rather than wake her Fortunately, the bullet had only grazed hinificant threat to his uns He rubbed his jaw and shook his head When she’d told hi the few pauses he’d per place, he’d been incensed

At hiht hisproblem a severe case of frustration and boredo proble problem was how the bloody hell to keep theenius to understand the significance of Hunters carrying human weapons Not in the presence of Darroc

Hoiftly he’d forgotten all he’d left behind in Faery upon being banished from that realues--but he’d been thoroughly ing in his aggravation at being huet Darroc for even a h Council Elder stretched back four and a half millennia, to a time before The Compact between Fae and Man To a tiht with them from Danu--two of the four Hallows, and the only weapons capable of doing injury to or even killing an immortal--had been removed from Faery and secreted away All the way back to that day Ada him the scar he still sported

He’d like to pretend he’d tried to kill Darroc for a noble reason, but the si over a mortal woman Adam had seen her first But the queen had summoned hiotten to her first Knowing full well Adam had wanted her

Darroc had killed her There were those a his race who believed that beauty and innocence could truly be savored only via their destruction There were those a his race who, in that lawless time before The Compact, when they’d first arrived on this world and were scouting it, not yet having settled it, had fed like scavengers on the passion they could elicit fro that it killed the mortal in the process He’d seen what Darroc had done to her when he’d returned Gone was the laughing, teasing young maiden who’d been so vibrantly alive Sadistically broken and forever silenced Her death hadn’t coood reason Her murder had been an act of bitter, senseless violence Ada in that lawless time, but for reasons Always for reasons Never just for the pleasure of it

The loathing spawned between him and Darroc that day had never waned Leashed by the queen, under threat of dire recompense (a soulless death at the queen’s hand, no less), they’d taken their vicious battle into the arena of court politics An arena in which Adam had perfected his powers of subtlety and seduction, tools he’d used to defeat Darroc on ed with ti that equaled his brutality While Darroc secured a seat on the queen’s council, Adaed to secure her ear in other ways He and the Elder were by far the ures at court, staunchly on opposing sides, and with Adaonewell, he had no doubt that already the co turned to the Elder’s aied to turn soer she’d created by casting Adauns at that Had he been trying to ht in stray fire fro Darroc, he would play the odds that once Ada if Adam’s body sported only man-made wounds