I really don’t know why I bother. Barrons knows virtually everything about me. I wouldn’t be surprised if somewhere he has a little file that encompasses my entire life to date, with neatly mounted, acerbically captioned photos—see Mac sunbathe, see Mac paint her nails, see Mac almost die.

But whenever I ask him a personal question, all I get is a cryptic “Take me or leave me,” coupled with a broody reminder that he keeps saving my life. As if that should be enough to shut me up and keep me in line.

Sad fact is, it usually does.

There’s an intolerable imbalance of power between us. He’s the one holding all the trump cards while I’m barely managing to hang on to the few lousy twos and threes life deals me.

We might hunt OOPs, or Objects of Power—sacred Fae relics, like the Hallows—together, fight and kill our enemies side by side, and, recently, even try to tear each other’s clothing in a case of lust as sudden and searing as the unexpected sirocco I’d somehow glimpsed in his mind while kissing him—but we sure didn’t share personal details of our lives or schedules with each other. I had no idea where he lived, where he went when he wasn’t around, or when he might come around next. It irked me. A lot. Especially now that I knew he could find me anytime he wanted, using the brand he’d tattooed on the back of my skull—his fecking middle initial Z. Yes, it had saved my life. No, that didn’t mean I had to like it.

I peeled off my dripping jacket and hung it up. Two flashlights crashed to the floor and went rolling. I needed to find a better way to carry them. They were cumbersome in my pockets and constantly falling out. I was afraid that pretty soon I’d be known as “that crazy flashlight-carrying chick” around the parts of Dublin I frequented.

I hurried to the bathroom at the back of the store, gingerly toweled my hair, and wiped gently at my smudged makeup. There was a bottle of aspirin upstairs shouting my name. A month ago, I would have immediately fixed my face. Now, I was just happy I had good skin and glad to be out of the rain.