&ldquo;Evil is a completely different creature, Mac. Evil is bad that believes it&rsquo;s <good<.&rdquo;
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MacKayla Lane was just a child when she and her sister, Alina, were given up for adoption and banished from Ireland forever.

Twenty years later, Alina is dead and Mac has returned to the country that expelled them to hunt her sister&rsquo;s murderer. But after discovering that she descends from a bloodline both gifted and cursed, Mac is plunged into a secret history: an ancient conflict between humans and immortals who have lived concealed among us for thousands of years.

What follows is a shocking chain of events with devastating consequences, and now Mac struggles to cope with grief while continuing her mission to acquire and control the <Sinsar Dubh<&mdash;a book of dark, forbidden magic scribed by the mythical Unseelie King, containing the power to create and destroy worlds.

In an epic battle between humans and Fae, the hunter becomes the hunted when the <Sinsar Dubh< turns on Mac and begins mowing a deadly path through those she loves.
Who can she turn to? Who can she trust? Who is the woman haunting her dreams? More important, who is Mac herself and what is the destiny she glimpses in the black and crimson designs of an ancient tarot card?
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From the luxury of the Lord Master&rsquo;s penthouse to the sordid depths of an Unseelie nightclub, from the erotic bed of her lover to the terrifying bed of the Unseelie King, Mac&rsquo;s journey will force her to face the truth of her exile, and to make a choice that will either save the world . . . or destroy it.

Autorentext

Karen Marie Moning is the New York Times bestselling author of the Fever series, featuring MacKayla Lane, and the award-winning Highlander series. She has a bachelor’s degree in society and law from Purdue University and is currently working on a new series set in the Fever world and a graphic novel featuring MacKayla Lane.

Zusammenfassung
**#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

“Evil is a completely different creature, Mac. Evil is bad that believes it’s good.”**

MacKayla Lane was just a child when she and her sister, Alina, were given up for adoption and banished from Ireland forever.

Twenty years later, Alina is dead and Mac has returned to the country that expelled them to hunt her sister’s murderer. But after discovering that she descends from a bloodline both gifted and cursed, Mac is plunged into a secret history: an ancient conflict between humans and immortals who have lived concealed among us for thousands of years.

What follows is a shocking chain of events with devastating consequences, and now Mac struggles to cope with grief while continuing her mission to acquire and control the Sinsar Dubh—a book of dark, forbidden magic scribed by the mythical Unseelie King, containing the power to create and destroy worlds.

In an epic battle between humans and Fae, the hunter becomes the hunted when the Sinsar Dubh turns on Mac and begins mowing a deadly path through those she loves.
Who can she turn to? Who can she trust? Who is the woman haunting her dreams? More important, who is Mac herself and what is the destiny she glimpses in the black and crimson designs of an ancient tarot card?

From the luxury of the Lord Master’s penthouse to the sordid depths of an Unseelie nightclub, from the bed of her lover to the terrifying bed of the Unseelie King, Mac’s journey will force her to face the truth of her exile, and to make a choice that will either save the world . . . or destroy it.
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Karen Marie Moning’s explosive Fever series continues**
DARKFEVER • BLOODFEVER • FAEFEVER • DREAMFEVER • SHADOWFEVER • ICED • BURNED • FEVERBORN • FEVERSONG • HIGH VOLTAGE • KINGDOM OF SHADOW AND LIGHT

Leseprobe
Hope strengthens. Fear kills.

Someone really smart told me that once.

Every time I think I’m getting wiser, more in control of my actions, I go slamming into a situation that makes me excruciatingly aware that all I’ve succeeded in doing is swapping one set of delusions for a more elaborate, attractive set of delusions—that’s me, the Queen of Self-Deception.

I hate myself right now. More than I’d ever have thought pos- sible.

I squat on the cliff’s edge, screaming, cursing the day I was born, wishing my biological mother had drowned me at birth. Life is too hard, too much to handle. Nobody told me there’d be days like these. How could nobody tell me there’d be days like these? How could they let me grow up like that—happy and pink and stupid?

The pain I feel is worse than anything the Sinsar Dubh has ever done to me. At least when the Book is crushing me, I know it’s not my own fault.

This moment?

Mea culpa. Beginning to end, all the way, I own this one, and there will never be any hiding from that fact.

I thought I’d lost everything.

How ignorant I was. He warned me. I had so much more to lose!

I want to die.

It’s the only way to stop the pain.

Months ago, on a hellishly long night, in a grotto beneath the Burren, I wanted to die, too, but it wasn’t the same. Mallucé was going to torture me to death, and dying was the only chance I had of denying him that twisted pleasure. My death had been inevitable. I saw little point in drawing it out.

I’d been wrong. I’d given up hope and nearly died because of it.

I would have died—if not for Jericho Barrons.

He’s the one who taught me those words.

That simple adage is master of every situation, every choice. Each morning we wake up, we get to choose between hope and fear and apply one of those emotions to everything we do. Do we greet the things that come our way with joy? Or suspicion?

Hope strengthens . . .

Not once did I permit myself to feel any hope about the person lying facedown in a pool of blood. Not once did I use it to strengthen our bond. I let the onus of our relationship rest on broader shoulders. Fear. Suspicion. Mistrust drove my every action.

And now it’s too late to take any of it back.

I stop screaming and begin to laugh. I hear the madness in it.

I don’t care.

My spear sticks up, a cruel javelin, mocking me. I remember stealing it.

For a moment, I’m back in the dark, rain-slicked Dublin streets, descending into the sewer systems with Barrons, breaking into Rocky O’Bannion’s private cache of religious artifacts. Barrons is wearing jeans and a black T-shirt. Muscles ripple in his body as he casts aside the sewer lid with the ease of a man tossing a Frisbee in the park.

He’s disturbingly sexual, to men and women alike, in a way that sets your teeth on edge. With Barrons, you aren’t sure if you’re going to get f***ed or turned inside out and left a new, unrecognizable person, adrift with no moorings, on a sea with no bottom and no rules.

I was never immune to him. There were merely degrees of denial.

My respite is too brief. The memory vanishes and I am again con- fronted with the reality that threatens to shatter my hold on sanity.

Fear kills . . .

Literally.

I can’t say it. I can’t think it. I can’t begin to absorb it.

I hug my knees and rock.

Jericho Barrons is dead.

He lies on his stomach, motionless. He hasn’t moved or breathed in the small eternity that I’ve been screaming. I can’t sense him in his skin. On all other occasions, I’ve been able to feel him in my vicinity: electric, larger than life, vastness crammed into a tiny container. Genie in a bottle. That’s Barrons: deadly power, stopper co…