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“Who are you? What happened to Rei?” Yichen demanded.
“Sky. Skylar Wallace,” he panted as they hurried along. “Friend…friend of Moon’s.”
Yichen nearly stumbled over a branch at the mention of Moon. This had to be one of his Coven mates. No! This was the witch who had taken Chen through the underworld. “You’re the necromancer!”
“Yep!” Sky huffed. “Oh, God. Nolan…he’s gonna make me start…jogging with him after this.”
“Are you…are you okay?”
Sky gave him a very harsh glare for a man who was struggling to catch his breath as they wove their way through the forest. He had a soft appearance, as if he had spent little time jogging or working out.
“Don’t give me that judgy look. Not everyone enjoys working out,” Sky grumbled.
“No judgment!” Yichen threw up his hands. Sadly, all his focus was on Sky, so he ended up running into a tree with his shoulder.
“Besides, it was a long hike from the graveyard to here.” Sky’s steps were slowing now to a fast walk. “It’s not like I could rent a bus and drive all the dead here. We had to walk. In the dark. It took a lot of focus to keep them moving in the right direction when all they wanted to do was wander off.”
“Since you’ve already traveled so far, would you like me to carry you?” Yichen offered, still rubbing his shoulder.
“Are you sure? You don’t think I’d be too heavy?”
Yichen stopped walking and smiled. “Not at all. Ancient vampire, so that makes me strong and fast.”
“Then yes. So much yes!”
With a smirk, Yichen stepped in front of Sky and kneeled on the soft earth. After some initial awkwardness, he got Sky’s arms wrapped around his neck and balanced on his back. Yichen stood and headed off in the direction Sky indicated at a brisk pace.
“The elf. Rei. You said he was taken by Winter Varik,” Yichen started the second they were moving through the forest, putting more distance between them and the fae army.
“Oh, right!” Sky gasped. “Sorry. Winter arrived with Rafe and was waiting in the dead realm to scoop up anyone who might be injured. His job was to get them to the waiting cars in secret. Rafe and Junjie supported from one side. It was my job to bring the dead army from the opposite direction to put the squeeze on the fae army and to give everyone a chance to retreat. Meimei and one of your other brothers are still waiting in another car to give them a ride. My boyfriend, Nolan, has our ride waiting.”
Sky’s explanation would have made sense if Yichen’s brain hadn’t gotten caught on two words: dead realm.
“He’s…he’s in the dead realm. You mean the underworld? But he can’t be dead.” Yichen stumbled, his knees trying to give out as he pressed on.
“Whoa! No! Not dead! Not the underworld!” Sky shouted, tightening his hold on Yichen’s neck. “Winter has the ability to go through this, like, limbo region. Sort of like the antechamber or vestibule for the underworld. It’s a place where a lot of ghosts get hung up before moving along to the actual underworld. Winter is just sneaking him through there. He’ll be safe with the vampire.”
“Fuck, yes,” Yichen exhaled, his legs trying to wobble beneath him. “My clan told me about this. My brain sort of shut down when you said ‘dead realm’ in relation to Rei.”
He wanted to ask more, but his throat tightened too much to get the words out. There was only one other person he’d ever heard of being able to do such a thing—his maker, Jiang Chong. Thinking of that bastard chilled the blood in his veins. When he’d been stuck in the fae realm, one thought had kept him sane. No matter how bad King Ash and Queen Belladonna were, they were nothing compared to Jiang Chong.
But it was okay.
Everything was going to be okay.
If this Winter Varik was anything like Jiang Chong, there was no way Shixiong would have continued associating with the Varik clan, nor would he have deigned to call them friends.
They traveled for another fifteen minutes, Sky talking about how he’d raised the dead and sneaked them through the forest to the meeting place. Yichen hadn’t expected to discover that corpses contained a residue of the former living person’s personality, resulting in some very salty and lazy corpses, according to Sky. While the witch on his back was interesting, Yichen was relieved to reach the break in the trees and the road where they found a human and Moon waiting beside a small powder-blue vehicle.
“There they are!” Sky shouted in Yichen’s ear, causing him to wince. The necromancer patted him on the head. “So sorry about that,” he whispered.
“Sky!” the human cried out, charging toward them with Moon a step behind. “What happened? Are you all right?”
“I’m fine! I’m fine! Just out of shape.” Yichen kneeled, allowing Sky’s feet to touch the ground. As he stepped away, Sky fell into the human’s arms. This had to be Sky’s boyfriend, Nolan, considering the way the man was alternating between kissing, chastising, and checking over Sky.
“I told you yoga wasn’t enough. You need to add cardio,” Moon said as he moseyed over to Yichen’s side.
“I do cardio!” Sky snapped at Moon while still leaning on his boyfriend.
