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As I gazed at him, I realized that they were all scared for us—really, truly frightened. I brushed his cheek with a kiss. “For luck. For all of us. If Smoky returns while we’re gone, tell him we had to leave.” If, not when. I still wasn’t sure how long Smoky could resist his father’s demands.
“And you, golden priestess?” Roz dropped to Iris’s side, kneeling to stare her in the face. “Do you have the weapons you need?”
She slowly nodded. “I have my wand and my daggers, and my charms and spells. But do me a favor. If Bruce calls, please tell him that I’m going to . . . to check on the obstacles that face us. He’ll understand what I mean.”
Menolly gave Iris a steady look, but Iris wouldn’t meet her eyes, and Menolly didn’t press the issue. “Come, I’ll drive you to the portal” was all she said, grabbing her keys.
We followed her out to her four-seater Jag. As we sped toward the woods where Grandmother Coyote lived, a volley of raindrops spattered the windshield. I glanced at Morio, and he took my hand, squeezing tightly. But the mood had shifted from excitement to foreboding, and as we silently waved good-bye to Menolly and began our trek through the copse toward Grandmother Coyote’s portal, I wondered what we’d be coming home to.
I looked up in vain, hoping to catch a glimpse of the Moon Mother, but she was hiding behind the clouds. I whispered a silent prayer to her that Stacia Bonecrusher would remain cloaked. At least until we returned home to help with the impending battle.
The portals were an interdimensional elevator, shifting us sideways through time and space. No “Beam me up, Scotty” buttons or gadgets needed, but still, the theory seemed to be the same. What Arthur C. Clarke had said about any sufficiently advanced technology being indistinguishable from magic held true, only it played the other way, too. Magic could mimic tech, even as technology mimicked magic.
The portals were set up to keep the demons where they belonged, and they were fueled by the power of the spirit seals—at least the artificial portals—but now they were breaking down. The unnatural division between the realms, which had been forged during the Great Divide when the Fae had sundered the mortal realm from Otherworld and ripped the worlds apart, was wearing thin. Even though the spirit seals were still functioning, their magic was warping, mutating, and rogue portals had been opening up all over the place.
Queen Asteria—the Elfin Queen to whom we delivered the spirit seals as we found them—and Queen Tanaquar—the new Court and Crown of Y’Elestrial, our home city-state—had set a contingent of techno-mages to try to repair the rifts that were forming, but so far, they weren’t having much luck. And so the best they could do was to set guards at each portal.
One or two of the portals had imploded with their efforts. It was dangerous work and last we’d heard, one of the breakdowns had worsened the rip in the fabric of space. And the fact that Shadow Wing had one of the spirit seals didn’t help matters any.
As we approached the portal, Grandmother Coyote was waiting for us. She gazed at us implacably and I swallowed, trying to wrap my mind around the fact that Morio’s father had spent time living with her when he was a child.
She motioned to me and I stepped forward. Hell, what had I done now? The steel-tooth crone had a certain magnetism that made her alluring in a run-to-your-death kind of way. Her face was a topographical map, ridged with the ravines and valleys and mountains that time forged in flesh.
And in truth, no one but the other Hags of Fate would ever know if Grandmother Coyote had ever been young. Or if she’d been born at all. The Hags, along with the Elemental Lords and the Harvestmen, just were. The only true immortals, they’d existed long before the planet was formed, and they’d live on after the Great Mother turned to ashes in the flare of the sun’s death throes.
I knelt. She tweaked her finger, motioning for me to join her. “Camille, my child, you wear a cloak of heavy magic into your homeland.”
With an inward groan, I trotted over to her side. Grandmother Coyote had a habit of handing out unasked for advice that came with a steep price, but no one in their right mind skipped town on the payment.
Sighing, I decided to skip the small talk. “I know. The unicorn horn and the cloak, but my gut warned me to take them.”
“You are right to heed your intuition,” she said. “But no. I’m speaking of your connection to my grandson here. The Soul Symbiont ritual. It was in your destiny to bind yourself to him and the dragon, but now the ritual will be strengthened, and so will you. Be cautious.”
Oh great. Warnings. Danger, danger, Will Robinson. “Is there anything else I should know?” I finally asked. She’d extract payment regardless of the number of questions, so I might as well learn all I could.
>“As is your pleasure, my sweet,” he said. And then, with one slow, sinuous motion, he drove himself deep into my core, stretching me to the point where I could only let out little screams.
The feel of Morio’s weight against my breasts, the cold steam that rose from his flared nostrils, the gentle touch of his silken fur against my skin—everything was so alien, so decadent that all I could do was give myself up to the passion. And yet it was all so right.
I met him, thrusting in return as he plunged into me. He was a demon, Morio was, with glowing topaz eyes and razor-sharp teeth and a face not wholly human. And yet, he was still my lover, my husband. Feral and wild, but all him. And then we were caught on the slipstream of energy, riding it as it raced so high and so far I wondered if we’d ever be free.
After Morio shifted back and I managed to stand on my own without turning into a mound of Jell-O, we jumped back in the shower for a quick rinse and hurried back to my room. Menolly had laid out our clothes and filled our packs, and we dressed and headed downstairs.
Menolly and Delilah were watching Jeopardy. Chase had shown up, and he was sitting next to Delilah, holding her hand. Maggie was on Menolly’s lap, playing with a Barbie doll wearing a ballerina outfit. She’d torn off the head and Menolly had replaced it with a head from a Yoda action figure. The look was so wrong, but somehow so right.
“Yobie, Yobie!” Maggie waved the doll at me.
I snickered. “Strong with the pink tutus, we are?”
Roz didn’t even bother to look up from the video game he was playing with Vanzir. They’d conned us into buying them an Xbox and were hooked on Halo. “I packed you some sandwiches when we figured out you weren’t going to be down for dinner. You can eat them on the way.”
But Vanzir shot a glance our way. “You guys sound like a herd of elephants. What the hell kind of freak show do you put on when you fuck and where can I get tickets?” His eyes were luminous and hard to read, but I could sense an edge of arousal behind the look. He flashed me that snarky grin that I didn’t trust, even though I knew it was just part of his nature. His demonic heritage was a lot darker than Morio’s.
I shook my head. “I’m not a roses-and-candy type of woman.”
“Didn’t think so.” He leapt on an opening Roz had left him and dusted their enemy. “More like handcuffs and whips. Next you’ll be ordering me into a ball-gag and have me begging, ‘Please whip my ass, Mistress Camille.’ ”
I so didn’t want to go there, for more reasons than one.
