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“What happened in the kitchen.”
He frowned and sipped his wine, then, “When I bumped into you?”
She held his gaze. She had to tell him. Every fae sense she possessed suddenly came into sharp focus. “Rez, I met your mother tonight. Just now.”
His mouth fell agape and he tilted his head. “What the hell do you mean?” He glanced around, maybe wondering if he would see a ghost.
“In the kitchen, while you were still in the bathroom.” She rushed on and told him about the entire encounter. She talked about time-pathing and Vojalie then spoke of the hardest part. “Your mother said she needed you not to be angry that she died when she did. She said she had something important to do on your behalf. In the future.” Holly felt uncomfortable saying the rest of it, about seeing him as a little boy. She knew this would also be where much of his pain and grief resided.
When his cheeks became drawn and he shaded his eyes, she reached over and gripped his shoulder. “This isn’t without context. She seemed almost determined about something that will happen in the future. She said she was meant to perform a service for your daughter, but she wasn’t sure what it would be.”
His hand dropped away from his face and he turned to stare at her. For a long moment as she held his gaze, she couldn’t register what his expression meant. He’d gone vampire still for one thing, which meant she could detect nothing from him.
Except that the blue of his eyes hardened suddenly. He was angry.
She leaned back in her chair. This couldn’t be good.
He stood up abruptly and his chair almost fell over. He caught it quickly and set it on its feet. “You are insane to be saying these things to me. Time-pathing is a myth and there’s no way you spoke to my mother just now.”
She started to protest, but he was already moving toward the front stairs which were barely six feet away. She heard him pounding down them, then the sound of the street-level front door opening. A rush of cool air followed as it flowed up the stairwell. She jumped as the front door slammed shut.
She wasn’t sure the night could get stranger or more twisted if it could.
Then it did. Suddenly, the time-path was calling to her once more and demanding she go after Rez.
What the hell?
“No.” She spoke aloud, hoping to somehow stop what was happening. Then she was on her feet.
Something was terribly wrong and it had to do with Rez, though not with his current anger. This was something else and deadly, something heading toward him.
She rushed after him, levitating down the stairs. She whipped the door open. “Rez!” He was flying toward the west along the street a few feet above the ground.
Without looking back, he lifted his hand and in earth fashion, flipped her the bird.
She understood his anger completely, but the vampire was in danger.
She felt it now.
She turned to look the opposite direction and saw a red wind and several wraith-pairs. They were moving fast, Invictus, that shouldn’t be in the Nine Realms anymore, and it was a large force.
She flew in a swift dart toward Rez. The wraith-pairs were almost on them. She didn’t even have time to contact him telepathically.
Instead, she landed on his back hard. Because of the momentum, he fell face first to the cobbled street, though he caught himself with his hand. “What the hell, Holly.”
Without offering a bit of explanation, she summoned her time-pathing ability and hauled him into the continuum.
Chapter Five
Rez stood up and faced Holly. He had no idea why she’d knocked him down. “What the hell was that?”
Holly didn’t speak, instead, she lifted an arm and pointed to the east. The high street of Boylbury rose toward a line of trees. Within those trees was a familiar red haze, yet somehow blurred, distorted. Five wraith-pairs hovered in the air as if frozen all along the High Street. They looked confused.
“Invictus? Again? Here?”
“Yes. They were almost on us, when I tackled you.”
He began to wind up his battle energy, but Holly caught his arm. “You can’t fire that in here.”
