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“I don’t want to lose you.”
For once, he had someone who would stay with him, wouldn’t leave him.If only for now.If only as part of an act.“You won’t.”
“Here goes nothing.”As though activating a high-tech security sensor, she pressed her thumb to the same jewel he’d touched earlier.Where his contact with the rock hadn’t made a difference, hers set off a pulse of magic that opened a window to another world.Mist rolled across the picture, appearing as if a fog swirled through the room although no moisture swept against his skin.
“You’re seeing this too, right?”He’d been pumped full of psychedelics by Senate doctors, but nothing they’d induced had seemed thisreal.
“Yeah.Home—it’s pulling me back, but something feels wrong.”Staring through the portal, she swallowed so hard he could see her throat working.Tension flowed between them—no magic needed.She stepped forward, keeping her tight hold on him.The mist parted for her like it didn’t dare touch her.
His gut twisted in a sudden rush of fear.
What if she went through and he couldn’t follow?
What if the blood invocation wasn’t enough to pull him through?
What if he couldn’t go with her?This woman who gambled with her safety and her life to do what she considered the right thing on a hunch of being “pretty sure.”He couldn’t chance losing her or being stuck in some portal limbo.He hurried close behind, almost stepping on her, unwilling to let her out of his sight.
One moment, he was in what had to be an enchanted cave tucked in a dimensional pocket inside a Hollywood Hills park.The next, he walked out of a rock formation and into a bleak forest painted in stripes of white and black by a full moon.The trees had been stripped of their leaves, the bare branches and bark glinting almost silver as though it was winter.But the air was warm and as hazy as the worst LA smog.
The ground crunched beneath his feet, no grass or underbrush or sand to soften the sound.
It was too quiet here.
True, he’d grown up a city kid, but there should be rustling of the trees, the buzz of insects, birds cawing, or whatever happened in dark woods.He breathed in the smell of wood, rot, and wrongness.
Vori squeezed his hand.The moonlight seemed to cling to each curve and angle of her face.“Kradnovtl…she’s dying.”
Her soft sadness wrung something from him.He resisted the impulse to yank her back through the portal.Blood vows to Baba Yaga be damned.
But the killer was still out there.Maybe after him.Maybe after his dad.
He moved closer to her.“Vori?”
No answer.She stood frozen, as if the sight of her decaying homeland had paralyzed her.
A crackling sounded from far off.His pulse kicked into a thrumming bass line, and his skin flushed before going clammy.The hairs on the back of his neck stood as straight as those barren trees.
Something was coming.
Something fast.
They had to get out of here.He could still see the amethyst cave through the opening.
“Stop.”The fierce command had him spinning to face whoever or whatever had come through the forest with supernatural speed.
This wasn’t a demon blinking through ley lines and teleportation.No, he’d seen that nightmare up close and oh-so-personally with the Revelare’s leader.This was something completely different.Yet something familiar.
Green-skinned, high-breasted, and dark-haired, the woman was a goblin like Vori, only shorter.She had a glint of silver on her face so faint, he might’ve missed the scrolls that spread from her temples over her brows if his senses hadn’t raced into hyperdrive to catch every detail of the threat.Her royal marking stopped over her eyes, not connecting in the center of her forehead.It was as though her skin had been dusted with the faintest imprint, more of a decorative ornament than a true crown like Vori’s.
He jerked his attention tohisgoblin, but she hadn’t reacted.She stared into the distance as if listening to music tuned to a frequency he couldn’t hear.He focused on her cold hand against his too-hot skin.
If she could absorb his powers, if she could take from him, maybe he could lend strength to her in the same way.If that didn’t work, he’d be forced to break the promise he’d just made to conceal his magic.
More goblins came out of the woods, clad in dark-crimson body armor and holding weapons from rifles to axes to a freaking flamethrower.
The breath rushed from his lungs in a quick exhale, and his adrenaline spiked.He would never be able to protect them—not without using his magic.
“No.”Vori slipped her skin.Green flowed over her as though she’d simply walked through another magical portal, her form becoming muscular and her clothes tearing in places where her goblin self was larger and more powerful than her supermodel figure of lean lines and sharp edges.In an instant, she’d gone from the graceful softness of a glossy magazine spread to a superhero in comic books.
