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She let me go and turned to Desmond. With renewed intensity, she prodded him in the chest with her finger. “You. This is not the end I was talking about. Understand me?”
The werewolf nodded.
Lastly she looked at Holden and gave him a sad smile. “Chancery. ”
“Oracle. ”
“You bring her home to me. ”
“I will. ”
Calliope withdrew a key from around her neck and slid it into the lock on the door. The click of the tumblers was louder than any lock I’d heard before and sent a shiver rolling over me. When she pushed the door open, the inside was all darkness. At least this time she hadn’t needed my blood to get me through.
“Secret?” she said, as she stepped aside from the opening.
“Yeah?”
“Give my love to my brother, won’t you?”
Before I could respond, she shoved me into the empty void of the open door.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Knowing the half-fairy Oracle has a door in her house that leads to the top of the Empire State building had given me the unfair impression Calliope would deliver us directly where we needed to go. Her otherworldly GPS was on the fritz, though, because we were not anywhere near where I believe
d we had to be.
We were nowhere near anything.
The night sky was a twilight purple so vibrant I could see everything around me without the aid of standard moonlight, which was for the best because this world appeared to have four moons and none of them were bright enough to see squat by. Each of the four was in a different phase, but neither the full nor new moons had completed their transition.
The three of us stood in a field of luminous red flowers that bore a passing resemblance to poppies. Except the only time poppies started glowing on Earth was if you ate them. The center of the blossoms around us shone like the red hand of a Don’t Walk sign. I didn’t know whether to take it as a warning or just appreciate how beautiful it was.
Last time Calliope had transported Desmond and me somewhere, the journey hadn’t been gentle. We’d landed hard on a cold roof with the force of being dropped from great height. This time we’d walked through a door and onto another plane of existence as easily as if we’d stepped into another room of her house.
Nevertheless, it was a disconcerting shift of reality, and I was left feeling dizzy and out of sorts. Small insectlike creatures flitted to and from the glowing flowers, and when they bounced off the centers, they giggled and began to shimmer. Considering how dark it was, the amount of ambient light should have made me feel like I was in New York. But in New York bugs didn’t giggle and there weren’t four moons.
Dragging my gaze from the undulating field, I turned towards my travel companions. Holden’s hair had become mussed in the journey, slipping from behind his ears and showing its length in a roguish, Austen-era-hero manner. His pale skin reflected the redness of the flowers, giving his cheeks a blush quality that made him look alive. Really alive.
My heart caught in my throat, and I struggled to swallow, overwhelmed by the shock of his beauty in this light. I imagined this was like seeing him in his living years, when he was a farmhand in England and didn’t know a damned thing about the world of vampires.
I’d never seen Holden dazzled by anything. Two hundred years can show a man a lot of things, but I doubted any of us had seen something like the world we’d been dropped into. And this was only one part of it.
When I checked Desmond to see how he was handling our surroundings, the difference between the two hit me like a physical slap. Where Holden looked newly vital, Desmond was positively ashen. His usual olive complexion was nearly gray, and his eyes were watery. Sweat coated his face, and his jaw was rigid with barely restrained pain.
“Desmond?” I inched towards him, hand outstretched, but when I was almost to him, he jerked away with a growl.
“Don’t,” he said through gritted teeth. “Don’t touch me. ”
He pulled his arms tight against himself, drawing my attention to how dark his arm hair was in contrast to his skin. Dark and a bit too long.
“Oh, Jesus. Des…”
He closed his eyes, and a hard shudder rocked his body. Sweat dripped down his forehead and off his chin, and with each new shake the hair on his arms grew and then receded. He was fighting the urge to change with all his power, and it wasn’t until I saw his response that I thought to see how my own wolf felt in the new environment.
Since my first experience shifting as an adult, I’d had to keep a careful leash on my inner wolf. She’d had a taste of freedom and she’d abused the hell out of it, letting me know I wasn’t in the driver’s seat at all when it came to being furry. But while Desmond was struggling hard with his wolf, mine seemed content to just be curious for the time being. The pull of the moons wasn’t impacting her, at least not so far as I could feel. I didn’t know for sure what would happen if Desmond shifted fully though. It had been during a mass shift that I’d lost control the first time. Given the reaction I’d had coming through Calliope’s gate, I didn’t want to take any chances here.
I wanted to comfort Desmond, but at what risk to myself? Could I afford to lose control with Kellen’s life on the line?
