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Chapter Nine
I strode behind Eddie out of the dining room and into the hallway that would lead us to the great room. I thought. This particular pocket world Eddie had added into the rooms we’d been given was circuitous, and I’d gotten turned around more than once. I would have noted the problem to Eddie, but I’d questioned too many males in my life in the last couple of days, and Eddie took criticism hard. And he was the dude who controlled the food, so I walked behind him.
By this point I’d picked up a tail, as Evan had come out to see what was going on, and Fenrir had followed Evan. Trent had wanted to make sure I didn’t kill Casey, and Gray simply wanted to be a part of the fun. Or maybe he wanted to ensure I didn’t murder anyone either.
He might change his mind on the murder thing because I wasn’t completely sure we weren’t about to be invaded.
“Do you have any idea how long she’s been glowing?” I asked. In some cases, spells took time to prime. They were usually the ones that went the worst for whoever the spell was targeting.
This was the moment I remembered that Liv used to keep some of my hair around for protection and location spells. At the time it had seemed like a great idea, but then I never once suspected she would turn evil on me.
“I want to know how the book got out of my room.” Evan had some questions of her own. “I took her with me last night because I wanted to write down some of the prophecies so the men can read them. It was what I was doing when Fen decided to go all wolfy on us and save his mom. You know you’re also a little Edward-like.”
The decision to document the prophecies had been a good call on the princess’s part. So far as an assistant she got an A plus from me. It was like I got all the smart parts of Lee as an assistant and none of the parts where he tried to kill himself and/or others. Thus far Evan had been cool under pressure and hadn’t once gone rogue on me.
“I am not like Edward,” Fen argued. “I didn’t know if Gray would recognize Mom in his demon form. He’s been gone a long time. I don’t know how much of it was spent on the Hell plane. The longer he’s gone, the worse he is when he comes back. Also, I knew Mom would probably start in on him the same way she did Dad.”
So Trent talked.
“I didn’t say that.” Trent stopped at the door to the great room.
“You didn’t specifically talk about the argument. You asked me all kinds of questions about my childhood and whether or not you did a good job,” Fen explained. “It wasn’t hard to figure out that Mom likely had some thoughts about how things had gone. I didn’t think Gray would handle it well.”
“Way to show some emotional depth, babe.” Evan was liberal with the praise. She stopped as she got a look at the book. “Wow. She is glowing like crazy. Fen, maybe you should stay back. Do you think this could be some kind of defense mechanism? How many men have been around her today? Kelsey, you need more ladies in your group.”
Well, I’d had a couple over the years, and one of them had betrayed us all and the other was currently working for a bigger, better Hell plane.
The book sat on the table in the middle of the room. Like a big old witchy coffee table book. A glow was coming from the pages, but the book itself was closed.
She wanted me to open her. I could feel that clearly. She wanted…something more.
“She wants to be open.” Evan proved she was on the same wavelength as the book. “But she can open on her own. She can flip her own pages. Why would she need someone to open her?”
Sometimes spelled objects were tricky things. Like the painting I’d fallen into couldn’t simply suck me in from across the room. I’d had to get close. I’d had to allow myself to get caught in its trap. “I’m worried it’s another trap. Or a trick, because if we open it, a horde of witches could come through. Myrddin is known through the planes.”
He was known by many names. Myrddin Emrys. Merlin Satanspawn. I’d heard some other. I just called him asshole.
“She doesn’t want you to open her.” Gray moved into the room, and his eyes had changed from their glorious violet to what I liked to call midnight prophet. He loses his irises, and pure black takes over his eyes. “She’s interested in me. She’s talking to me. Trent and Fenrir, stay away.”
Gray started to walk toward the book, but I had some reservations. “She doesn’t like men. She sometimes goes blank when a man tries to open her. I kind of need her whole today. I don’t think Evan’s finished documenting what we need.”
I didn’t have Alvis anymore, but I was hoping someone else could help us. There was a whole library down here, and surely someone knew how to navigate it.
Gray smoothed back my hair with a soothing smile. “She’s trained to hide her secrets around men, but we share powers. Our magic comes from the same well, so she’ll…suffer me.” He frowned toward the book. “You know that’s quite rude. I’m nice most of the time.”
Was my demon honey actually talking to the book? “Do you have some kind of psychic connection with her?”
“I do. It’s similar to the one I have with Jacob,” Gray explained. “She can’t read my mind or anything, but she can let me know what she thinks. She can open herself to me and I to her.”
“Hey, ask her if she wants to be more specific about where this weapon thing is.” I was a woman willing to use my connections. If my honey had a direct line to something I needed, I would work that hard.
I would use any trick I could to get around the whole figure-it-out-yourself thing. I usually figured it out by some bad shit happening to me and going, oh yeah that’s what it meant.
Gray turned those endless eyes on me, shifting from my husband to the dark prophet with an ease that took my breath away. “You know she can’t do that.”
“Well, apparently she can talk to you,” I pointed out. “You know what she’s never done with me? Opened up a line to my brain and said ‘hey, girl, let’s hang.’”
Gray’s lips kicked up in a grin. “Yes, she’s extremely amusing. She’s my wife, you know.”
