I fell, not into soothing darkness, but into the burning sun.
“Awaken.”
A moan slipped past my lips.
“Awaken.”
“Bite me.”
“Oh good.” Remy poked my cheek. “She’s okay.”
“Sarcasm isn’t an indication of well-being,” Midas argued. “She could sarcasm in her sleep.”
“The balance of power has shifted,” Ambrose said, his voice clear as a frakking bell. “She is fine.”
That snapped my eyes open, and I focused on the blur in front of me. “Midas?”
“I feel like I ate too much barbeque at a pack cookout.” He traced the curve of my cheek with his fingertip. “Except instead of stretching my stomach tight, I’m stuffed all over.”
“Same.” I gripped his wrist. “But are you okay?”
“The tether is severed.” He winced, as if even that light touch hurt. “For that, I can be okay.”
“Faegate,” I corrected him for the joy of watching him fight off a smile. “Like Stargate but fae-er.”
“A faegate?” A single huff escaped him, but he locked it down fast. “I see.”
“You need to ground the energy.” Remy lifted my hand, and it vibrated in hers. “You’re all jittery.”
Unlike Ambrose, I didn’t digest power. It wasn’t food to keep me going. It was fuel for performing magic. I had no immediate need for it, no particular use for it, and Midas was in worse shape. He had no outlet, no release valve to ease the pressure. His only magic expenditure was his natural talent of shapeshifting.
“Any idea how to do that?” I sat upright and took Midas’s hand, which shook even harder. “Quickly?”
Forehead pinched, she frowned at me. “How do you usually burn off the excess he pumps into you?”
“I almost die,” I confessed, cheeks growing warm. “Then he heals me.”
“Or she jumps on bombs,” Midas added dryly, “and he shields her from her poor life choices.”
The urge to thump him on the end of his nose surfaced, but I exercised restraint as a mature adult and let the insult pass unchallenged. And if I was mentally plotting revenge later, then we all needed our hobbies, didn’t we?
“You could fling yourself down the stairs.” Remy walked to the edge of this level. “That would do it.”
“We can’t see the bottom.” A growl rose in Midas. “It might kill her.”
“Hey,” she complained. “I didn’t say she ought to do it, I just said that would do it.”
A light dawned in Midas’s eyes, and he smoldered at me. “Would any physical exertion work?”
A smidge breathless, I leaned in. “What did you have in mind?”
“Ugh.” Remy hid behind her hands. “Please don’t emotionally scar me.”
“We turn the spiral into our very own Stairmaster.” He bounced on his toes, ready to run. “It might take a while to burn off the magic, but we have to empty our tanks for the next tether—I mean, faegate—right?”
“That’s less fun than what I had in mind, but it might work.” I located my shadow. “Ambrose?”
“I have not done cardio for cardio’s sake,” he mused. “This might prove entertaining.”
Exercise was not my idea of entertainment, but plenty of folks thought otherwise. “Do you think it will work?”
“Perhaps.” A dark curl in his featureless face indicated a smile. “I suppose we are about to find out.”
“Next question.” I pursed my lips at Midas. “Do I want to save the city enough to work up a sweat?”
“Just pretend there’s a bomb.” He grinned at me, already backing toward the stairs. “Then race toward it like you’re going to fling yourself on top of it.”
“I’m going to fling you,” I mumbled, the tips of my ears burning, “right down the stairs.”
“I’ll just count reps or whatever.” Remy inched away from us. “That’s a thing, right? Reps?”
“Not in cardio, no.” I stepped onto the staircase and glared up the way we had come. “Just catch us if we fall.”
“Sure thing.” She flickered into three Remys who linked arms and squished together onto the same step. “One net, coming up.”
“Ugh.” I began to climb, Ambrose beside me, Midas behind me. “Here goes nothing.”
Leading the pack, I jogged up two more flights then reversed to let Midas lead us down four more.
Rinse and repeat for an eternity.
“Popcorn.”
Wiping the sweat out of my eyes with the hem of my shirt, I paused for a breather and braced my palms on my upper thighs. “Say what now?”
Remy sniffed the air, and her eyelids fluttered with pleasure. “Don’t you smell it?”
“All I smell is myself.” I tried not to breathe too deeply, but I was winded. “And black magic.” I was sucking in so much air, I couldn’t avoid gulping down the stench. “Not sure which is worse at this point.”
“I smell it too.”
“Rude.” I twisted to glare over my shoulder at Midas. “How are you not sweaty?”
Laughing, he smiled at me. “When was the last time you went for a run?”
Before this latest coven flare-up, I hit the Active Oval each night, as he well knew. But this was next level. Had I hit the track every night for the last month, I couldn’t have kept up with a frakking gwyllgi prince.
“Don’t change the subject,” I huffed. “I get plenty of exercise.”
“Yes.” His palm curved around my hip. “You do.”
Gagging noises rose from below, Remy reminding us we weren’t alone. As if we were ever really alone with Ambrose around. And…yeah. I wasn’t going to think too hard about that one. Not when you considered Midas was right about the type of exercise I had been getting lately.
“I feel mostly normal.” I checked with Ambrose. “How about you?”
“I find that holding this form burns through my stores nicely, as does conversing aloud with you.”
“Without the running?” I clarified. “Just standing there talking would have worked?”
“Yes.”
Straightening, I glared at him. “And you didn’t tell us this why?”
“You were performing an experiment,” he reasoned, his wispy smile sharper. “I didn’t want to interrupt.”
“Pro tip,” I offered. “The next time you see a way to get me out of cardio, take it.”
Ambrose angled his head toward Midas, clearly more clued in than I wanted him to be.
“Not that kind of cardio.” A fire engulfed my cheeks. “That kind is fine.”
Midas’s lips twitched. “Just fine?”
“Better than fine.” The burning spread down my neck. “Goddess.” I wiped my face with the hem of my shirt for the excuse to hide. “Ambrose, forget I said anything.” I glared at Midas. “You, I will deal with later.”
“Even that sounds kinky,” Remy complained. “You two couldn’t have kept it in your pants like two more weeks? Life was so much easier when you two were all sexual tension but no action.”