I blocked that sword coming at me with my demon arm. I’m a Hunter and I’m supposed to have gotten a supercool werewolf arm, but when I’d come into that power, I happened to have Gray’s blood in me. My honey’s demonic DNA had overridden the werewolf inside me. For a while everyone had thought it would change. But I still had a demon arm, and I’m one hundred percent certain a wolf arm wouldn’t have stopped that sucker the way my demonic one did. I brought my arm up because I hadn’t realized I would be fighting for my life and had left Gladys behind. Gladys is the traditional sword of the Nex Apparatus. That’s my title. It’s why I was here instead of hopping a flight to Hawaii. Because it’s my job to handle the evil shit that affects the supernatural world.
I considered the dude across from me pretty evil, and I didn’t even know him yet. All I knew was one of his assholes lodged an arrow in my shoulder and ruined a perfectly nice jacket.
His eyes flared when he realized he hadn’t managed to chop off my arm. He said something in a language I didn’t know, but I was pretty sure whatever the words were the meaning was something like—shit, bitch be crazy and she’s going to kill me.
Or something like that. It’s what the bad guys usually say right before I murder them.
But he’d said something before that had scared the crap out of me. He’d called Summer an abomination.
The same word Lupus Solum had used to describe my son.
Abomination. I hated that word.
It was probably why I drew back my leg and kicked up as hard as I could. I figured this dude was probably Fae. He had that look about him. Fae males hate getting kicked in the junk as much as any other male does. On some species, you have to figure out where those suckers are located, but my current opponent was Fae, and sidhe to top it all off. That basically meant he was perfectly humanoid, and his precious ball sack is located between his legs. It’s a good design because it makes it easy for me to kick the fuckers back up into his body cavity.
At least Marcus was here. I’d been smart enough to pick up my gun before I’d gone into Donovan’s office and gotten sucked into the trick and trap Gray had been warning me about forever. He could have been more specific.
“It’s not the queen, Marcus.” I’d only really used the gun because I knew Marcus and Dev were somewhere close. I hadn’t had time to locate them before I’d been forced to run, so I’d hoped the sound of gunfire would be like a beacon to my former trainer. I knew it would be to Dev Quinn. The prince of Faery loved himself some hardware. I tossed the Ruger Marcus’s way because I didn’t need to draw anyone else to us. “The queen is back at Council headquarters. And hold that for me unless you want to do that thing where you make everyone gut themselves.”
“And spoil your fun?” Marcus was still dressed in the suit he’d worn to my wedding the night before. It was slightly wrinkled, and I wondered how much time had passed here. “I would never. Besides, I can feel your anxiety from here and I haven’t felt anything from you in months. You need to blow off steam.”
He was right about the fact that I was anxious. I wasn’t with my husbands. I wasn’t sure I could get back to them. I could feel the distance between us, but it helped to have Marcus close. It helped to know he believed in me.
“What do you mean she’s not the queen?” Ah, there was Dev. A quick glance to my right and I saw he was already busy. He had called upon the forest to aid him, and two of the soldiers who’d been trying to get hold of Summer were wrapped up in vines. I’d seen him do it before. “I think I know the queen when I see her.”
But he hadn’t really looked at her yet. On the surface she certainly seemed to be the clone of the queen. When I got rid of the rest of them, we would all sit down and have a long talk.
I managed to wrest a sword from the soldier who rushed at me from the right. It was easy to skewer him with it. Now that I knew Marcus was here, I could breathe a bit easier, and the rhythms of the fight took over my body. Marcus would look after Summer. I had no doubt even as I squared off against the last man standing that he was making sure the young woman was all right.
“She killed her whole tribe.” Kor held that sword at his side, keeping a careful distance between us. “Why would you aid her?”
“I didn’t get the feeling you were planning on killing her.” It hadn’t escaped me that he’d ordered his soldiers to do the opposite. I rather thought they intended to take her to their leader or something.
Yeah, I had a whole bunch of questions. But luckily I happened to know Dev could keep those soldiers he’d wrapped up alive, and they would be right there waiting to answer so I could kill this dude.
“Devinshea!” Marcus called out. “Stop her.”
I had a bad feeling about the her Dev was going to stop, but I had to deal with Kor.
“You know what she hasn’t done?” I asked as we began to circle one another. “She hasn’t shot me with an arrow. It’s barbaric, you know.”
“She will do worse to you,” Kor replied, his jaw tightening. “Only one person can contain her evil and that is my king. Give her over to me and I will let you and your companions go free.”
He had an altered sense of reality. “We’ve killed or taken hostage all of your men, buddy. Not sure why we would concede anything to you. And I don’t need you. I’ll question your friends.”
“They aren’t my friends. But they are true believers and I assure you they will not answer questions. They know what to do if it appears the Destroyer will win.” Kor stopped because the ground started to shake.
I took a stab at him, but my stabbing was way off the mark because the shaking got worse. I seemed to have found myself in the middle of an earthquake, except it was more than the ground shaking. The whole forest seemed to shimmer and shine as though it was changing right before my eyes.
Reality was bending and it made me sick to my stomach. My vision seemed to go hazy. One minute I was surrounded by forest and then next I saw white marble all around me. The columns rose up toward a sky I knew wasn’t the physical one above me, and it was so disconcerting. The world was shifting and it wasn’t natural.
“This is her doing,” Kor said, taking a step back. “And the longer she is allowed to deny her true fate, the worse it will get. You have a hand in this now.”
I didn’t know what “this” was. There were people here. Not here here. Other here. They were dressed in flowing gowns and looked like they’d been going about their everyday lives until the world had shifted. One stared at me, her face a mask of horror. I wasn’t sure if that was about the plane quake or my demon arm. Could have been both.
“Kelsey!” Marcus shouted.
The ground settled and the world around me became forest again. The sick feeling in the pit of my stomach lessened and I could breathe again.
Until I turned to Kor and saw that not all of the world had returned to its normally scheduled reality. A tear was right there, ripped through the plane we were on, showing off the one behind it. I stared for a second, unable to process what I was seeing. Darkness came from the tear. It wasn’t even the place I’d seen before. This was someplace else. Some place without an ounce of light.