“You have no idea.” She sighed heavily, then hugged his arm, her eyes sparkling as she looked up at him. “You make me happy, Jak.”
“See?” He bent close, nuzzling her ear. “My cock does have magic properties.”
She smothered a scandalized giggle. “Poor Astar. I should say something to Zeph.”
“I think she knows what she’s doing. I say let her practice managing him.”
Stella gave him a considering look through her lashes. “Is that what you intend to do with me?”
“Absolutely,” he agreed cheerfully. “I plan to keep you sexually sated and deliriously happy.”
“Is that why we’re going back to the room?”
“That can be on the agenda for later,” he conceded. “After you practice your offensive magic.”
She groaned. “You’re a tyrant.”
“With a magic cock,” he amended. Setting his hand over hers on his arm, he snugged her in close enough to surreptitiously caress the side of her breast through her gown, making her shiver. “If you’re a very good girl, I’ll teach you some tricks for managing me.”
“I suspect I already know a few,” she replied loftily.
“I look forward to being managed, then,” he told her warmly. “After you practice.”
“Yes, master.” She rolled her eyes.
Because he really needed to take his mind off the arousing conversation, he said as they turned down the hall to the room, “You were kinder to those two than you needed to be.”
“Was I?” She glanced at him, following the change in topic without difficulty. No doubt it helped that she could sense his thoughts for context. “I don’t think so. Either Marjolein or Wilhelm—or both of them—will rule Erie someday, which means Zeph will be their high queen. And neither of them had malicious intentions; they were sincerely puzzled. Whatever I can do to assist the peaceful transition of the high throne, I will do.”
“I hadn’t thought of it that way,” Jak admitted, opening the door for her. “Apparently I have study ahead of me, too.”
“Well, we can—” She broke off on a gasp, and disappeared.
~ 23 ~
Jak flung himself into the void faster than he could draw a blade. Hopefully whatever portal she’d fallen through would remain open long enough for him to make it through also.
As fast as he moved, he was almost too late, the closing edges of the gateway scraping his arms painfully. Wrenching himself sideways, he pushed through, hanging onto the sense of Stella in his mind with every fiber of his being.
He popped out into a vast meadow of lilies. Soft sunshine beamed down, the heady scent of the lush blossoms filling the warm air, bees buzzing as they moved lazily from blossom to blossom. It should have been beautiful, but his blood ran cold at the sight.
No sign of Stella.
Or a tower.
Jak spun in a circle, a blade in each hand, scanning the deceptively lovely landscape. If Stella had gone to a different alter-realm, he was out of luck. Even if the others came after them—which they’d undoubtedly attempt, though it might be a long time before anyone knew they were gone—this looked like an entirely different alter-realm than any of them had been transported to before.
And it matched Stella’s vision too closely to be anything but that. She’d been deliberately abducted. Jak felt it in every bone in his body. Danu only knew what the intelligence planned for his captive sorceress, but it wouldn’t be good. And Jak had no intention of letting it happen.
“Stella!” he yelled at the top of his lungs.
“Jak!” Her mental voice came so loud in his head that he spun to look over his shoulder before he realized she wasn’t physically present. “Are you really here?” her mental voice shouted with anguished hope.
“Of course I am.” He grinned so she’d feel his confidence. “I told you: I’m not letting you go. Where you travel, I’ll be with you. I’m right here.” As he spoke, he spun, searching for her, for a tower. Nothing but lilies and bees.
“Oh Jak…” She pulled back the tumult of her emotions, but she still sounded frightened when she added, “Please help me.”
“I’m coming to get you. Just tell me where you are.”
“I… don’t know how to. I’m in a tower, and all I see out the windows is lilies. Just like my vision, Jak.”
“I know. But I’m here, so the future has changed. We’ll change it together. Shapeshift and fly out of there.”
“I can’t. I tried.”
“I’m coming. I’m in the field of lilies, and I came through right behind you, so I must be close, but I don’t see a tower.” Covering his ears to eliminate the distracting eternal buzzing of the bees, he focused his far vision, scanning for anything like a tower. Nothing. He tried jumping up and down, waving his arms. “Can you see me?”
“I can’t look out the windows right now.”
Something about her mental voice gave him pause. “Is something in there with you?”
“…Yes.” Stella had hesitated too long to reply. And fear that she’d been trying to hide from him broke through, crashing like a wave on the beach.
“Guide me to you. Right now. Get in my head and walk me there. I know you can.”
“I can try. Run your forms to induce trance state.”
“Is there time for that?” He still turned in slow circles, seeing only the endless field of lilies, colorful, graceful, sweetly redolent—and utterly loathsome.
“Maybe not.”
Fuck. He viciously leashed his rising panic. Stella always soft-pedaled threats to her well-being. This was serious. “Take over my body, immediately. Do it, Stella,” he ordered, as firmly as he knew how.
“You have to trust me enough.”
“I do. Remember? My body belongs to you.” Imagining himself in bed with her, lying back as she rode him, surrendering to the tidal wave of love and desire, he opened his will to her. It was easier than the first time, to let her take over his limbs, though definitely odd to feel his head turn of its own volition. I trust you. He said it mostly to remind himself as his instincts bristled, wanting to thrust her out. His body started walking through the lilies, the direction no different to his eyes than any other.
“I trust you. And, Jak, I want you to know that I love you. No matter what happens, you’ve made me happier in these last days than I’ve been in all my life.”
Blending his intention with hers, he pushed into a jog, then a run, more alarmed by her words and the sense of goodbye in them than he could bear. “I look forward to hearing you tell me that every day for the rest of our lives,” he gritted out.
She didn’t reply, the sense of her in his head fading. Pouring on more speed, he kept running in the same direction. Toward nothing. Toward everything.
“Stella?” he asked mentally, so as to save his breath. The thick, sweet scent of the lilies made it difficult to breathe. “Stella, answer me!”
He ran smack into a wall.
He hit it so hard that the pain and impact stunned him, dropping him in a crumpled heap. “Fuck me,” he groaned, forcing himself to his feet, swallowing back the nausea. His head spun, and moisture poured down his face, stinging his eyes. Wiping it away, he found his hand covered in bright blood. Fucking head wounds that bled so freely. “Get tough,” he instructed himself.