Chapter Thirty-Six
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Val
P ropped on too many pillows like a spoiled little demon princess, I push away the third healing potion Theo tries to force on me.
“I don’t need another,” I insist, although I feel crappy.
This whole wielding magic thing rocks when I get it right, but the after part sucks with how it wrecks my body. Monty playing chase with the toy unicorn doesn’t even perk me up.
Nor does the magical hedgehog who stowed away in a pocket of my utility belt on our trip home from the Valley of the Gods. The cutie now floats upside down in a tub of water nestled next to me, his tiny legs limp and his eyes closed in bliss. I stroke two fingers along the hedgehog’s belly before scooping some water over him. The happy purr and snuffling noises he makes soothe some of my freak out, if not my physical pain.
My robe gapes to my navel, covering only the naked bits Theo insists he’ll gouge out people’s eyes if they see. Cool compresses, aloe vera, and a glowing gel Ora sent in with promises it didn’t contain actual monster parts—not reassuring —have done zero to numb the burn. Even Theo’s venom hasn’t eased the pain.
Yet I can’t down another puke-inducing potion.
“Drink up,” he insists. “Now.”
I look past the gross healing potion to my mate. “I’m more worried about you.”
He scowls at me. “Take it, or I’ll carry you to the infirmary. Do you really want an orc who studied medicine three hundred years ago working on you?”
“No, but…” I forget the completely rational arguments I’d planned to make. Hell, I zoomed past overwhelm so long ago that all my senses ping like a hyperactive pixie cheer squad.
Having half of Shadowvale camped out in our suite doesn’t help. While the castle plays relaxing views of its exterior battlements against a cloud-filled sky on the wall to remind me I’m not in a windowless hotel room, it’s not like I can forget we left Toto, Dorothy, Kansas, and everything I’d thought to be normal far, far behind.
Ora, her dragon not-a-friend, and a team of witches re-up the wards while a group of gnomes spills salt in intense patterns on the floor. Pixies tend to the Brimstone Bell flowers since we’ve gone from a few blooms in all the hell dimensions to an entire garden in the bedroom alone, and tech gremlins have taken over part of my lab. Theo insists they keep the DNA project going for genealogy purposes even if we already know who has been opening the portals. My stomach flips with any thought of Gilly’s epic betrayal.
“But?” Theo prompts. When I stare blankly at him, he tries again, “You were saying?”
Nope, still no idea what I’d meant to say. I improvise instead. “If I take this last—and I do mean last —potion, you promise to talk about what happened with Gilly?”
“Ye—”
I hold up a finger, needing to add a qualification before he answers because dealing demons negotiate details more ruthlessly than Ava’s mom. Who I still can’t get over being a sea witch. But right now, I refuse to be sidetracked by all the supernatural stuff. “Which means you have to talk about your actual feelings on the subject.”
Theo makes a face that probably mirrors my own every time he shoves a healing potion down me because whatever Ora mixes in those tastes vile. “I don’t require a therapy session.”
“Gonna have to agree to disagree on that. We have a deal or not?”
He rakes a heated look along my body that would make me jump him if my skin didn’t feel like it’s on fire. “Are you attempting to out-deal a dealing demon, Vicious?”
“Yep.”
“That’s incredibly sexy.” He did not just break out his rumbly demon voice that makes my lady parts throb harder than the bassline at a rave.
“A little more venom, and I might be able to?—”
“No.” He levels me with the full Prince of Darkness glare.
I sigh because oh, to be able to take his mind off the clusterfuck that is both our families with a quick and mutually satisfying screw? That would be wonderful. Unfortunately, the burns left by my magic seem to get exponentially more painful each time I use it. Worse, I have to admit to myself that he’s probably right. Not even his venom can take my brain off the ow factor of a sunburn that stings as though I stood on the surface of the actual sun to get it.
Sighing hurts. Friggin’ sighing!
He prods the bottle toward me. “Take the potion, and I’ll talk about feelings.” He grumbles the last word like most beauty influencers would say fungus . Or at least those who don’t celebrate the anti-aging and antioxidants those wonderful little organisms—“Vicious,” he cuts into my runaway thought train. “You drinking it before you pass out from the pain would be nice.”
“Fine.” I take the bottle from him, tip it back, and fight my gag reflex. “Gah, hand sanitizer would go down smoother than that. I swear Ora makes each more disgusting than the last.”
“She’s working to treat a magical malady no one has ever seen before.” His reminder sends my guilt factor soaring until he adds, “Although I wouldn’t be surprised if she hasn’t thrown in some particularly foul ingredient to remind you not to use your magic until we’ve discovered a way to keep it from burning you from the inside each time you invoke it.”
“Is she?” I narrow my eyes. “Or are you adding it?”
“Would I do something so devious?”
“Hmm.” I save my decision for later because I need to concentrate on what he promised or he’ll wriggle out of our bargain. “I drank the potion, so talk.”
Now he’s the one sighing. “I didn’t see Gilly as a remote possibility of being the traitor. I missed all the signs. How did I not notice how unhappy she’d become?”
“I think shooting your cousin in the head, not to mention planning to take over every realm in every world, goes a bit beyond unhappy.” I’m careful with my choice of words, not wanting to add insult to massive injury by calling his traitorous, backstabbing…or um, back-of-the-skull shooting…sister batshit crazy. “It’s more than the betrayal of you, your family, and your people. She’s fine with wiping out entire existences.”
“All the more reason I should’ve noticed.”
“Are you blaming Nic for not noticing?”
“No.” His answer is so quick, so sure.
“Are you holding literally anyone else responsible for failing to pick up on the levels of psycho she’d descended to?” Okay, so much for sugarcoating. Hey, I tried.
“No, but I’m the crown prince and her older brother?—”
“Oh my god, Theo, you’re not the boss of everyone everywhere, no matter how much you might want to be. Your sister went megalomaniacal tyrant on a universal level. No one could’ve predicted that. So get pissed off or sad or have any and all of the emotions except feeling guilty about the choices she made when you’ve lived your entire life for the benefit of the kingdom, starting with your family.”
“Starting with you, now.”
“Don’t try to flatter your way out of this.”
“It’s not flattery. Just truth,” he says. “You were right about not leaving you.”
“You’ll find I’m right about a lot of things, but you can keep telling me.” I sink into the pillows. Maybe he didn’t heap too many onto the bed. Maybe there are exactly enough. Of course, some of my sudden comfort could be him saying I’m right or the healing potion finally taking the edge off my pain. “Now I sound like a brat.”
“When you’re feeling better, you can show me how much of a brat you can be.”
“And talk feelings since I held up my end of the deal.”
“We’ll talk about whatever you like,” he agrees. “But for now, get some rest. I sent others to sort through whatever they could find in Dupree’s rooms, his house, or Gilly’s mansions that might tell us more about her next move. I can wait to feel all the feelings …” Again, with the strong hatred of the word in his tone. Will my man ever own up to having emotional depth? “After we’ve stopped Gilly,” he declares as though that’s the end of discussion.
“How do we stop someone we can’t find?” I ask. “She could be anywhere by now if she’s able to open portals without worrying about your family’s rules.”
“I can help with that.” Nic walks in the room, her wings tucked to keep from sweeping the gnomes off their feet or the pixies from the blooms. She steps over the salt patterns. “I don’t know where our sister is this exact moment, but she sent a message of where she’ll be for the full moon. I think she means to draw you out.” She looks from me to Theo. “Both of you.”
“Why me?” I ask. “I mean Theo I understand since she has a warped sense of needing to show him up.”
“You have the magic she believes to be rightfully hers,” Theo says.
“So? It’s not as if I can give it back. Hell, I don’t even want it if it keeps burning me.” I resist stealing some of the hedgie’s water to soothe the blisters stretching from my collarbones to my navel. The last thing we need right now is a pissed-off magical hedgehog.
Nic keeps her distance from both the hedgie and Monty. “Gilly plans some sort of supernatural showdown at the location where you two met.”
“The haunted house?” I ask.
“It’s not haunted,” Theo says. “At least not currently. I hired a reaper and his mate to clear out the ghosts months before you and your friends arrived. The worst thing there right now are the…” He trails off, shooting a look at Nic.
“The ley lines that mean unlimited access to other realms through portals,” she says.
“Fuck,” Theo mutters.
“Someone explain,” I demand, not caring who does it. I’m too tired, cranky, and hurting to figure out portal puzzles right now.
Theo rests his tail on my thigh, staying clear of the hedgie and Monty’s zoomies with his toy. The gentle touch tells me whatever he’s about to say, it’s going to be bad. “I picked the house because it stands atop a vortex of magical power. The ley lines act as an energetic highway. With royal demon blood, I can hold one portal open at a time, but with the magnification of the magic that the lines provide, I’m able to sustain multiple paths at once. It’s how I could send your friends through to their fated mates without any risk to them or their monsters. At the house, I could hold the portals open simultaneously.”
“Except it went all wrong.” The memory of that day with Rosemarie vanishing from the library, of Meg never returning from her tour, of Theo telling me how Ava had been taken? It sends shudders through me. I remember what he claimed had happened to send the gargoyles crashing into the house and had Theo chasing after Ava and her kraken mate. “Because someone opened a portal you didn’t anticipate. You think Gilly was involved in stealing Ava?”
“The ocean realms couldn’t have pulled it off without a demon royal,” he says. “It could’ve been Dupree, but I would wager it was Gilly, and she’s returning to the scene of her crime.”
“We won’t go,” I insist. “It’ll be a trap.”
“Of course it will be.”
Nic raises a claw. “There’s more. The guards finished going through Gilly’s estate as well as Dupree’s house and his rooms here at Shadowvale. Dupree certainly wasn’t innocent in this mess, but it appears Gilly has always been the mastermind…” She trails off, hugging her arms to her middle as if she can protect herself from what her sister has done.
“No surprise there,” Theo says, but the hurt in his voice? It’s awful. “Our sister might have betrayed us, but she has never lacked brains. Did she leave any evidence of their plans?”
“No,” Nic says. “But Dupree did. We managed to unlock his video journal by cracking his epic password.”
“Let me guess. He used the actual word password ?” I’ve seen the same level of stupid in scientific geniuses at the university’s labs. Rocket science? Easy for them. Systems’ security? Not so much.
“Worse,” Nic says. “He used—and I quote— DatStudDupree with an exclamation point at the end.”
“More like DatDouchebagDupree or DatDoubleCrossingDupree ,” Theo says.
“Or DatDeadDupree ,” I add. They both stare at me, scarlet gazes assessing. “What? Too soon?”
Theo leans so close his horn brushes my temple. “You’re perfect.”
“This burn needs to heal immediately so we can put that forked tongue of yours to good use,” I whisper.
Nic clears her throat.
Oops . I forgot about supernatural hearing. Geez. As if this situation wasn’t already uncomfortable. I fidget, and the robe catches on my burn, making me hiss. I’m about two seconds from screaming for everyone to get out of here while my body feels like it’s on fire, please and thank you. Nothing Dupree might’ve said interests me enough to overcome the hellacious level of hurt I’ve got going right now.
Monty curls on my lap, and the hedgie chitters until I pull him from the tub. He immediately goes into full strike mode, rolling into a ball, puffing out his spikes, and screaming at Nic as though he’s an angry infant. It’s the cutest thing ever.
The pixies and gnomes flee.
Nic backs away. “Shit, don’t let that hedgehog change its form.”
“He won’t.” Or at least I hope he doesn’t.
“What did Dupree say?” Theo asks.
Oh yeah, we were discussing what the douchiest demon could’ve said that might be remotely interesting or intelligent.
Waving a hand toward the wall, Nic says, “Shadowvale, can you play the parts about Val’s friends for us?”
“My friends?” I forget my pain for a second.
The wall flickers to show Dupree posing for the camera like he’s in some sort of reality show confessional booth. My family’s show cut those years ago. “The bitch princess and I had an alliance with the prince of the ocean realms to steal the sea witch’s daughter.”
“Ava.” My voice almost cracks on her name. I miss her so much, and this asshole dared to plot against her.
Fuck this guy. If he wasn’t dead, I would take him out again. No one messes with my friends.
The video keeps going. “Who knew the prince of the oceans would be such a colossal failure? Not only could he not kidnap one human through the easiest portal grab ever, but when we gave him a second chance, he couldn’t keep a portal open to bring all his monsters through to conquer the human realm. I promised him an entire continent, and he couldn’t deliver. Loser.”
I look to Theo.
“Your friend Ava and her kraken took them down,” he says.
Chills go through me.
“Her sea witch mom helped,” Nic adds.
Dupree’s voice starts again. “Gilly assured me she’d made the best of a contact I’ve been stringing along for decades. A pariah among the gargoyles.”
“Gargoyles,” I whisper. “Rosemarie.”
“She’s okay,” Theo promises. “The gargoyles crowned her as their queen last night.”
“What?” I come close to shrieking except my burn screams in protest. The hedgie hisses as though he’s trying to decide who to attack until Monty squeaks at him.
Dupree’s exasperated huff brings my attention back to his horrible ramblings. “The dragon Gilly dredged up from the pits of the After Worlds should’ve destroyed the Bridge of Souls, but somehow another of those human women Theo mated off to monsters managed to fuck up an attack yet again.”
I look to Theo, keeping my voice down since Monty has calmed the killer hedgehog by sharing the toy unicorn to prance between the two. “Tell me Rosemarie didn’t face off against a freakin’ dragon.”
He shrugs. “She did fine, and it’s now a beautiful addition to her Bridge of Souls.”
“There’s more,” Nic says.
“More?” I breathe as deeply as I can without setting off the pain in my chest.
Dupree’s smug face flickers on the wall. “Which leaves me to clean up that mess at the Valley of the Gods. The humans survived the plans that relied on others, but they won’t be there for this. Plus, Gilly will grab collateral from those who the human mates left behind. I suggested she start with the easiest, most pretentious target.” He grins, the camera angle catching only fangs. “Val’s family.”
Ice crawls across my skin despite the burn. Gilly, the psycho demon princess with teleportation powers and a tyranny complex, is going after my family. “I have to warn them. Now .”