Chapter 2
OVERHEARD
Heading to the lava pools was smart. There’s an unspoken rule in Nuit that, whenever one of the clan is bathing in the warm springs made up of the lava beneath the ash fields, they deserve their privacy.
Mainly because mated pairs enjoy the pools together, and if I know for the fact that my parents frequent the pools themselves, I try not to think about that.
At home, we have a bathtub that’s large enough to fit my father. He’s more than a head-and-a-half taller than me—not counting his horns—and nearly twice as wide which means that when I have a soak, I can stretch out. Mom? She can basically swim in there.
Being close with the village mage is a perk. Loki cast a spell to make the enchanted water as warm as the lava pools, but there’s nothing like dipping a toe into the lava itself. It speaks to the demoness in me.
And, no, I wasn’t stalling at all.
I kept waiting for Kennedy to appear at the edge of the ash field that leads to the pools.
Loki’s human mother is smaller than mine, with hair that’s darker, and a bump that tells all of Nuit she is expecting again.
If just to ask me if I know what’s become of her son, I wait for her to appear.
She doesn’t. Whether that’s because she respects the privacy owed to a bather or because even the butterflies do, it’s just Binx and me for a while.
The butterflies all dispersed once I started to remove my boots, my dress, and my undercoverings.
They’ll manifest again—they always do—but for the moment, at least, there’s peace.
I don’t know why they chase me. To be honest, most of the clan has always seemed more in awe of the butterflies than me.
I once asked Mom, but she didn’t know. It was actually Lilith, the clanmother and Apollyon’s bonded mate, who explained that such a shadow creature used to belong to Queen Alana, the fearsome demoness queen that my father named me after.
She perished more than two millennia ago, right before Duke Haures took the crystal crown that marks him as Sombra’s ruler.
There hasn’t been a single butterfly—or faripoz, as they’re known in Sombran—in the centuries since…
until one appeared after I was abducted, leading Mom and the others to find me.
One became two became three until, over the years, there have been too many to count.
There’s usually at least a pair whenever I’m in Sombra.
I haven’t seen any in the other realms—demon or not—that I’ve visited with Rafe.
Sometimes I wonder why, but when all they do is flap their wings and help keep me calm, it doesn’t matter if they’re there or not.
Unless someone gapes at them—and me.
Unless they give away where I might be hiding at any given moment.
Unless they’re just another reminder that I’m a sorry replacement for the original Queen Alana…
Ugh. I think Stevie was right. I am brooding.
It’s my fault, too. I get like this when my shadows start thickening, urging me to go on another journey.
It’s my power. I’m made to travel, and except for popping into Brille Rouge, I haven’t gone anywhere in ages.
Not even Earth, though Mom’s suggested we visit some place called Lon-done.
It’s like I’m trapped, and if that’s me also brooding over how I tried to visit a fire demon realm only to be blocked from it, that’s better than the loneliness I can’t deny.
I shouldn’t be lonely. I have Binx, right?
Stevie, too, when she isn’t with Corbin.
Rafe is usually my shadow, and when Billie and Glaine come to Nuit with Clara, she joins our trio so that we can make sure our youngest halfling is pampered.
When Kennedy births her latest spawn, I’m sure we’ll treat the newest halfling in Nuit the same, and then if Stevie mates with Corbin…
Binx is curled up along the edge of my lava pool, paws digging into the ash as I start to climb out of the pool. I shake off the excess lava, taking my long hair down from the twist I’d put it up in before I waded in.
If I was a full-blooded human, I wouldn’t survive the lava pools.
Mom has to disappear in Dad’s shadows to enjoy the sensation of the heat and the thickness swirling around her skin.
Being half demon means that the fire doesn’t touch me.
It’s closer to the enchanted water that comes from the tap, soothing my skin and helping me relax.
I don’t have the same sort of shadows as my father.
Dad has two forms: his solid, red-skinned shape, and his nearly transparent shadows where he’s all black except for his golden eyes.
When we’re on Earth, taking a family trip to Mom’s world, we can vanish to mist, all but invisible to the mortal eye.
Here? He’s either inky black, or red and strapping.
Not me. I’m solid, like Mom, with flesh as pale as hers.
My shadows hover near my feet, always prepared to be summoned.
When I want to tap into my gift, I build a portal out of those shadows and walk right through them.
That doesn’t mean I can create portals to skip around Sombra.
Nope. I can only break through barriers between realms, going from one world to another.
Would be nice if I had the same abilities as the mages do.
Rafe’s dad can open a portal in Nuit and take a traveler straight into the duke’s throne room, all thanks to his brand of magic.
Me? I have to settle for dressing again, giving Binx a scratch behind his ears, and walking back to the village square.
I still live with my parents. Of course I do.
It’s how it’s done in Sombra. Until I leave my village or find a mate, my parents are responsible for me.
If I wanted to build a den of my own, it would have to be far from my birth clan where I would be declaring myself a single demoness in search of a mate.
I’m not looking for a male. Not really. I just want to have a purpose, to be more than the child of prophecy who saved Sombra only for me to find myself looking at an eternity of the same days over and over again.
Maybe I should take a walk into Soleil. Or…. or that djinn realm that had Dad frowning when I mentioned I’d visited that world. Something. Anything. I could kill a little time—because gods know I have an endless amount of it—and then retrieve Rafe from Brille Rouge before supper.
That seems like a good plan. I’ll take Binx for company, and if I’m gone, Kennedy won’t be able to blame me for abandoning her precious spawn in the arms of the seamstress seductress who is allowing Rafe to woo her.
Is Katrin Rafe’s mate? Not his one true mate for sure, but if he sees forever with her, who am I to interfere? Kennedy will understand. That’s what Mom says. She admits that Kennedy is a little too overprotective when it comes to Rafe, and considering Shannon is my mom, that’s saying something.
Now, I love my mom. She’s got a good heart, a smart mouth, and she does a great job running the Earth Library with Kennedy. She makes my dad happy, she’s devoted to us both, but, gods, she treats me like I’m still a child.
If Kennedy is trying to hunt down Rafe, Mom must be at the EL. As the clan’s artist, Dad’s been working on a new mural in Kennedy and Loki’s home, preparing for the new spawn. He’s spent the last moon working on it during the days so that he’s home every eve with Mom and me.
That’s why, as I approach our home from the back, I’m stunned to hear his gravely voice trying to soothe Mom’s more frantic, high-pitched tone.
The window on the side is open, their voices carrying, and I know instinctively that they’re in the front room, Mom pacing, Dad hovering nearby to lend her his quiet strength as she tells him whatever is bothering her.
Me. It’s always me.
“—Brille Rouge again.”
“Yes, my Shannon,” murmurs Dad. “Alana told you that she was visiting the demonesses with Rafe. Remember? Over breakfast.”
Mom continues as though Dad didn’t speak up at all.
“I told Ken that it’s hormones. Rafe knows better than to throw away his essence for a demoness who isn’t his one true mate.
She’s so worried about him choosing the wrong mate.
And, of course, it’s our baby who’s bringing him there instead of staying in Sombra where she belongs. ”
Belonging in both worlds, belonging in none…
“Alana is a good friend. Besides, it’s only Brille Rouge. It’s not Noctavara.”
Noctavara.
A shiver runs down my spine, my heart tripping over itself to hear the name of the one realm that refused to let me enter. Why are they talking about Noctavara now?
I inch closer, ducking my head so that they can’t see me.
Normally, Dad can sense when I’m near because I’m made up of his essence and Mom’s—not to mention his demon sense of hearing and smell that poor Mom doesn’t have despite being bonded to him—but when Mom’s in one of these moods, she has all of his attention.
He adores her. When I think of my Dad, I want a mate who loves me unconditionally like my parents love each other. Especially since, when I’m eavesdropping, it’s a whole lost easier when he’s distracted by Mom…
“I know. And I’m being ridiculous, Mal. If it’s blocked to her, it’s not like Alana can go there even if she wants to. But the doppelseers…”
“Lucian and Damien saw what our daughter would do thousands of years before she was born to do it. We could have centuries before the second prophecy comes to pass.”
I blink. At my feet, Binx lets out a soft mewing sound, checking to make sure that I’m all right.
But I’m not all right.
Second prophecy? What?
Mom shudders out a breath. “Sierra’s girl found her mate.
Oh, Malphas, don’t look at me like that.
Everyone in Nuit knows it’s only a matter of time before Corbin has Stevie’s name etched in his chest. And we all know that Kennedy’s son is trying.
How much longer until Alana goes searching and Damien’s words catch up to her? ”
“Fiore mi…”