Chapter 36 #2
Foras leaned toward me just enough to let me take the skull, while Jordan tightened his grip so he could pull me away if necessary. Foras nodded slightly for me to take it. “Another of my gifts is the ability to find treasure and lost items. You lost it, I am simply returning it.”
“Thank you,” I said as I took it carefully off his huge hand. The skull looked impossibly small in it. He nodded again and glanced up.
“And the warning?” Jordan’s voice sounded wary.
Foras took his gaze from me and back to the ground.
“The power she wields, especially when you are fuc—joined. It touches the ley and moves within it. I have felt it and recognized it as yours and that of the priestess. It is an intoxicating mix of power you two make.” He sounded joyful again but barely looked up to see Jordan’s expression.
I saw pride in the face of the Demon Lord.
“I don’t need you to tell me that.”
The Demon Lord lowered his glance at Jordan’s words. That in itself showed a great respect to Jordan, but he didn’t relax a bit.
“I would imagine not, my son. But others feel it as well. They may be tempted to do as I have done but not have the same intentions. You must teach her to shield that power from the ley when you are joining. Her mind is far too open. She wields much power, but as she is a youngster, she is easy prey for other gatekeepers. I suspect she will be able to handle Karackos easily—but another Lord or gatekeeper may be more trouble.”
“You have proven that you mean no harm, Incubus,” Jordan said.
Foras raised his head. His silver eyes perfectly matched Jordan’s. My power reached for his unintentionally. I pulled it back but it was too late, he had felt it. His gaze met mine for just a split second and then flashed back to Jordan, trying to keep his word.
“Find her help, my boy, or she will be the wench of a Demon Lord not long after All Hallows’.
The balance of power will not withstand such.
If you have need of me, I would consider it an honor to teach the priestess to block out the mind of a Demon Lord.
” He raised a hand and we went spinning back to the unreal state of being between things.
I looked around to try to see anything specific, but there was nothing there to see, just hints of things, of places and feelings.
We found ourselves back in my room, Jordan holding tight to me and me clutching the skull to my chest. I shivered.
“It’s okay, Lover, we’ll figure this out too.”
“Um…how is that? I have two days until All Hallows’, the battle with Feldema, Nessum is still out there, Karackos, the Slaugh and now this. I’m running out of time and ideas.”
“I know,” he said, rubbing my head.
“One thing at a time, right?” That had become my mantra.
“Right.” Then he cringed. “Maybe we should take Foras up on his offer to help. It’s the quickest and easiest thing on the list.”
I turned back to him. “That’s not what you really want is it?”
He gave me that soft face I usually only saw after a long, wonderful session of tremendous sex.
“We can’t just summon any of the Demon Lords for this.
Some are the keepers of the gateways to Hell.
None of them are to be trusted. I don’t know any other Demons with that kind of power whom I trust any more than Foras right now, do you?
“Point.”
“Let’s go to the well for this.”
“Now?” I’m not sure why I was shocked. Once Jordan made up his mind, he acted.
“We’ve got the banquet later, and tomorrow and All Hallows is full of other official functions. It’s now or never.”
We went to the well after changing and gathering my tool kit for ritual magic.
Jordan had insisted on doing the summoning.
That way, if Foras had ulterior motives for me, they would be useless.
I instructed him on the ceremony of making and sealing the circle.
His magic snapped in place a tight, glowing, yellowish bubble around the circle. The feel of his magic stirred mine.
He moaned as mine reacted to it. “There are more reasons than one for you to be able to control your reactions to my power. I couldn’t fight for you and have your magic touching mine at the same time. I’d be too distracted.”
“Finish this up. I’m getting nervous.”
He started the summoning. Black smoke filled the circle and then Foras appeared out of the smoke before it faded into the ground. He was so tall that he had to hunch down not to touch the top of the bubble.
“That was quick, my son. I’m pleased you use your logic as well as your muscle.”
“Foras, gatekeeper of the Underworld, answer me true. Have you freely offered your assistance to the Priestess of the Wild, with no foul intentions?”
Being in the circle of the summoner, he had to tell the truth. Maybe not all of it, but the base of his statements had to be true.
“Jordan of Foras, I have spoken the truth. The motive is to assist the priestess in fulfilling the prophecy, as well as preventing an imbalance of powers between the gatekeepers.”
“Explain that,” Jordan demanded gruffly.
“If one of the stronger gatekeepers were to pull your woman through the ley and keep her bound to him, the gatekeeper would be much stronger than my master had intended.”
“That would upset the balance of the gatekeepers?” I asked.
“You are correct. It would not be good if a gatekeeper became stronger than the master.”
Jordan released the circle, and Foras stretched and took in a deep breath. He strode to where I was sitting on the edge of the well and raised a hand to my head.
Jordan leapt on him immediately.
I jumped and shrieked as they started to fight.
That was until I realized that they used no magic or any of the fatal blows that I knew they both could use.
I sat myself back on the well and watched as the two egotistical males rolled on the ground, punching and shoving like high school boys.
It looked like a primal male-bonding ritual.
It was interesting in that aspect, but then Jordan managed to throw Foras into a tree, rattling the huge oak to its roots before he hit the ground. Foras was grabbing Jordan again when I shouted, “Boys! Play he-men all you like, but do not destroy my forest!”
They stood frozen in complementary headlocks. Jordan actually started smiling. Foras let him loose and Jordan followed suit, slapping the enormous Demon on the back. Foras looked at me then Jordan. “Can I touch your woman now? I need to be in her mind for a short time to assess her abilities.”
I snorted. “You should ask my permission, Lord Foras, not his.”
Foras looked back to his Demon son and Jordan nodded. “I belong to her, not the other way around.”
Foras gave his son a questioning look. “And this does not bother you?”
Jordan gestured to me. “Would it you?”
Foras shook his head and came to face me. “May I?”
I nodded. He placed one hand on the top of my head.
His hand was so large that his palm sat over my forehead, and the ends of his fingers almost came down to the back of my skull.
I felt his power roll over me, through me.
I felt his touch in my mind, soft, gentle, seeking.
I was uneasy at the feeling of intrusion.
“I am merely seeking the boundaries you have created for yourself. I will not invade your private thoughts or memories.” He was looking over my head and off into the depths of the forest. “Try to block my entry this time.” He retreated from my mind.
I thought and put up the walls I pictured in my mind.
His mental embrace returned. I felt it moving along the walls, searching, looking for a weakness.
He found it easily by simply trying to push through the wall.
“It is adequate protection for most but try to make it stronger. Maybe not using the visual of a wall, but the visualization of your power instead.”
“I don’t know how to visualize my power.”
“You do. How do you see Jordan’s power when you are making love?”
Now that was easy. “Fire.”
He smiled again. “Yes, I suppose you would. Use your power to push me away from you, and try to see it in your mind as you do it.”
I did as he asked, and as usual my push started as a giant shove and he stumbled backward. I had closed my eyes and saw the push in my mind. It was blue and as glimmery as the ley line itself. “It looks like the ley line,” I said.