"So, I was the last one to see a rescue?" I asked in an arch tone.
Inara gave me a look from under her eyelashes. "Would you have preferred we not come at all?"
I grinned. "I suppose I don't mind too much."
She grunted. "Good, because it was Nathan's job to track you down while we kept the rest from suspecting our presence."
It was actually a pretty brilliant scheme. Even more surprising because vampires and Fae willingly working together was almost unheard of. I was impressed.
Liam rose from Owen's fallen form, his gaze capturing mine.
He took a step toward me, a tangle of emotions saturating the air around him. Relief. An obsessive love that bordered on possessive as it stroked against me. He'd never be an easy man, but he'd try for my sake.
This was a man who'd do anything for me. He'd kill for me—die for me.
I'd spend the rest of my life making sure I was worthy of such devotion. I had a feeling it would be all too easy to abuse the totality of what he felt. That someone had done that in the past.
Once his respect was lost, so too would be his love.
He blanched, fear replacing the love I felt.
A hard force wrapped around my waist, yanking me through the veil amid a primal roar of denial.
TWENTY
LIAM’S ROAR WAS abruptly cut off as the veil closed around me. Endless night swept over my vision.
The veil resisted my passage. Pressure grew, threatening to tear me in half.
The power at my core flared, pure and containing the potential to break me down to my base molecules. It was excruciatingly intense, riding the line between pleasure and pain.
Then I was through, gasping for breath, my muscles still twitching.
The force around my waist held me up as I hung limp. It dragged me down the stairs, past piles of stark white bones. I had a feeling I now knew what had happened to those other magic breakers they employed.
The tentacle pulled me through a window, lifting and cradling me to the chest of a monster who was the size of the castle he stood next to. Thousands of eyes watched me from his face and body. A swarm of tentacles extended from his lower half.
He was one of the last king's forgotten monsters, I realized. He'd also been the one who tried to pull me through that first portal.
It seemed Don hadn't been lying when he said he wasn’t responsible for trying to kidnap me. The realm was.
There was a flutter of wings above me as the shadow bird landed on a tentacle a few inches above me.
It cocked its head, beady eyes staring into mine. Finally, it hopped closer. When I still didn't react, it hopped onto my chest and settled down, glaring at me the entire time.
That was how our passage went, the tentacle monster mostly ignoring me and the bird watching me intently as we made our way through a realm that seemed to be encased in permanent twilight, endlessly caught between the transition of day to night.
From my vantage, it was hard to see, but what I caught was strange and beautiful.
Trees of crystal and glass. Hills with the features of an old woman.
The passage of time slipped and slid around me, holding no meaning. I couldn't tell how long we'd been moving when the monster came to a stop at the edge of a forest.
He set me down in front of a tree that was the older sibling of the one leading to Arlan's barrow. Its limbs gnarled and heavy with age, massive roots feeding into the ground. Its trunk was wide, the bark wrinkled and curling.
The place was how I imagined ancient oak groves to be like, before man came and tore most of them down to clear way for their farms and cities.
At the oak's base was a circle of stones, their placement specific.
