I paused at the threshold.
I’d only been through the portal once before, and I’d been dying at the time. Now, with clear eyes and a healthy body, I could actually appreciate it. The swirling light. The way the air seemed to bend and shimmer. The faint hum of power that vibrated through my bones.
“Ready?” Caelan asked, taking my hand.
“Ready.”
We stepped through together.
The nausea hit immediately, a lurching, spinning sensation that made my stomach revolt. I stumbled on the other side, Caelan steadying me, and took a moment to breathe through the queasiness.
“It gets easier,” Thessa said, already walking.
We followed her through familiar streets. The human world looked different somehow. Smaller. More mundane. After weeks in Lytopia, in castles and forests and magical greenhouses, the brick buildings and asphalt roads seemed almost surreal.
We were approaching the tattoo shop when it happened.
The door of Ink & Iron burst open. Sloane, beautiful and fierce, froze in the doorway, her eyes going wide.
“RILEY?!”
And then she was running, sprinting across the sidewalk toward me.
I barely had time to brace myself before Sloane slammed into me, arms crushing me in a hug that threatened to crack my ribs. She was crying, actual tears streaming down her face, and cursing at the same time.
“You absolute bitch,” Sloane sobbed. “You fucking bitch, we thought you were DEAD. Gone for MONTHS. No word, no nothing. Do you have any idea what we’ve been going through? I’m going to KILL you, and then I’m going to hug you again, and then I’m going to kill you MORE-”
“I’m sorry,” I gasped. “I’m sorry, I couldn’t - it’s complicated-”
“Complicated my ass!” Sloane pulled back, mascara running, and punched my shoulder. Hard. “You scared the shit out of us!”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“You better be!”
We went upstairs to my apartment. Someone, probably Sloane, had been keeping it clean, watering my plants, making sure everything was maintained. The sight made my throat tight.
Sloane called the others. Within an hour, my apartment was full.
Margo arrived first, bursting through the door with tears already streaming down her face, yanking me into a hug that lasted a full three minutes. After that, the book club girls descended in a chaotic wave, five of them piling through the doorway at once, all talking over each other, demanding explanations and proof that I was real.
“Touch her!” someone yelled. “Make sure she’s not a ghost!”
“Ghosts aren’t real, Becca-”
“Neither were WEREWOLVES until months ago!”
Fair point.
They crowded onto my couch and chairs, squished together, all of them staring at me with varying degrees of shock and anger and relief. Jade sat in the corner, quiet, her eyes occasionally drifting toward Thessa.
I told them most of it. The rejection, the kidnapping, the battle, the conspiracy, the rescue. I left out certain details. The near-death experiences. Not everything needed to be shared at this reunion.
And then I told them about the baby.
The chaos was deafening.
“YOU’RE PREGNANT?!”
