“You’re more powerful than you realize.”
“I appreciate your faith in my abilities, but my missing horns and I are going to have to respectfully disagree.” While technically polite, there was a distinct undercurrent of patronizing disdain to my words.
She leveled an unamused gaze on me. “You’re not listening.”
“Of course I’m not. You’re a figment of my overactive imagination.”
“Pandemic, I am as real as the love you feel for your mate. Succubi can dreamwalk, and whatever happens in a dreamwalk happens in reality.”
I snorted. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”
She reached out and slashed sharp nails across my forearm. Jerking back, I hissed in surprise as beads of crimson bloomed. “Oi, what do you think you’re doing?”
“Proving a point,” she practically growled. “Now pay attention, because I don’t have a lot of time. Your power is not confined to your horns. In fact, you were never a demon at all. You just believed you were.”
“That’s ludicrous. I’ve been a demon since the day I was brought into this miserable world.”
She shook her head, a pitying look on her face. “You’re not. You are the child of a horsewoman and a horseman, Pan. You are full-blooded Pestilence. More powerful than either of them.”
There was a beat of silence before I laughed. “My father is a demon who abandoned me.”
“No!” she insisted, vehemently shaking her head. “He’s not. His name is Malice, and as soon as he found out about you, he tried to go to you, but your mother threatened to kill you if he ever got close. He stayed away to protect you, but he neverstopped keeping tabs on you. He never stopped caring about you, Pan. It’s why I’m here.”
“I thought Gabriel sent you.”
“He did, but selfishly I’m also here for Malice.”
“Why? What is any of this to you?”
“Malice is my mate. You matter to him, and what matters to him matters to me.”
I stared at her, the implication of everything she’d just said working its way through me. Her earlier comments about my dick suddenly made sense, and I felt something akin to embarrassment. If what she said was true, she was basically my stepmum.
Squaring my shoulders, I fought the urge to ask her more questions about my father and instead brought the topic back around to the true reason she was here. Our rescue.
“If what happens in this dream is real, then can you simply take me back?”
“No. That’s not how it works. Your core self is here with me, but your physical body remains wherever it was before you fell asleep. But the knowledge you learn here will stay with you, and you need to know something very important. You aren’t powerless. Your demonic form was created from perception alone. Your lack of magic is only due to your lack of belief in yourself. And now that you know, you can be whomever you want. You can fight back, and there’s nothing the horsewomen can do to stop you.”
I wish I could say that my thoughts immediately went to saving the world, but they didn’t. Of course, they didn’t. My thoughts went first to the one thing I’d mourned more than any other.
My tail.
“You’re saying I could have my tail back.”
She let out an exasperated laugh. “Among other things, yes. You can have your tail back. Your horns too, if they mean that much to you.”
I considered it, but dismissed the idea almost immediately. The lack of my horns was a physical representation of the sacrifice I’d made for my mate. I wanted the both of us to have that constant reminder of my devotion to her. I gave up everything to have her, and I would do it again in a heartbeat. Rosie was the one thing in my life I’d ever been selfless for.
“How do I know you’re not working for them? Trapping me in my mind or something?”
“You don’t. But what is the alternative? They have you trapped already. Trusting me isn’t any greater of a risk.”
I studied the redhead. She certainly seemed earnest enough. “This is like that elephant movie Remi made me watch.”
Her nose wrinkled in confusion. “Dumbo?”
“Yes. The elephant and the feather and the flying.”
