Did Peter dare to trust? “And that’s all you need?”
“No,” the being said calmly. “We’ll need one more thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Your body.”
Chapter Forty-two
Martinjerkedoutofhis stupor to find himself cross-legged on the ground. His three unlikely mentors stared at him from their seated positions around a central fire. Despite them not killing him yet, he still kept his guard up. Yet, they could have harmed him just then, couldn’t they? “What?”
“How far did you go?” Xariel asked. “You didn’t meet us at the appointed destination.”
What? Oh… “I…” Heat crept up Martin’s face.
“Martin, are you all right?” Dmitri jumped to his feet and raced to Martin’s side.
“Quite all right. It’s just that I, that I…”
Dmitri narrowed his eyes. “Where did you go?”
“Um… I think I went back to the Father’s temple. In the caverns. Pe… Peter was there.” The heat in his face grew molten as he recalled sliding his naked body together with Peter’s.
A furrow grew between Dmitri’s brows.
Xariel barked a laugh. “Remember, he can cross realms as easily as we cross the floor.” He rose and smacked Dmitri on the back with one hand.
Dmitri’s scowl would have sent a lesser man running. “Where. Did. You. Go.”
“I’m not sure I was even there. Was it an illusion?” Martin shifted, feeling the stickiness in his trousers. If he hadn’t gone there, he’d had a highly realistic dream.
Xariel nearly doubled over with laughter. “Remember when we studied at the academy? How we—”
Dmitri shot Xariel a murderous glare. “We are not here to discuss our misspent youth.”
Really? Xariel and… Dmitri?
Martin didn’t want that mental image roaming around in his head, surfacing at the worst possible moments. “Can we focus here?”
Garamel made a gagging noise. “Please don’t make me imagine either of you naked. You’re what? Thousands of seasons old? And with skin instead of scales. That would be just“—he made a gagging face— “disgusting.”
Aaaannnnnd there Martin’s mind took a side trip into imagining scaled beings making more scaled beings and having a lot of fun in the process. He barely managed to accept quietly conversing with a dem… Dreckon. “For the love of all that’s holy, can we please focus?”
Four different beings from three distinct realms, and Martin visiting Peter by magical means. What if he hadn’t visited Peter? What if Peter had summoned Martin?
Xariel stopped twinkling at Dmitri while Dmitri backed off on his glowering a bit, and Garamel tipped his head back, opened his mouth, and dropped in something slimy.
Martin wanted his old life back, without priests, without Dreckons, and definitely with no knowledge of other realms.
Dmitri broke the awkward silence. “Our few remaining priests have been quietly building wards to trap Thomoth in the temple.
Xariel nodded. “What we should have done last time.” He turned to the Dreckon. “Garamel, it won’t expect us to have sided with you. Thomoth has accumulated an abundance of magic. Your kind consume magic. Bring all your people that you can, and prepare to feast. But you are not to harm any of our kind or Martin’s. Is that understood?”
“And if we win?” Garamel asked, pouring a whole lot of hope into the words.
Martin fixed a steely glare on each of them in turn. Here was the impasse. If he was the key to defeating Thomoth, he had a right to a few demands. “I want to keep the magic for my world. Xariel wants it for his, as do you, Garamel.Ifwe win, then we share the magic.”
“What if there’s only enough for one realm?” Xariel looked down his long nose, arms folded over his chest.
