Page 46 of All Hallows Fate

Tor extended his middle finger in slow motion. “I was clearly talking to Peach.” He bent over me to plant a kiss on her furry head. “So where’s this summoning circle of yours?”

“It’s not mine,” Hunger replied airily, if it was possible for someone with a thunder-deep voice to speak airily. “It belongs to the domain. I’m just its guardian.”

“Don’t be a pretentious douchebag.”

Hunger’s eyes flared, his head rearing back in offense, but he paused abruptly. “What exactly is a douche?”

“Don’t look at me,” I said when Tor frowned at me. “You’re the one who said it.”

“I heard some cool guys in leather jackets saying it ten years ago in New Jersey,” he replied defensively. “How am I supposed to know what a douche is?”

“Handsome, I presume, since it’s referring to me,” Hunger cut in, eyeing a smear of dirt Tor had tracked in. I had a feeling a full house clean would find its way onto that itemised list.

“A douche is something you use to clean your ass,” Cat said, to seismic shock, and Hunger’s abject horror.

“You’re calling me a rectal cleaner?” he demanded. “Worse! The receptacle of a rectal cleaner. I’ve never once been so insulted in my existence.”

Tor pinched the bridge of his nose. “I apologise from the very bottom of my heart. You’re not a douchebag. You’re a dickhead. That’s a knob that grows from your forehead, in case it was ambiguous. Can you show me the summoning circle now? Please.”

“Well.” Hunger harrumphed. “You’re a clitorishead. Far less impressive than a dickhead.”

“Actually, clits have far more nerve endings,” Madness said, slinging an arm over Cat’s shoulders and beaming at us. “They can come a bunch of times unlike boring mortal cocks, and they can’t take down a fully grown adult with a single hit unlike a dick.”

“I dislike you intensely,” Hunger hissed, his brows forming flat lines over dark chocolate eyes.

“Aww.” Madde pouted, flinging himself at Hunger and wrestling the taller man into a hug. “Don’t lie. You lurrrve me.”

“I am as fond of you as a rash on a bollock.”

“Ha! I taught you that word.” Madde grinned. To Cat, he said, “He totally likes me.”

“Yeah,” Cat agreed with the ghost of a smile. My heart faltered, then sank. Pain was outside with Death, trying to mitigate his suffering with one of his many potions and concoctions. That was all we could do now his decay had progressed so far—mitigate.

Hunger’s irritation softened into something warm and sympathetic when his gaze alighted on Cat. “Judgement. How are you adjusting to your second life?”

She shrugged. “I’ll be a lot better when we’ve got a cure for Death.”

“I’ll escort you to the summoning circle,” he offered, genteel manners replacing the scowling irritation we inspired in him. “It’s just beyond the grounds of my home.”

Cat’s expression killed me. So did the hollow pain I felt through the bond, nothing like her usual warmth.

“Here,” I said, handing Peach over. “You need her as much as I do.”

Cat leaned up to kiss my jaw, Peach’s curious stare putting a mild smile on her face. It lasted all of two seconds before reality swept back in like the tide of a storming ocean.

Together, we followed Hunger through the alternatingly manicured and wild grounds of his estate, to where the next item on Cat’s list awaited us.

30

Cat

It took a Herculean effort not to clench my hands. Our twenty minute trek led us down winding paths and up sloping gardens rampant with wildflowers, past follies that resembled towers and cathedrals and pale brick arches. Then around a reflection pool populated with ghostly koi carp, before finally spitting us out on a slope above a stone circle so reminiscent of Stonehenge, I had to check we were still in Death’s domain.

“Should the stones be broken?” I asked, trying not to panic. Every single slab of grey stone that made up the summoning circle had a horizontal crack through the middle, mist bleeding like a waterfall from each fracture.

“No,” Hunger replied quietly, angrily. “And it wasn’t like this last week.”

“Violence did this,” I seethed, rage inflaming the kindling of my judgement. Power crested from me, pouring down the hill into the grassy basin, swirling around the base of each stone. “He was here.”