In the Beginning... (64 page)

She wasn’t just screaming because of the damned
plants in her head now.

Purple mist was tugging at her, in ways he had never
seen. Purple mist unlike that which was supposed to transport so
many of his people to the other worlds. Those clouds were a dark
green and a brackish gray. Not this strange purple. And he’d never
seen a portkey pull someone in. Not like that.

He reached her just as Jareth, and Barlaam, and
someone else—Adrastos, he thought—started cutting at the ether.

It would do no damned good. You couldn’t cut what
had no damned substance. Instead, he focused his attention on the
girl.

She was on the floor now, trying to crawl away from
the binds of mist tugging on her. He would never forget the terror
on her face. Not in the rest of his days, would he forget how she
had looked at him with pleading in her eyes. Pleading to save her
from the threat she just was too damned human to understand. How
much did she even know about the people surrounding her?

He couldn’t battle back the grasping ether, but he
could touch her. He might be able to forcibly separate her from the
damned whatever it was. He grabbed her under the arms and yanked
her from the floor. The mist clawed at his feet. But it no longer
touched his
Rajni
. “Wrap your arms around me. Now!”

“Nal! Give her here!” It was Aodhan, reaching for
her, ready to take his wife’s cousin. To save her, despite the fact
that he was now surrounded to the waist. “Hurry!”

He would have to toss her, but he knew that Aodhan
would catch her. The warrior rarely missed at anything. “Take
her!”

The mist was growing, surrounding them both. He
almost lost sight of Aodhan. The girl was clinging to him too hard
for him to throw her to the other man. Her fingers dug into his
skin and she kicked and bucked, trying to move them both further
from whatever was attacking her.

“Cassandra! Hold still!”

She seemed to hear him; her struggles ceased. Her
arms wrapped around his neck, her legs his hips. She laid her head
against his neck.

The utter faith and trust in her sudden action had
him almost sick. He pushed that aside. Tried to pull out of the
mist. He could still hear her family screaming around them. But it
was muted now. He lunged, toward where he thought the east wall of
the hotel lobby should have been. Toward safety.

Chapter Five

The screams in her head stopped.

Equan
Black landed on her, his big body
nearly crushing her. She fought the urge to cling to him. He was
big and safe and warm, and like it or not, everything that looked
at him was probably frightened out of their minds.

His hands were on her back, and he rolled slightly,
shifting his weight off of her. She dropped one hand to the floor
beside her as the last of the purple mist drifted away.

She’d never been so terrified. All she’d been able
to hear was the dying world around her, the trees and plants
screaming as they were scorched beyond hope. Since the moment she
had been in the gardens with this man and first heard the fire
approaching from so far away. It had driven her almost mad.

Now...now she heard birds. The floor beneath her
hand wasn’t a carpet or rug. It was grass. Had they made it to the
demon world? Why had the purple cloud pulled at her the way it had?
Was that normal? Mallory and Emily had explained to her what was
going to happen today, but this didn’t sound like what they said it
was supposed to be. If it was, why had he grabbed her? Why had
Mallory screamed her name the way she had?

“Where are we?”

He looked at her—glared at her, really. Fear
streaked through her. It always did when he looked at her just like
that, although she didn’t normally find him frightening. Just a bit
sad, a bit lonely. Except when he had that look in his eyes. It
reminded her of a wolf, like the one Aodhan had tamed as a pet.
Somewhat wild, untamed. Capable of ripping someone to pieces and
enjoying it. “I don’t have a damned clue.”

She looked around, but kept herself half under him.
Like it or not, he was the familiar. “It doesn’t look like
Colorado.”

“It doesn’t look like fucking Gaia.”

“Excuse me?” She ignored the cursing. She’d
certainly heard worse from her cousins, her uncles. “I don’t know
what you mean by Gaia.”

“How much did that sister of yours keep you in the
dark? Don’t you know where you’ve been living this past year?”
Derision was very clear for her to hear in his words and it had her
protective instincts rising.

Everyone had noticed how he avoided her sister as
much as he could. Even she had, and she’d never understood. When
asked, Emily had just brushed it off, saying that Nalik Black had
been through hell, and would get used to the Tanisses around him
eventually. Her sister had been deliberately vague, Cass realized
now. “Why do you hate my sister?”

“Haven’t figured it out yet, sweetie? I hate your
whole damned family.” He stood and grabbed her wrist. She fought a
squeal when he yanked her to her feet. “Listen, girl. And listen
very well. I’m responsible for you now, no matter how much that
pisses me off.”

“I didn’t ask you to be.” Wounded pride had her
pulling her hand back. “Just point me in the right direction and
I’ll head home right now. I never asked to go to Dardanos in the
first place. But no one, no one, ever considered that.”

“Poor baby. You could have said something to your
precious daddy or uncles. You didn’t have to stay in that pretty
hotel, with your pretty little family all around you while you did
nothing more tedious than planting your pretty little flowers and
got your hair done now and then.”

Why hadn’t she ever realized that this man hated
her? He’d never looked at her quite the way he did now. “Just help
me go home and I won’t bother you again. Where are we?”

“Well, we’re definitely not in Colorado anymore. At
least not the one you’re probably used to.”

She stepped away from him and his glare darkened.
Hadn’t it been night when they’d been in the lobby of the hotel? It
was more twilight wherever they were. “What are we going to
do?”

“Pretty baby of the family been pampered so much you
can’t make a decision?”

She spun away from him and started down the small
hill they’d...landed...on. What had she done to him to bring this
out of him? Why had he come to her when she’d screamed if he hated
her so? Or was he somehow responsible for whatever had happened?
Was that even likely? He’d done nothing to her in the year since
he’d returned to Dardanos. “I’ve decided to find my own way
back.”

“Don’t be stupid, child. You think that if I show up
without you it will make my life any easier?” His hand was hot and
hard on her shoulder when he grabbed her. She kept walking; Cass
would not let him know how he’d affected her. “Stop walking.”

She did, then faced him. His hand fell away. “Look,
I don’t know where I’m at or what happened or how to get home. I’m
more than a little scared and worried. I don’t know if
that...cloud...will come back and take me someplace else, or
whether it took my cousins or my sister or anyone else. I don’t
know why it came straight for me, and most of all I don’t know why
you are so cruel to me when I’ve done nothing to you. So either
keep your hands and your stupid mouth to yourself or you help me
figure out just what it is that we are supposed to do.”

“You’re not quite as nice as you look, are you?”

“I’m not naïve or an idiot, if that’s what you’re
asking.” She was quiet not stupid. Why couldn’t people seem to
understand that?

“I’ve never thought you were an idiot. Young,
foolish, naïve, and spoiled. Being who you are, of course.”

“I’m none of those things, except for young. I’ll be
twenty-two soon. My mother had my sister by that age.”

“Most of my people don’t leave the nest until they
are twenty-four or twenty-five. Excuse me for thinking you were
still a child.” Pure sarcasm from him now. Sarcasm that made her
want to hit him.

Cass had never wanted to hit someone before. It made
her feel almost nauseated to think about it. “Just leave me
alone.”

“Can’t do that.”

“Then just shut up until we get where we’re going,
please.”

***

Why was he needling the girl so much? She was
right—his
Rajni
didn’t deserve his ire. She shivered in the
almost frigid temperatures. Why hadn’t he realized she was cold?
Human girls were just as susceptible to hypothermia as Dardaptoan,
weren’t they?

He’d never cared to know much about humans. He’d
been marked as a
Predatoi
at a very young age, and as a
hunter of demons, his skills had been focused in that area.

But what mattered was that his
Rajni
was in
need.

And it was his moral duty to provide that need. How
could he not? He pulled the cape from around his shoulders and
wrapped it around hers. She tried to refuse, but he growled
again.

“Keep it, girl. I have little need for it, and it
will just get in my way if the time comes when I needst draw my
sword.” A lie, of course. He’d fought many a battle dressed with a
cape. His black cape nearly swallowed the girl alive, slight as she
was. She was so damned vulnerable, standing there with the
stubbornness of idiotic pride on her face. What was he supposed to
do with her now? “Go east, over that hill. There are smells that
mean a city coming from that direction.”

“You can tell that?”

“Of course I can damned well tell. I wouldn’t have
told you to go that way if I couldn’t, now would I?” There was
something off in the distance, and experience told him what it was.
Smell told him even more; yes, his sense of smell was enhanced.
Thanks to her damned grandfather. Some of the DNA Taniss had
mingled with Nalik’s had increased his ability to pick up on the
smallest scent on the air.

This time the old bastard’s experimentation would
come in handy. Damn the irony of it all. What would the old bastard
have thought if he knew that his gifts to Nalik would be used to
protect his granddaughter?

“What are we going to do once we get there?”

Good question. Because whether she knew it or not,
he was not taking her into the city within him while he figured out
where they were. It wasn’t safe and he could find out far more
without her in his way. No, the first chance he could, he’d be
tucking her away someplace safe.

The sun of whatever realm they were in—and he’d
known right away that they’d jumped to one of the seventeen other
realms—was sinking. One peculiar thing about the realms that
surrounded the core of dirt that was the third planet, was that the
realms didn’t appear the same, though the land masses were
generally similar.

In his home the continents had splintered and
shifted. In Relaklonos the continents had drifted slightly and
eroded, but they hadn’t spit from each other. And Relaklonos was
generally a few degrees different than Gaia, affecting the general
sea level of the demon lands.

There were still other realms he’d not explored,
though he’d traveled to seven other than Gaia.

He and his brother had had quite a lot of fun
hopping between realms for the fifty or so years before Iavius had
met his Rajni.

Dragging Kindara into strange places had not been
something either of them had wanted. A Rajni was to be protected,
at all costs. Iavius had done his best before Taniss had killed
him. But not before this girl’s grandfather had tortured Kindara
almost to the point of death. Iavius’s child had died within his
mother.

But Kindara had lived, when most
Rajnis
died
within a few days of each other.

She’d lived to now rule the demon world Nalik and
her once mate had hunted in. She’d lived, found someone to replace
his brother, and now nursed the next king of that demon world at
her breast.

Damn the irony of it all.

His
Rajni
tripped, the cape too long, and the
approaching darkness too much for her pitiful human sight. He
grabbed her shoulder once again. He’d steady her, so that they both
could get to where they needed to go.

Because it was evident to him that wherever that
city was, they would not be reaching it tonight. Not at the pace
she could keep.

He’d have to find her shelter and start a fire to
warm her. Find her some type of food fit for a human. The
responsibility he didn’t want pushed in on him.

Being responsible for something increased the
likelihood of failure.

He’d fail his
Rajni
, he had no doubt about
that. He just didn’t need the when turning into now.

Also available from Lost

Rathan and Kindara

in

Awakening the Demon’s Queen

Hours of planning would culminate in just a
few moments, and Rathan Malickus felt the tension and adrenaline
coursing through his body. It had been years since he’d had any
such adventure.

“You are sure this is who you seek, then?”
he asked of the second man waiting upon the mountain that
overlooked the small town of Dardano, Colorado.

“Yes.” Rand Taniss kept his lupine eyes
focused on the headlights traveling away from the town. Only one
car was visible on the small highway for many miles. That car was
their target. “Jambu said these two are the closest to the king and
his advisers.”

Rathan nodded. “Vengeance is entertaining,
is it not?”

“That’s not what I would call it.”

Rathan shrugged. He viewed things
differently than the once-human Rand. Demons lived for things such
as vengeance. That it wasn’t his vengeance, but Rand’s that he
sought mattered little. “Ah, but you are Lupoiux, not Demon.”

“They are getting closer. Do you remember
what to do?” Rand smirked, alluding to the running joke between the
two about Rathan’s considerable age.