“And then... he was on top of me. He held a knife to my chest. But instead of killing me, he claimed me. He proposed.”
Cera’s jaw dropped. “He did what?”
Bael’s voice rumbled from the bench he lay on. “I claimed her. I gave her Elissa’s ring.”
Cera looked like she was about to faint. “Does that mean...” She stammered.
“There will be no wedding,” said Bael.
Cera’s hand flew to her mouth. “So you won’t need a dress—”
“No,” said Ursula and Bael at the same time.
Cera’s brow furrowed. “But what happens now? We can’t stay in the Shadow Realm if the lords all mean to kill you.”
Ursula took a deep breath. “Now, we go to New York.”
Cera frowned. “How do we get there? I thought the lord told you. No one can travel to or from the Shadow Realm without the god’s permission.”
Ursula’s ribs hummed with the void’s dark magic, and that strange certainty whispered through the hollows of her mind. “I’m not worried about Nyxobas’s permission anymore. He will grant it. I know it.”
The carriage soared through the dark sky, and she glanced out the window. Earth blazed bright in the sky, a perfect jewel of green and blue.
As the carriage soared through the night sky, Ursula knelt in front of Bael, watching his chest rise and fall slowly. She scanned his menacing tattoos—the thunderbolt, the crescent moon with its lethally sharp points, the four-pointed star.
Swallowing hard, she looked at the deep wound, just above his hipbone. Guilt pressed on her chest, stealing her breath. How could he heal, if he wouldn’t use any healing magic on himself? When they got to New York, maybe she’d have to sew him up. Not like she was a surgeon, but she wasn’t entirely sure he’d agree to a hospital visit.
His eyes opened and he fixed his pale gaze on her, studying her.
She bit her lip. “Why did you drop your weapon when you charged?”
He didn’t answer. He just let his eyes close.
Her body wracked with fatigue, Ursula leaned against his shoulder, listening to his slow breathing as the carriage carried them back to Abelda Manor. His skin was soft as silk, even if his form was pure muscled steel.
At last, they touched down on solid ground, and she lifted her head from Bael’s shoulder. He seemed to be completely passed out, and there was no way she and Cera could carry him.
“Can you wake him?” asked Cera.
Ursula brushed her finger across his cheek. “Bael?”
Slowly, his eyelids opened, and he surveyed her with his icy stare. “Is there a reason you keep talking to me when I’m trying to sleep?”
“We’re here. At Abelda. I don’t think we can carry you.”
He nodded, then pushed up onto his elbows with a grunt. Cera flung open the carriage door and hopped out, holding it open for them. Bael leaned against her as she helped him from the carriage and into the lift. The lunar wind stung her skin through her blood-soaked clothes.
Once inside, Bael leaned against the elevator’s bars for support, and the lift creaked down past one deserted floor after another. It must kill Bael to say goodbye to this place. And all he’d needed to do was push the knife in.
The lift touched down and she pulled Bael’s arm over her shoulder, straining to help him walk from the atrium into the portal room. Once inside, Bael leaned back against a wall, catching his breath.
“We’re going to have to take off our clothes,” Ursula declared.
Before she’d finished her sentence, Cera had already stripped off and jumped in, clinging on to the side of the portal.
Bael didn’t move.
“Do you need help?”
“No,” he snarled.
“Fine.” As her muscles shook with fatigue, she stripped off her clothes. Her bloodstained trousers, the thick leather corset and boots—acutely aware with every movement that Bael’s eyes might be on her body.
Goosebumps rose over her skin, and she folded her arms.
When she looked back at Bael over her shoulder, he was staring at her, but his gaze quickly flicked away.
Her cheeks flushed. “Hurry up.”
For a twenty-two thousand-year-old night demon, Bael was shy.
She jumped in, clinging to the portal’s side, just like Cera. The icy water chilled her to the bone, and she averted her gaze as Bael stripped off his clothes. She felt his silky, muscled body brush against hers as he plunged into the pool. She let herself drift underwater, enveloped by the cold.
She found Bael’s powerful hand and slipped her fingers into his.
Nyxobas. She let the thought rise in her mind like a voice. Grant us permission to leave. To return home, to Earth.
She felt his inky magic spool through her body, coiling through her muscles, dragging her deeper into the water. Deep under the surface, she held her breath, carried by the god of night. And at last—she saw light piercing the water.
Golden light—the honeyed tones of an earthly sunset.
With Bael’s hand clasping her own, she swam for the surface. At last, her head breached the water, and she sucked in a deep breath, staring at the warm glow over Central Park.
New York City. Home.