“Who’s out there?” the man’s voice shouts, but I’m gone.
This time I head down. Down, down, down. The warmth of Bunny’s fire vanishes and I’m plunged into freezing temperatures. The scrape of metal catches my attention. My feet stick to the floor and I glance down, looking at the dark, congealed fluid. A groan—low and painful—ricochets down the hall. A sick feeling lodges in my throat and I know, I know what is behind the bars at the far end of the wall.
Footsteps echo down the stairwell, angry commands. I can’t go down the hall—can’t see what’s waiting down there. I also can’t go back up. I press against the wall and close my eyes, wake up, wake up, wake up….
My eyes pop open. It’s daylight and my bed is a soft cushion beneath me. My hands tremble—fingertips cold. The dream was so real. More so than any I’d had before. I sit, feeling a presence in the room. Not human. Not Dylan. No, magic. Magic filled that dream. It was sent to me. By the Shaman? By the Queen? I don’t know, but I now have a timeline. Tonight or tomorrow the gate will be open and Bunny will try to pass through.
I slip from the bed, figuring out how I’m going to get everything in motion. It’s going to take a lot more than magic to make this happen.
Chapter 17
Dylan
I doze in the chair outside Morgan’s room. Half in, half out of sleep. I’m tugged fully awake by what feels like a shift—magical in nature. I hold my breath and listen, but there’s nothing and no one unexpected in the house.
I hear the click of the lock before the door opens. My main emotions lately have been frustrated and angry. Exhaustion outweighs both of those. But looking up at the tense, hungry expression on Morgan’s face and the thin pajamas she’s wearing catches my full attention.
“Keeping watch?” she says.
“I’m just worried.” I sit straighter in the chair. “Something’s building. Do you feel it?”
She nods and stands directly before me. Her T-shirt is so thin it may as well be a second skin. Her shorts leave nothing to the imagination. She’s bare beneath both and if she’s trying to knock me off my game, it’s working.
Her lips are pink and her hair is a curly mess around her head. Energy vibrates off of her—the same one she’s struggled with for months. She basically needs to feed, and my body reacts accordingly.
She steps forward, our knees touching. “Do you trust me?” she asks.
“Always.”
“Even when I do things like last night—wandering off on my own?”
I touch her hip. “That’s not about trust. That’s about safety.”
She licks her bottom lip. “Do you understand that sometimes I have to do things on my own? Make my own way in this battle with the Morrigan?”
She’s asking a lot of questions, but her scent, her proximity, and that damn tight shirt are making it hard as hell to focus. It only gets worse when she tugs at the string holding up her shorts and they fall to the floor. Blood rushes from my brain, building to an ache between my legs. I swallow and skim my thumb over the flesh of her hip. “What are you trying to tell me?”
“The time has come for me to deal with the Morrigan. You’ve trained me. You’ve educated me. I’m as ready as I ever will be.”
I shake my head, fighting through the fog of lust. “We need more time—we don’t even have access to the gate.”
Her hands reach for my belt. Mine go to her ass. I knead the skin as her fingers unleash me from my pants. A graze of fingertips sends a jolt through my body, I pull her on top of me, her legs straddled over mine, our bodies hot and wet against one another.
I push at the hem of her shirt, moving it over her head. I take her left nipple with my mouth, her right with my fingers. She exhales, resting her chin on my head.
She whispers, “When I get the gate open you have to stay here. Do you understand? We’ll need someone on this side of the realm to keep watch—to be ready for our return.”
She lifts up and my cock follows her like a magnet, angled up. She lowers herself quickly and I clench my jaw, feeling the most intense connection between us. I can’t speak, I just listen as she tells me her plans in a breathless rush. “You’re the anchor, Dylan. The rock that keeps us tied to this world.”
I nod, even though my brain knows it’s a fool’s errand. There’s no way she’ll get the gate open any time soon. My research has come to a screeching halt. But she’s got me mesmerized with the rocking of her hips and in her sheath of tight warmth. “You’re the bond,” I tell her, our lips touching as we move together. I will do everything in my power to keep her safe, to protect her role in the future.
Her dark eyes lock with mine, holding as the pleasure builds. There’s no question in her voice as she says, “You’ll follow my command and together we will shut down the Darkness. Shut the bitch down.”
I’m not a weak man. I’m a warrior. I’ve killed and slayed, but as the ecstasy jolts between us, an intensity of magic, lust and power, a different kind of thrill overtakes me. My Queen is here. Commanding. Demanding even as she succumbs, crying loud enough to echo the bottom floors of The Nead. Shockwaves roll through her body. She bites my lip, trembling, and I cling to her like a lifeline from one world to the next.
I spill inside of her, our bodies twitching in kind. Warmth runs through my veins—her cheeks are red. I hold her face between my hands and say, “As you wish,” although I have no idea what the next days will hold.
She smiles, regal and wise, a different look than I’ve seen on her before, and says, “Thank you, Guardian. Soon we will rule the world together.”
Chapter 18
Morgan
He follows me to my room and I ask questions. So many questions.
“Tell me everything about the Otherside. Tell me about the Morrigan. How did you get away? What are her soldiers like? The dungeons. Describe the dungeons.”
Dylan grits his teeth and answers, out of obligation. Hesitation tugs on every word—each answer. It goes on for hours.
“In her realm, the Morrigan looks like a woman. A queen. Her castle is where she spends the majority of her time as the lands around it are desolate and spoiled.”
“Why is it so cold?”
He shrugs. “In general, I think she wishes it to be that way, but I have theories that go back to her relationship with Cu. When she was a young goddess falling in love. There’s a heat to passion and when she shifted and embraced her title as Queen of Ravens, her blood ran cold. She thrives on it.”
“So she’s afraid of heat?”
“She’s afraid of everything.”
“Tell me about the dungeons,” I ask, leaning forward.
“Do you want to know about the dungeons or about the prisoners in them?”
He can’t say their names. I’m not sure I can, either.