Hunt the Darkness

Chapter Eighteen

Sally stared at the cool, beautiful face even as she battled back the stupid urge to cry.

“Let me see if I have this right.” She was relieved when her voice came out mocking instead of pathetic. Hey, a girl had her pride, didn’t she? “You lured my mother into your bed so you could have sex with her and create a child who would grow up to be the magical key you need to release you from your prison.”

Sariel dipped his head in agreement. “Precisely.”

Sally abruptly turned her head to glance over the meadow filled with fragrant flowers and fluttering butterflies.

“Why am I not surprised?” she muttered.

There was a faint rustle of silk, then her supposed father was standing directly in front of her. As if he was annoyed she might find something more interesting than his glorious beauty.

“I do not understand.”

She forced herself to meet his amber gaze. “My mother needed an heir to carry on her legacy. Why wouldn’t my father be a desperate imp in need of a magical key?”

He blinked, the jade flecks in his eyes shimmering with outrage.

“Imp?”

Sally frowned in confusion. “Isn’t that what you are?”

“Certainly not.”

“You said I now have fey blood.”

“I said pure fey blood,” he corrected.

“What’s the difference?”

“Only the Chatri can claim to have blood that is pure,” he said, giving a dismissive wave of his hand. “Imps, fairies, sprites, and the rest are lesser fey.”

Sally felt her chin drop, her breath locked in her lungs as she stared at Sariel in shock.

“You’re a . . . Chatri?”

He peered down the length of his regal nose. “I am their king.”

Ah. Of course he was.

She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

“I thought you left the world centuries ago?”

“We returned to our homelands when our children began to seek mates among the lesser fey,” he confessed, his nose flaring as if he could smell something nasty. “We could not allow our race to become corrupted.”

This from a man who’d slept with a strange witch just to make a metaphoric key?

“Then how did you become imprisoned?”

Something that might have been annoyance darkened his amber eyes. Or was it embarrassment?

“I remained behind to close the doorways. I was distracted and vulnerable to an age-old enemy I had thought we’d sealed off from the world.”

“Who?”

He brushed off her question with a shrug. “I will explain all once I am free.”

Yep. Embarrassment.

The mighty king clearly didn’t want to discuss how he came to be taken by an enemy he considered beneath him.

Of course, Sally sensed this man considered most creatures beneath him.

Including her.

“What am I supposed to do?”

“Use the map on the box.”

“Oh.” She held up the box in her hand. Foolishly, she hadn’t connected the two. “Did you make this?”

“Naturally.”

Sally snorted. There was no naturally about it.

“How did it end up at the cottage?”

A brilliant butterfly landed on his shoulder, adding to his sense of otherworldliness.

“I hid it among your mother’s belongings when she left,” he said.

Sally paused, remembering back to the day she’d found the box on the rubbish heap. She’d just assumed that it’d been left behind by the previous owners.

“My mother must have been the one to throw it away,” she muttered.

His shrug sent the butterfly fluttering into the air. “It would not matter what she did with it, the magic was bound to you.”

She grimaced. How much magic had been attached to her before she’d ever been born?

Her mother’s sorcery spell. Her father’s GPS spell.

She hoped to hell she didn’t have any grandparents who’d gotten in on the action.

“Fantastic,” she muttered.

Sariel ignored her sarcasm. “The map is etched on the box. You must follow it to release me.”

Sally stilled. Okay. What was she missing?

“Why do I have to follow some treasure map when you’re standing right here?”

He lifted a hand to wave it toward the sun-filled meadow. “My powers allow me to create a mirage that appears real to others.”

“So this is all an illusion?” Sally demanded in disbelief.

She would have sworn on her favorite book of spells that this was real.

She could hear the sound of birds singing in the distant trees, she could feel the brush of the breeze and the heat of the sun on her skin. She could smell the heady scent of fine wine.

That sort of texture didn’t happen in an illusion, did it?

“Rather more than that, but the term will suffice,” her father said. “My physical body is trapped in a portal between this world and another.”

Her gaze lowered to the box she clutched in her hand. “And the map will lead me to you?”

“Yes.”

The glyphs continued to glow, the fluid angles and curves shimmering with magic.

“You realize I can’t read the glyphs?” she muttered.

“You will,” he said with an arrogant assurance that grated on her already raw nerves.

“You’re standing right there, whether you’re real or not,” she snapped. “Why don’t you just tell me how to get to you?”

He was shaking his head before she finished. “The portal is not a human tunnel from one place to another. It is made of magic that . . . floats.”

Sally frowned. “What does that mean?”

“It doesn’t remain in the same place.” He pointed toward the box. “The glyphs are carved with my power. They will always be capable of finding me.”

His confidence that she would rush to fulfill her destiny didn’t do anything to ease her temper.

As far as he was concerned she was just a tool he’d created to pick the lock on his prison cell.

It didn’t matter to him that her life had been a brutal battle for survival. That she’d been fighting one enemy after another . . .

Abruptly reminded of her most recent battle, she narrowed her eyes to glare at the finely carved face.

“And what about the psycho demon who’s been trying to get his hands on the box?”

She expected dismissal at her welfare; instead a vibrant anger darkened the amber eyes.

“You allowed another to know about our secret communication?”

“It wasn’t a matter of letting him know,” she said. “I never saw him before Levet removed the layers of illusion from the box and glyphs started glowing like a neon sign.”

The scent of wine saturated the air, Sariel clearly not pleased with her explanation.

“Who is Levet?”

“A gargoyle who has helped me more than once.”

He was indifferent to her pointed reminder that there were demons who’d actually thought she was worth trying to protect.

Demons like Roke.

Her heart clenched with a sharp, near debilitating need to be in his arms.

“Who else knows of the box?”

She shrugged. “The vampires.”

He hissed out a low breath. “You have put me in great danger.”

“I’ve put you in danger?” She shook her head at his total self-absorption. She’d thought her mother was a narcissist, but she was an amateur when compared to Daddy Dearest. “I’m the one who has nearly been killed twice by the lunatic demon. Does he have something to do with you?”

He ignored her question, along with any concern for her safety.

“You must use the map to find me,” he commanded, taking a step back, then another. “Until then.”

The charming meadow began to fade around the edges, as if it was collapsing on itself.

At the same time her father was growing more and more distant.

Crap.

Her father was about to disappear and she hadn’t even asked him how she’d managed to mate with a vampire, let alone how to break it.

If the weird demon didn’t kill her, Roke would.

“Wait . ..”

Roke earned his title of being a stubborn SOB.

If someone gave him an answer he didn’t like, he simply waited until they gave him the one he wanted.

Even if the waiting included some broken bones, some blood, and a whole lot of tears.

Standing in silence as Troy tried to explain to him all the reasons he couldn’t open the portal or use his fey magic to locate Sally, he at last lifted a hand to halt the useless chatter.

“There has to be some way to trace her,” he insisted, his arms folded over his chest.

Sunrise was less than an hour away.

He intended to have his mate in his arms before that happened.

Troy heaved a frustrated sigh. “If she’s your mate, you should be able to sense her location, shouldn’t you?”

Roke hissed, the absence of Sally a raw wound that was slowly destroying him.

“It’s being . . . muffled,” he admitted in bleak tones.

Troy narrowed his emerald gaze. “Then she’s either using a spell to mask her location—”

“No,” Roke denied.

Sally wouldn’t be hiding from him.

But what if she still believed he’d deliberately abandoned her in the mines, a treacherous voice whispered in the back of his mind.

Maybe she was so pissed she was trying to avoid him.

Or worse . . . frightened.

No. That he couldn’t bear.

“Or she’s in another dimension,” Troy offered, thankfully distracting his dark thoughts.

“Can fey move between dimensions?” he asked.

Troy hesitated before giving a grudging nod. That was no doubt another one of those secrets the fey preferred to keep off the record.

“Only the very powerful,” he admitted. “But why would she want to?”

It was a question that made his fangs ache. “She had to have been forced.”

Troy looked baffled. “By who?”

“It could be one of the fey,” he muttered. “Or the damned Miera demon who’s been chasing us.”

The imp shook his head. “A Miera can’t manipulate portals.”

Roke made a sound of impatience, resuming his pacing as he struggled against the tidal wave of frustration.

“This was no normal Miera.”

Styx stepped forward, his large body consuming more than its fair share of space.

“Perhaps you can clear up a mystery.”

Troy preened, his emerald eyes promising all sorts of sensual pleasures.

“I am an imp of many talents.”

Styx ignored Troy’s blatant invitation. This was obviously not his first time dealing with the annoying twit.

“What sort of demon feeds off fey magic?” he asked.

Roke halted his pacing at the same time Troy gave a startled grunt of disbelief.

“Are you serious?” the imp rasped, his expression troubled.

“Never more serious,” Styx assured him.

“None that I know of,” Troy slowly said.

Styx frowned. “You’re certain?”

“Let me rephrase that.” In the blink of an eye, Troy’s act of a frivolous fool was gone and in his place was a cunning fey prince who made an art form of being underestimated. “There are no official demons who admit to feasting on fey magic.”

Styx snorted. “There are unofficial demons?”

Troy shrugged. “The humans have their Big Foot and Loch Ness Monster, we have our Nebule.”

Roke hissed in disgust, realizing he’d had the answer all along.

Shit. Why hadn’t he put this together sooner?

“That’s it,” he snarled.

Styx turned to eye him in confusion. “What?”

“On the box. The glyphs mentioned mist people,” he said, shoving his fingers through his hair. “It struck a memory at the time, but I couldn’t pinpoint it.”

“Explain,” Styx commanded in clipped tones.

It was Troy who answered.

“The fey have a folktale that there were a species of demons who are capable of taking any physical shape they want.”

Styx didn’t look impressed. “There are a few rare vampires who can alter their shape. They can even mist walk.”

Troy shook his head. “These aren’t vampires. They’re an entire race of people who are made of nothing but mist until they can drain a fey and use their magic to take a physical form.”

“That’s why they kill fey?” Styx asked.

Troy gave a nod of agreement. “They have no magic of their own. They must steal ours.”

Roke had run across a description of the “mist people” when he was doing research on extinct races of demons. There had been little more than a vague reference to a species who were made of mist and hunted the fey.

“What else can they do?” he asked.

Troy grimaced. “It was said that they have a strange power to vibrate the air.”

“Shit.” Roke glanced toward his king. “That’s exactly how he attacked us. Those vibrations nearly turned our insides to mush.”

Styx considered a long minute. “That wouldn’t be fatal to a vampire.”

“No, but it’s debilitating,” Roke said. “It weakened me to the point that I didn’t realize the bastard had shot me full of blood thinner and silver.” A muscle in his jaw tightened until he could barely speak. “And it might easily be fatal to Sally.”

The Anasso was grim as he returned his attention to Troy. “Where can we find these Nebule?”

“Our stories claim that the Chatri drove the last of them from our world before they returned to their homelands.” Troy smiled without humor. “But of course, there are always rumors that a few survived, and that they lurk among us just waiting for an opportunity to strike. I always assumed they were boogeyman tales used to frighten our young.”

“That doesn’t answer my question,” Styx growled.

“Because I have no answer.” Troy glanced toward Roke. “Do you know why he was attacking you specifically?”

“He wanted Sally’s box.”

Troy furrowed his brow. “The box? I don’t . . . oh, wait.”

Roke stepped toward the imp, desperate for any information that might help him locate his mate.

He needed her next to him . . . in his arms.

And she was never leaving his side again.

Period.

“What is it?” he snapped.

The emerald eyes were sparkling with a barely suppressed excitement.

“Tell me, does the box glow?”

Roke balled his hands into fists. It was that or grabbing the imp and shaking him for answers.

“Yes.”

“Oh, my God.” Something that looked like wonderment settled on Troy’s pale face. “It’s the magic.”

Roke growled deep in his throat. He should have destroyed the damned thing the minute they realized it was more than just a trinket.

“You said the box didn’t have magic.”

“It doesn’t contain a magical spell. Or the ability to create magic on its own,” Troy clarified, appearing far too eager. “But if it’s still bound to a Chatri, then a Nebule would be able to suck the magic from the connection.”

Fear exploded through Roke. Goddammit. He had to get to his mate. The need was clawing through him with a relentless agony.

“You’re saying this box might still be under the control of a Chatri?”

“Yes.” Troy tried and failed to disguise his rising anticipation. “My collection has the glyphs that were created by my forefathers, but now they’re just scratches in the wood. They no longer channel any magic.”

Roke cursed, indifferent to the distant fountain that crumbled to dust as his power spread through the area.

“Why would some Chatri be screwing with Sally?”

Troy’s lips parted, then with a startled gasp he was jerking around to stare at the precise spot where Roke had been tossed out of the portal.

“I think we’re about to find out.”

His words had barely left his lips when there was an odd tingle in the air and Sally tumbled out of midair.

Roke was charging forward and had her in his arms before she could hit the ground.