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“I’m afraid I believe the witch more than you.” Luka winked at me. “I don’t mean to be impolite after your help, but I need to speak with my pack. Excuse me.”
He lifted his hand in a brief wave and turned around, giving us a delightful view of his shapely backside. I caught Lena’s crestfallen expression as he walked away and nearly laughed.
I rubbed my hands together. “No time to waste. Let’s head to my penthouse and load up.”
Luka already forgotten, Lena whooped, earning a few curious glances from the wolves lingering nearby.
“I need to grab a few supplies from my place first,” Kit said. “Ivan, can you be our chauffeur?”
The phoenix bowed low, swooping his arm across his middle. “At your service, ladies.”
“Don’t be too long,” Thane said. “I’d rather not be in the Otherworld when the sun goes down.”
Ivan raised an eyebrow. “You won’t get lost. Some of us have avian night vision.”
“He means because of the other fairy creatures,” Angela said quietly. “The ones you pray to never meet and never at night.”
A shiver crept up my spine. That was exactly what Thane had meant. Banished from walking during the day, some unseelie fae prowled the night, preying on anything they could sink their claws into. Some would kill you outright, while others would make you wish they had.
The newly-turned human world vampires that resembled rotting corpse monsters didn’t even come close.
* * *
Thirty minutes later, we were ready to roll. Ivan had jumped Kit and Angela over to my penthouse only a few minutes after leaving Luka’s place. We had stocked up on weapons, and I’d helped Angela find a few suitable potions to bring along in a messenger bag.
Lena had donned her leather armor from Mirfeniksa, her excitement radiating like an aura, while I changed into cargo pants, a tank top, and a light jacket.
We didn’t know what dangers we might face in the Otherworld, but we wanted to be prepared for almost any scenario, especially if we stayed after the sun went down. I sent a quick prayer to Dazhbog that we made it back long before then.
As we gathered in the open space between my kitchen and living room, Kit scribbled a note with charcoal onto a piece of paper. She lit a small flame in her hand and set the paper on fire, chanting a quick incantation.
“What’s that?” I asked, watching the fire consume the paper.
When the paper was gone and the ashes dissipated, she closed her hand, snuffing out the flame. “A message to Adam.”
Since when did she become a snitch? “Ugh, you told him?”
“Only in the event of my death.”
“But you’re the least likely to die,” I pointed out.
“Exactly.” She hefted a backpack over her shoulder and took her place in our circle.
A twinge of fear nipped at my lungs. If she was leaving a message in case she died, then that meant the rest of us were already dead. The archangel would have to write our obituaries. Scary thought.
“Ready?” Thane looked at each of us as we joined hands. “Here we go.”
The void swallowed the light, sound, and even gravity, eating me up and threatening to devour me whole. No one in our group was visible in this absolute nothingness, not even to my avian vision. No heat existed to generate a signature.
While realm walking through dimensions was far faster than a portal, it still unnerved me that it took longer than a heartbeat like any other human world jump. The idea of getting stuck in between realms was beyond terrifying, and I hated that I’d made Thane experience such an uncertain, awful feeling when he followed me to Mirognya.
Never again.
Solid ground reformed beneath my feet, and I took a steadying breath before opening my eyes.
We stood on a dirt path that sliced across a grassy clearing and wove its way between tall, leafy trees. They resembled pine or oak, except their branches twisted and turned in ways human world trees never did.
As the sun shone above in a cloudless, bluish-lilac sky, every color splashed across this world appeared heightened and brightened. Every flutter of leaves caught my eye with their brilliance. It was like seeing the world through my falcon eyes while in human form. Disorienting and mesmerizing.
