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“Maybe I find your mother to be the better negotiator.” Val squares her shoulders, and the soul guardian peeks from between her fingers with a triumphant gleam in his fiendish eyes. “Some of us value people being upfront with what they want instead of resorting to trickery.”
“Oh, I like her bravery,” Mother says. “Daring to tell off my terrifying son. This one’s much better than your other conquests. I’ll even let her borrow my favorite Brimstone Bell for a bit.”
Val bristles, and I swear the wound in my shoulder throbs worse than it did while teleporting. “If there’s nothing else,” I say through clenched teeth.
“I’ll leave you two to battle it out.” With that last quip, Mother vanishes.
“You came back.” Val makes it sound as if she would’ve rather I’d stayed gone…permanently.
I shrug away the insult. “I found Ava.”
“What?” She rushes me. “Where?”
“Your friend’s still in your home dimension, and she’s safe. For now anyway.” Damnit, I didn’t mean to say the last. I blame the blood loss for my oversharing.
“Let’s go get her.” She moves to leave and—is that a rocket launcher in the artillery case by the door?
I ignore the weapon for now. “Retrieving her won’t be so simple.”
“Why not?”
My body decides it has taken enough abuse today being dragged through the ocean, attacked by my future wife, and engaged in warfare with multiple relatives who swear they didn’t authorize the portal openings. I stumble toward thecouch, the nearest horizontal surface other than pitching face first onto the floor, but my damned mate rushes to block me so she can continue interrogating me instead of celebrating the simple fact I located her missing friend.
Lifting the soul guardian to her shoulder where he wraps like a furry scarf, Val steps in front of me and holds her hands up as if she’s become a living stop sign. “You didn’t answer me.”
“I…” My brain goes hazy, and gravity takes over, pulling me down until I topple against her.
She reaches to catch me, the first time she has touched me without attempting to kill me. Or at least I’m hoping she doesn’t mean to end me. If she does, there’s not much I can do to fight her off when my vision has narrowed to her startled blue eyes surrounded by darkness. “What’s wrong?”
“Claw slashing,” I manage to say. “Probably poisoned.” A rustle of wings has me wondering what’s happening, but I don’t have the strength to ask questionsandkeep upright. I choose the latter. It’s better than crushing my mate.
“I’ve got you.” She grabs me around my waist, slinging one of my arms over her shoulders. “Ooof, you’re heavier than you look.”
“Glamour.” I sway, and she tightens her grip, hitting a painful spot. An agonizing burn shoots through me. Keeping the leash on my magic takes every bit of energy I have.
She wrestles us toward the couch. “Ew, you’re leaking something blue.”
Which means my glamour’s slipping. “It’s blood.”
Making a gagging sound, she jostles me. Hard. “Come on, don’t pass out on top of me.”
“I’d never.” Okay. There’s a strong likelihood that’s a lie. In fact, I might within the next couple of seconds.
Struggling to remain upright, I stagger in the direction she leads me, and my shins crash into the soft give of furniture. Ican’t sort out the flap of small wings near my head or the sharp nails she digs into my shoulders when I could swear her hands stay far south of those spots. Oh well, if we’re under attack from giant gnats, there’s not much I can do to fight them off right now. Perhaps my mate can aim one of her many weapons at them. Hopefully not the rocket launcher.
“No face planting.” She turns us both before shoving me away from her.
I don’t have the energy to fight the push or control my descent. Instead, I crash onto the cushions, flinching when the sliced bits of me slam into the furniture. The ringing in my head muffles Val’s startled shriek.
Starbursts shoot off in my vision, and I decide to close my eyes. My mate poking and prodding me doesn’t even hurt so much. I could almost imagine today hadn’t gone ten thousand shades of bad and that I’d come home with a submissive, sweet, subservient little mate who wanted nothing more than to make me comfortable.
Of course, such a weak, passive woman wouldn’t have dragged me to the couch. She would still be crying or catatonic from what happened at the house with gargoyles descending and her friends gone. There would’ve been no way the fantasy I’d thought I’d wanted would’ve survived a private meeting with my mother.
How boring the next few centuries would’ve been if I’d gotten my wish for an obedient bride. The realization rolls through me, stirring the already present nausea into waves of bile. I swallow the ugly truth as fast as the sour coppery taste floods my mouth.
I’ll make today up to my mate and her friends. That is if I can make it through the next hour without Val killing me.
CHAPTER TEN
