by Karen Chance
Until Rosier showed up, in spirit form, and used his powers the same way he had at Nimue’s tonight.
“You saved us tonight, like you did in the car,” I said, slowly and distinctly. “I was panicking, and you helped, and I wanted you to know—”
“I didn’t.”
“What?”
Rosier looked crabby. “The council blocked my abilities, remember? Worried I’d try a power play back in time, and give some of them what they deserve. I told you this.”
“But . . . that was about magic—”
“It was about everything except the countercurse. And in any case, what do you think my abilities are if not magic?”
I frowned. “But you did help—”
“I did not.”
“Then what was that?” Because one minute, I’d been freaking out, and the next . . . I felt myself blush again. “That wasn’t me.”
“Well, of course it—” Rosier stopped abruptly, and the big eyes narrowed. And when his voice came again, it was different. “You’re telling me you didn’t plan that?”
“Plan what?”
Instead of an answer, I got an explosion. One that left me flinching back in surprise. “You can’t be serious! I thought you were playing a dangerous game, but under the circumstances, I understood. But now you’re telling me—” He broke off, glaring. “You didn’t know!”
“Know what?”
“That you’ve been feeding off of my son!”
I didn’t respond, because whatever I’d expected, it hadn’t been that. But it didn’t matter. Rosier didn’t give me a chance to say anything anyway.
“Remember Amsterdam?” he demanded. “When that Gertie creature caught up with us the first time?”
“I—yes, but—”
“Don’t tell me you didn’t feed! I sent you into the back of that bar to seduce him, and when you came out, it damn well looked like you’d succeeded!”
“That . . . wasn’t a seduction,” I said, because I was confused. And because I kind of thought they involved less yelling. “I was just trying to keep him in sight until the soul turned up. Only Gertie did instead, and he donated some energy so we could get away—”
“He didn’t just donate!” Rosier snapped. “If that were the case, he should have been tired afterward, even haggard. But instead he was invigorated!”
I paused, because I’d noticed that, too. But it hadn’t seemed like a big deal at the time. And, frankly, it still didn’t. “So?”
“So how does that work? He gives you power, yet has more at the end than he started out with? That doesn’t sound like a donation to me!”
“Then what does it sound like?”
“I think you know.”
I just looked at him.
“How quickly they forget,” he said dryly. “I was under the impression that this whole odyssey began when Emrys was sent back to hell for having demon sex—defined as an exchange of power—with you.”
I had been about to say something, but stopped. Not because I understood what he was getting at, but because a flood of memories suddenly swamped me: lying on a hillside, a huge moon riding the clouds overhead, the hulk of a dead dragon steaming in the distance, and my life force trickling away into the dirt. Cold; it had been so cold. . . .
Pritkin had recovered from his wounds, but we’d gotten separated. And I’d ended up battling the last Spartoi on my own. I’d won, if you count dying later than him as a win. But then Pritkin had shown up, barely in time, and returned the power I’d given him earlier, saving my life. And forfeiting his own—the only one he cared about, at least—because he’d thereby broken the terms of a parole he’d been laboring under for more than a century.
Breaking it had sent him straight back to hell, and me on this crazy journey.
Rosier was right; that was where everything had started.
But I still didn’t see his point. “What are you getting at?”
“That a feedback loop of power was set up between the two of you that night,” he said, still weirdly intense. “You gave him power in the car—he gave it back to you on the hillside, triggering the loop. Admittedly, it was a very poor one, which never had a chance to really get started before he was snatched away. But it existed. And apparently still does!”
“You’re basing that on what? One incident in Amsterdam?”
“I’m basing it on tonight. We were stuck in that corridor, having to put on that bloody pantomime for the fey, because he couldn’t break through the wards. Yet after a few moments with you, he shreds them like tissue paper! Where do you think he acquired all that power?”
“I—”
“He was pulled away that night, before the loop could finish, and no one canceled the spell. Leaving it open between you.”
I shook my head. “No. I think I’d—”
“Oh, forgive me,” Rosier interrupted. “I’m merely the Prince of the Incubi. What could I possibly know about it?”
I glared at him some more. “I don’t care who you are! If I was carrying a major spell around, I think I’d notice!”
I certainly had before. A geis had almost driven me and Mircea insane before I managed to get it lifted. And the Seidr spell my mother placed on me, while less intense, had had really obvious consequences. So yeah, I thought I’d have noticed another open spell, especially one like that!
“My people’s magic is more subtle,” Rosier said slyly. “Have an increase in erotic dreams recently? Find yourself wanting sex more than usual? Find yourself initiating it, trying to scratch an itch you can’t quite reach—”
“That’s enough!” I snapped, massaging my temples.
God, I hated this stuff. Pritkin was the one who dealt with the metaphysical crap that went with this job, and explained things in a way that didn’t have me wanting to hit myself in the head. Rosier didn’t even try. But that didn’t make him wrong. Because I was suddenly remembering some things, some very weird things, that had been happening lately.
Shifting back in time to Pritkin—in my sleep—because I had no other way to reach him. Establishing the Seidr link with Mircea—by accident—because of a little personal shower time that got out of hand. All kinds of crazy dreams, most of which—yes—had been pretty damn erotic. And then there’d been a few instances with Mircea, which, yeah, I had sort of initiated—
I blushed again.
“So what?” I finally said. “Even if you’re right, what difference does it make? It didn’t hurt anything, and it may even have saved our butts at Nimue’s. I don’t understand why you’re so concerned about this.”
Rosier just looked at me some more, with his huge, freaky eyes. And uttered a single word: “Ruth.”
Annnnnd the record scratched.
“Shit,” I whispered, and put my head back in my hands.
The demons called their feedback loop “sex” partly because it was how new little demons were made. That was rare—like really rare—but something new was created every time a loop was in existence, namely power. The spell magnified whatever was put into it, many times over, which was why demons were willing to give a lot for a roll in the hay with Rosier despite his winning personality.
It was also why Ruth, Pritkin’s ex-wife, had married him.
Her own family was part demon, but were very low on the power totem pole. They’d lived on earth because they were seen as little more than fodder in hell, with no respect from anyone. She’d been determined to change that, to go back to what she viewed as her rightful home in triumph, and with power to burn.
And she’d decided that Pritkin was going to give it to her.
She must have been thrilled to find a prince of the incubi slumming on earth, even more so when she realized that he didn’t look down on her like other demons of his rank. That he didn’t care about status in a world he’d never regarded as h
is. And that he had a ton of power she could access if she played her cards right, because he’d never had demon sex before.
It wasn’t by accident. Pritkin was experienced enough with human women, but he’d left demons strictly alone. Not out of prejudice, but because the feedback loop sometimes exchanged more than just power. It was a blending of energies, in which traits from one partner could be left behind in the other. And for a man who already hated the demon half of himself, adding any more hadn’t been appealing.
But the gap in his knowledge had left him vulnerable to someone willing to play on his emotions. Someone who knew that, while most demons could only sex up their own kind, the incubi could establish the loop with anyone. And that they could magnify the power many more times than the average demon.
And that was especially true of the ruling family.
Unfortunately for Ruth—and Pritkin—she underestimated that last point. By a lot. The loop she initiated on their wedding night—without telling him—took her power but didn’t give any back. It never had the chance. Pritkin was so powerful that he drained her dry in seconds. She’d ended up a burnt-out husk in his arms, and he’d ended up a basket case, blaming himself because he hadn’t known how to stop it.
“I thought you were being clever,” Rosier said quietly. “That you’d assessed the situation, and decided to resume the loop as a desperate bid to boost your power. And if you could control it, that would have been fine. But if you can’t—”
“I didn’t even know it existed,” I whispered.
“—then we have a problem.”
I looked at him. “Pritkin would never hurt me.”
“Do you think he wanted to hurt Ruth?”
“I’m not Ruth. And I have the Pythian power—”
“But would it draw from that? Or would it draw from you? Most people have one source of power; you have two. What if it decides to pull from the wrong one?”
“It hasn’t so far—”
“So far, we haven’t had a real test. The first time, Emrys was pulled back into hell while he was still giving you power. He never had a chance to take anything back. The second was cut short by Gertie’s arrival. And this time, the fey pulled you away—”
“He won’t hurt me!”
“And what about the opposite?”
I stared at him. “What?”
Fingers, tiny but surprisingly strong, latched on to my arm. “Your mother was a goddess, was she not? And one who fed very much like we do. She pulled life energy from whole demon armies, drained my father right in front of his throne! Yet you’re convinced you couldn’t manage it from one demon, who isn’t resisting, and who even has an open feedback loop between you?”
“But I haven’t—I wouldn’t!”
“You did in Amsterdam. You must have. The Emrys of that day didn’t know how the process worked! He couldn’t have done it.”
“But he was trying to give me power—”
“Yes, to give a simple donation. You were the one who turned it into something else. As you did tonight.”
I was about to argue, but then I remembered Pritkin’s face at Nimue’s, which had seemed pretty freaked out. Like something was happening that he didn’t understand and hadn’t expected. Like he’d thought to maybe get a boost to his power, enough to get us out of there, and instead had gotten a turbo shot that had taken out the wards along with the whole damn wall!
Rosier was watching me. “You understand now.”
I scowled. “I understand nothing! You used power on us in the car. If there was any chance I could drain your son—”
“The feedback loop wasn’t in place then. There was nothing happening there but a simple feeding, which incubi do all the time. And in any case, Emrys was already dying. There was no risk—”
“There was plenty of risk!” I remembered Pritkin’s face, afterward. How traumatized he’d been, how terrified that he might have taken too much. That he was facing Ruth all over again, something that had almost destroyed him, and that had destroyed his life.
After Ruth’s death, Pritkin had gone storming into the hells, looking for his father. Rosier had known what she intended to do, but hadn’t stopped her, probably hoping she’d succeed and that her fascination with the demon world would rub off on his son. Instead, Pritkin had blamed Rosier for her death and intended to return the favor.
The intentions hadn’t panned out, but attacking one of their own had been enough for the demon council, who were already worried about the power of this strange hybrid. They’d demanded Pritkin’s head; Rosier had protested; a deal had been made. Pritkin could return to earth, but as soon as he violated his father’s prohibition, he was to return to Rosier’s realm and stay there.
Forever.
It had left him that strangest of strange creatures: a celibate incubus. It had also left him in a holding pattern that had dominated his life ever since. One in which he couldn’t use his incubus powers, which gave him much of his strength, or make lasting plans for the future, because he could be jerked back to hell at any moment, or have a relationship, or kids, or much of anything else. It had made him a perpetual tourist on earth, watching other people’s lives but never able to have one himself.
All because of a woman’s scheming, and Rosier’s inability to understand what that had done to his son.
Sometimes I wondered if he ever would.
“You weren’t in danger,” Rosier was saying, because he really didn’t get it. “Incubi instinctively know when they’re draining a partner too low. I trusted Emrys to stop before then.”
“But you don’t trust him now.”
“A feedback loop is not a simple feeding. It combines two people’s magic, and it’s . . . heady. Wild. Sometimes it feels like it’s riding you. It isn’t nearly so easy to control, especially for a novice—which both of you are!”
Those tiny fingers dug into my flesh, hard enough to hurt. “If you drain him and he ends up like Ruth, or if he drains you and I have no way back to him, the result is the same! Your mother took my sire; you will not have my son!”
I was about to respond in kind when I saw his face. Rosier didn’t look angry so much as genuinely afraid. It could just be for his plans, formulated over hundreds of years, to use Pritkin as a backup battery for the royal house, generating the energy he needed to keep his nobles in check.
But seeing the expression in his eyes, I thought it could have been more.
“What do you want from me?” I asked simply.
“Something I never thought I’d say to any woman. But from now on, whatever happens, keep your hands off my son!”
Chapter Twenty-nine
Sometime later—maybe an hour, maybe more, because who could tell in here?—the same story was repeating itself. And I was considering going mad. “Gertie! Gertie!”
“Do you have to yell?” Rosier asked sourly.
“Yes! Don’t you get it?”
“Not really. Enlighten me.”
“No.”
“No?”
“No! I don’t want— God!” I put my head in my hands, fisted my still-damp curls, smelled the smoke that clung to them. Smoke from another time and place, a place where I’d had him. All I’d had to do was hold on to him, and I couldn’t even do that. And now I couldn’t get back, and if I didn’t . . .
“No,” I said, because Rosier was just sitting there, looking at me out of those weird eyes. “No, I don’t want another conversation. I don’t want to be told to calm down. I don’t need to calm down. I need to get out of here!”
“Yes, you do.”
“How?”
“What do we know?” It was crisp. And despite the squeaky quality of the voice, it sounded vaguely like Pritkin when the shit hit the fan. It should have made me feel better, but for some reason it only made me miss him more.
“That’s the pr
oblem,” I snapped. “We don’t know shit!”
“On the contrary, we know a great deal more than we did. Although I’m not sure how much it helps us in here—”
“Then it doesn’t help us!”
There was a sudden silence.
“I’m sorry,” I said, after a moment. “I’m panicking, and I know I don’t get to do that.”
Rosier gave a laugh, and strangely enough, it sounded genuine. I guessed when you’d lived as long as he had, you developed a weird sense of humor. Except about giant hellhounds and twenty-story drops and murderous fey.
And crazy exes.
I wanted to ask about Morgaine but didn’t think this was the time. “You’ve had a day, too, haven’t you?” I asked, instead.
“I’ve had worse.” He looked at me narrowly. “Have you?”
“I . . . don’t know.” The days were kind of running together lately. I got up, I chased Pritkin through time, crazy things happened, I fell into bed—or whatever passed for it wherever I was. The next day, I got up and did it all again. It had sort of become my job description.
But it wouldn’t be for much longer.
It wouldn’t be tomorrow.
“If anyone ever had reason to panic, I think we qualify,” Rosier told me. “But there’s no such thing as an impregnable prison. If there’s a way in, there’s a way out. And, as I was about to say, we do know two things that apply here.”
I ran a hand over my eyes. “What?”
“I can’t shift out, and neither can you.”
“And that means?”
“I’m not sure,” he admitted. “But I can tell you this: in four millennia, I have never been anywhere that did not permit me to shift back to my home. Therefore this is either somewhere I’ve never been, or it’s some type of illusion.”
I looked up at the ceiling, where a Cassie-shaped blob looked back at me. This place wasn’t mirrored, but it was vaguely reflective. Meaning that I saw indistinct versions of me and Rosier everywhere.