Two Worlds of Dominion

by Angelina J. Steffort

  She squeezed her eyes shut, taking in her environment by sound only. There were heartbeats and panting and gasping in pain.

  And then there was silence.

  Something in Corey’s mind was dark. Not the darkness of her sad days. Different.

  She blinked her eyes open after a thorough shake of her head, to clear her face of dust and shards, and found herself in a field of destruction. This wasn’t the same as the room she remembered—the one where Oliver had brought her breakfast and she had discussed a potential escape with Master Feris. There was one wall lined with cupboards. Besides that, the room was empty—had it not been for the people who were strewn on the floor, limbs in awkward angles, and faces covered in dust and glass to a degree they were no longer recognizable.

  What had she done?

  The only good news was that the demon was nowhere to be seen. Whether he got out before her magic exploded or he was woven into the ashes and dust now settling on every surface, she couldn’t tell.

  Corey. She was Corey. Only, her body felt lighter, almost ethereal as she stepped over the motionless figures to rest her back against a wall and close her eyes for a moment.

  How had she gotten here? The last thing she could remember was that breakfast and Oliver—

  She opened her eyes, again screening the floor for movement, and found she couldn’t look. Hadn’t she just recently killed two people—one of them innocent, the other bringing Allinan’s downfall—with her magic? What had she done now? She didn’t even feel like that person. And something was off. She could tell from the way her head was turning numb somewhere in the back…

  With a quick look into the leftovers of a glass door on the closest cupboard, she checked if she was still herself and found streaks of dark skin where she had cleared the dust off her cheeks and eyes. Her hair looked as if someone had dumped a sack of flour over her head.

  Days? Had it only been days? It felt like months to her. And the girl staring back at her from the shiny surface was as different as the place in her mind, which no longer seemed to entirely belong to herself. It belonged to someone else. Someone as dark as the night. As dangerous as the demons they had been trying to dodge for days—

  Those exact same days she had lost. The days that no longer belonged to her memory.

  A groan nearby sent lightning through her spine, and she could not continue to avoid the destruction she’d caused. As she turned her head, bracing herself for the worst, to her surprise, what she found were movements. As if those felled in the room were slowly rising from the dead.

  Among them, in the center of the room, Oliver was hovering over a boy, his face hidden by layers of dust and his limbs twitching as Oliver brushed off glass shards.

  Corey hopped over her ‘brothers and sisters,’ who were all getting to their feet as if slowly awakening from a deep sleep, and took a deep breath of relief. She hadn’t killed anyone.

  When she crouched next to Oliver, he gave her a look of gratitude. She didn’t know how she knew. It was as if there was a new connection between them. Brother and sister in combat? Then Oliver gestured at the boy, who was now mopping his face and sat up as if he had merely been laying on a too-hard bed for a too-short night. Beneath, a familiar face greeted her with a smile. A smile she had been missing.

  Her head pounded as she tried to reassemble who he was and found images of him, stories, memories.

  “Heck!” It wasn’t as much a greeting on her side as the desperate call for someone—anyone—to get her out of her own head. To free her from Gan Krai’s prison. For that was what it was, and by now, she was certain. Only, how could she break free of those claws that had hooked into her mind? “What the hell are you doing here?”

  In return, Heck grinned the familiar smile of the devil-may-care friend she’d grown up with.

  “We thought you were dead.” His mouth twitched as from the other side of the room a low howl seconded his statement. Seri.

  Corey let her gaze wander over the room and found her ‘brothers and sisters’ wander toward the door as if nothing had happened. As if they hadn’t just been knocked out by a blast of magic, and their clothes—horrible gray robes—were as impeccably clean as they had been a couple of minutes ago when they’d all been on their knees. As if they themselves were as little aware of who and where they were as Corey had been before her magic had broken free. All but Oliver.

  Seri, in her Yutu form, prowled across the room, followed by Maray’s father and Pia, the latter in her human shape.

  They were all there. They had come to rescue her.

  She hid a tear and finally gazed at the heap of human body beside the entrance.

  “Wil!” She was on her feet before anyone else could react. “Wil.”

  He had come, too. He hadn’t given up on her. Even when she’d been taken away by Gan Krai’s demons.

  Wil scrambled to his feet, dusting off his face and hair, and by the time Corey closed the distance, his lips had formed a smile of relief no one understood as well as Corey. She didn’t slow but instead crashed right into his chest and let his arms wrap her in a crushing embrace as their lips met. He had come to save her.

  Jemin

  The night smelled like rain. A milder taste on his Yutu-tongue than the ice and snow that had layered the grounds for too long. They had melted a while ago, but the frost of the nights had just recently ceased.

  With a glance at Pen, he strolled out the front door and flexed his legs as he crawled down the stairs.

  One round. A quick run around the clearing to make sure everything was safe and quiet. Then he’d be able to find some peace in the cabin filled with Maray’s scent—and luckily for him, keeping his more primal instincts in check, Pen’s.

  The grass was wet under his paws as he leapt into a jog, right from the last step, then broke into a run, readying himself for whatever the night would bring.

  He hadn’t intended for any of this to happen. Before Maray, his life had been quiet, filled with structure and duty. And then… She had whirled in like a summer breeze in the fog of the winter months. And he hadn’t been prepared. When he had been ready for any occasion in his training, in his childhood, he hadn’t been prepared for a girl who could capture his heart—hadn’t even allowed himself to even consider the possibility.

  He shook out the fur on his neck as he dove through the bushes at the edge of the clearing surrounding the cabin. No. He hadn’t expected Maray. And yet, again and again, he found himself unable to shake her. Though he hadn’t trusted her in the beginning, he hadn’t been able to stay away and had hidden it behind his duty to protect Allinan from potential danger. Then, when he’d known that she was a victim, not an enemy, he had been able to lie to himself that it was his duty to protect her from Rhia, from any harm, for she was part of Allinan’s future. Finally, as her scent had first hit him in his Yutu-nose, his instincts, his desire had covered everything. And the feral need for her was something that he could have accepted, had it not been for the one, undeniable thing—he was in love with her. He loved her. For all the courage, all the spirit and attitude, for all the attempts to mediate conflict, all her willingness to suffer for her people, to take the right path rather than the one her heart seemed to command her—the path which led to him.

  Raindrops tickled Jemin’s ears as they kissed the branches above. A soothing sound. An exciting sound. No other noises besides the birds and deer seeking shelter in the thicket.

  Satisfied, Jemin hammered his paws into the ground more forcefully, pushing himself to go faster, return to her faster. Just one-quarter of a circle to go—

  Water sprayed on the carpet as he transformed on the threshold and closed the door behind him.

  Pen had curled up by the fireplace, his beetle-black, restless eyes the only part of him giving away that he wasn’t fast asleep. Right beside him, folded into a chair, lay Maray, her legs hanging over the armrest and her head lolling to the side, threatening to slide off the backrest and hit her knees.


  Jemin smiled. So peaceful when those eyes were closed, when her features weren’t hardened by playing down the constant threat on her life. On her Allinan. He nodded at Pen, a silent ‘thank you’ for watching over her sleep. How he hoped she wasn’t stuck in some nightmare the way Jemin sometimes found himself. The type of nightmare where he could no longer distinguish whether he was dreaming or awake. And for him, they always ended the same way—

  Maray stirred on the chair, her left forearm sliding down from her lap, and Jemin was at her side in an instant, allowing himself to gently take her hand between his. Pen rolled his eyes at Jemin as if saying, ‘I’ve been watching this for too long. Do you love her or what?’

  Jemin suppressed a chuckle at the Gurnyak’s look and nodded. He had poured out his heart to Pen countless times during those first weeks of his Yutu-life, and it seemed Pen had grown impatient.

  “Things aren’t always as easy as they seem,” Jemin whispered at the fur-ball before the fire and earned a sideways glance as Pen rolled to his flanks and rested his neck and head flat on the carpet like a horse in the grass. Everything about the gestures seemed to say, ‘you’re a hopeless case.’

  Jemin only nodded. He knew. And it wouldn’t become any easier now that he had claimed her, burnt her scent into his nose, into his heart, his very being, and enveloped her with his own scent to ascertain she would be recognized as what he saw in her. His mate.

  He ran his thumb over her fingers in a half-circle before he let go and reached for a blanket on the other chair, shook it out, and draped it over Maray’s curled form. With fingers so careful he didn’t know if he was truly touching her, he lifted her head a bit higher so it wouldn’t slip. Then he placed one, breath-like kiss on her forehead, right where that raven hair twisted back into her braid.

  “Sweet dreams, my love.”

  Maray

  “Corey.”

  Maray flung her arms around the warlock girl, her eyes crying thanks at Heck and Wil over Corey’s shoulder, and squeezed the latter, hardly able to believe they had truly returned. All of them and none of them hurt beyond a few scratches and that horrible dust covering their attire.

  Corey stood still, dazed by Maray’s crushing hug.

  “Did he hurt you?” Maray asked as she released Corey, running her eyes over her one more time. But there was no sign of injury. “Are you all right?”

  Corey only looked out the window of the breakfast room as if she couldn’t believe she was back. And alive. She gave a brief nod.

  “For now,” a voice Maray had not expected sounded from the threshold and she let her gaze wander there to meet Oliver Gerenhoff’s eyes.

  “What is he doing here?” Her hand was already on her dagger, ready to draw the weapon and do what…?

  None of the others seemed surprised by his presence. On the contrary, Heck and Seri shifted their stance just enough to cover Oliver partly and present an obstacle Maray would hardly overcome if she charged at the arrogant noble in the threshold.

  How many times had he spoken against her in council meetings? Maray had stopped counting. All he had done since his arrival at court had been mocking her, making her life difficult. She didn’t even want to think about the fact that he had presented himself as an option for marriage…

  And now he was here, with them, with Corey, the others protecting them… Where was Jemin when she needed him? He’d rip out the cocky male’s throat.

  With a chill, Maray had watched him prowl out of the cabin in the morning, still in his Yutu body, and not looking back. Neelis had followed them from her room through the secret passageway to Pen’s cabin, tracing both their scents, and called Jemin for duty. They were hunting Shalleyn and protecting the residents of the capital while Maray had to return to the council and the unwelcome challenges of swaying them to crown her without a marriage prospect.

  Maray ground her teeth. Sara had promised to help, and right now, Maray truly needed people she could trust to get things done. Sara seemed like she knew what she was talking about, and so Maray returned her focus to Oliver Gerenhoff’s unwelcome visage.

  “Haven’t the demons killed you yet?” she asked without making an effort to make it sound like a challenge. The last time the others had hunted for Corey, they had found his scent on the same trail. He had to be somehow in on the whole thing.

  But Oliver just laughed. “Funny you should mention that.” His words made Maray’s head turn so she fully faced him. “It almost came to it last night.”

  Maray’s heart pounded as Corey retold the story of how the others had rescued her—them—from the Shalleyn’s brainwashing.

  “Seriously, I don’t know how much longer I could have held on to even a shred of myself if they hadn’t come,” Oliver added with Maray’s horror growing at the details of how again and again Gan Krai had made them kneel and repeat those cursed lines—‘I will do anything for the Alliance’.

  “What Alliance does he mean, exactly?” It was Heck who asked. “The Shalleyn?”

  Corey shuddered at the mention of them, and Wil strode to her side as she sat in a chair and squeezed her hand, eyes full of concern resting on her dusty head.

  “The Shalleyn are only part of what he has in store,” Oliver informed them. “He has been gathering forces from the other world. Strays. Forgotten. Soldiers. Anyone who was ready to sell their souls for a shot at a better life and some magic.” His face didn’t tell much about how exactly that made him feel. But as he lifted a hand to count the forces that made the Alliance, his fingers were shaking. “Shalleyn, the soldiers, and his devil-children—us.”

  Corey’s lips twitched at Oliver’s words. “Actually, if he hadn’t broken from the Shalleyn’s grasp first, I might not even have noticed that someone was intruding on the session.”

  She meant the brainwashing session where Gan Krai and his demons had violated their minds, over and over again. A surge of anger blossomed inside Maray as she added it to the list of things Gan Krai would pay for—eventually.

  Oliver strode to the window where he leaned against the wall and peered through the curtain at the sun-laced morning. “Actually, I have had some time to practice,” he admitted, raising more questions, which he attempted to answer in the next breath. “I was the first devil-child he—” It was obvious who that ‘he’ was, “—found, and when, a couple of months ago, he showed up at my family’s doorstep, my parents all but shoved me into his arms. They saw their chance to gain importance and power in Allinan and a new way to expand our business by trading with the other world. I never knew I was adopted…” His face was bitter as he turned his gaze back to the others. “Adopted with the promise of power if my parents bided their time long enough for me to put me in the right position.”

  A pang of sympathy for the noble she despised so much ran through Maray. “I am sorry…”

  “Don’t be,” he cut her off. “You have nothing to be sorry for. It is my family who needs to be ashamed of what it did to you by installing me on that suitor list.” He forced a smile, and Heck gave a nervous cough as he and Seri both strode to Maray’s side, Pia right behind them.

  The only one who had been quiet was Gerwin. He listened and assessed, probably taking mental notes for how to handle the council with all the new information. He studied them and waited.

  “So all this time when you were being an ass…” Maray stopped herself before she could say something she’d regret, earning a laugh from Pia.

  “All that time, I was already under Gan Krai’s control,” Oliver responded with shame on his features, “his triggers well in place so he could harvest information from the council meetings. Me, his personal spy.”

  Maray had known he was a spy, but not that he hadn’t acted out of his own accord.

  “And all that pressure I put on your coronation date, to try to get you to go through with that horrible choice of a marriage—” He glanced at Heck, “—sorry, man—was simply my way of reaching through those commands planted in my mind… T
o try and get you into power and Gan Krai to the sidelines where he will be once you are crowned Queen.”

  His full lips had parted into a smile of victory. Victory, Maray understood from the gloom in his eyes, over Gan Krai’s claws in his head.

  Gerwin moved for the first time, stepping in a bit further and holding Oliver’s gaze as the young noble looked from one to the other. “How do we know we can trust you now?” he challenged. “You fed information to Gan Krai. You betrayed the crown and Allinan.”

  Maray’s core turned cold as her father demanded clarification. The diplomat had once more disappeared behind calm and cold rage.

  Oliver seemed to see it too, for he shrank back an inch and raised his palms as if to show he wasn’t armed. “I have seen enough of Gan Krai’s evil to support fighting him. He is everything Allinan has feared during those dark hours of the first breach of dimensions—and even though I was only a young boy then, I remember the horrors well.” His face darkened as he spoke, and Maray knew he was telling the truth. “This world has magic to protect itself, but the other world—it is helpless and oblivious to what is about to happen. We need to protect them. All of them. The other world and Allinan.”

  “It’s all right, Oliver,” Corey whispered and turned to face him by the window. “We don’t have to go back. We are free.”

  But something in her father’s eyes told Maray he didn’t quite agree.

  “Gan Krai wasn’t there when we got you out,” he thought aloud. “He might actually believe if you tell him you were taken forcefully.”

  Oliver shivered but nodded. “You want us to become spies in return for having spied on you?” he asked.

  But Gerwin didn’t need to respond. It was Corey who agreed, to everyone’s surprise.

  Wil growled beside her, but even he saw the benefits of having a spy-team installed in Gan Krai’s ranks. “You are strong, Corey,” he kissed her forehead. “You can do anything.”