Stealing Summer, Hunter

by Lexi Blake

  The demon’s head came up as I stepped through and his eyes flared. “Hunter.”

  I was popular with the whole demon crew. That’s what happens when you kill a Duke of Hell, an angel from the Heaven plane, and beat a high-powered lord at his own game. You get a reputation. “Demon.”

  He held up a slender hand. “I am not here to fight you.”

  “Good, because it doesn’t look like you would put up much of one.” I kept my hand on the sword, but I let it rest at my side.

  “Kelsey, what are you doing?” Quinn stalked out to join us.

  The demon managed to look surprised. “You are the king’s partner.” His eyes closed briefly and when he opened them, there was relief there. “Then he is aware and he is working on the problem. The old gods know my people are not.”

  “You’re talking about the incidents?” Quinn was a cool customer who knew when not to give up too much. “What do you call them?”

  “The convergence,” the demon replied. “Something is wrong, Your Grace. Something is affecting the outer planes. The walls are breaking down. I cannot get to the Summerlands. I am not allowed there. Something has happened to the goddess.”

  “The goddess?” Quinn asked.

  “I was going to ask about the Summerlands.” The asshole who’d hit me with an arrow had mentioned them. I’d never heard the term and wondered if it had anything to do with Summer.

  “It’s the Fae version of Heaven,” Quinn replied. “Are you referring to Danu?”

  I did know that one. “That’s a Fae god.”

  The demon shook its head. “No. Not Danu. And the Summerlands aren’t what you think, though I’ve heard them called a paradise. It is the center of the outer planes. It holds us all together and the goddess…the stability of our planes flows from her. We are breaking apart. There’s no energy left.”

  “No energy?” I still wasn’t completely sure about how these demons worked. I knew they were a specialized form, like the satans who judged contracts.

  “The Planeswalkers gain energy from walking the different planes.” Dean proved he’d listened in class way better than I had. “Something about going through the doorways gives them energy. And they make money by kidnapping women.”

  “Only those who can serve as consorts and companions, and there are men on Fae planes who work too.” The demon managed to sound a bit prim. “And we have a job to do as well. The Fae goddess stabilizes the veil, but we’re the reasons they open and close. But the veil is unstable now. It’s starting to break down. We must find a way to the Summerlands. I’m seeking a pure Fae. There is one close.”

  Bris was suddenly the man talking. Or rather the god. “I am Fae, demon. How can I help?”

  The demon shook his head. “You are not pure. You are not flesh.”

  “He’s talking about Summer,” Dean said.

  “Pure Fae magic,” the demon wheezed. “I feel it. That is what we need. I cannot…I cannot breathe. I have nothing left. Too long with no energy. We must find the magic or the outer planes will be destroyed.”

  The demon passed out on the ground.

  “What the hell do we do?” I didn’t normally have demons pass out at my feet, though there was that one time I told Eddie I didn’t care whether or not the oven cleaner was organic. But Eddie is my butler and he takes shit way too seriously. “Is he dead?”

  He sounded male. I’m never totally sure about demons, but it feels wrong to always use it. He’d had a rough day. If I got to talk to him again, I would ask about his preferred pronouns. It never hurts to be polite.

  “No,” Dean said. “I think he’s in a fugue state. If we could get some energy into him, he might be able to answer more questions. I have many.”

  “Have you killed the demon?” Erna stood at the barrier.

  “He knows what’s happening with the convergence. We can’t kill him,” Dean said, setting his shoulders. “I’m taking him out to the barn. He’ll be fine there.”

  “We can’t keep a demon.” Erna sounded shocked at the very thought.

  “We need to find a way to get him to talk,” Dean argued. “He said something about the Summerlands, and I think he’s after Summer.”

  “I wouldn’t say after her,” I corrected. I didn’t think the demon wanted to hurt Summer. He seemed too desperate. “I think he wanted to find her. He seemed to think she could help with that weird shit that happened to us. I take it that wasn’t an isolated incident?”

  Dean shook his head. “No. It’s been happening for several months, and it’s getting steadily worse. If he has any kind of an explanation, we need to talk to him.”

  “Summer can’t do anything.” Erna moved in, staring down at the demon. “She’s got nothing to do with this. She has no magic at all.”

  “Yes, I would like an explanation of that,” Quinn said in his deep, dark, “I’m not happy and I can have plants kill you” voice.

  I glanced back and Zoey and Daniel stood at the barrier, the king’s face in a mulish frown as though he’d been given orders and he hadn’t liked them one bit.

  “Help me get the Planeswalker to the barn,” Dean said. “I don’t agree that Summer has no magic. She’s cut off from it.”

  “You know why she chose to do that,” Erna said in a harsh whisper.

  “I do, and I also know that saving Summer from the Vampire plane isn’t going to mean a thing if the walls between planes disintegrate.” Dean put a hand over the demon’s head and then his eyes closed as he concentrated. When he opened them, he nodded my way. “He’s scared and he’s weak. He can’t come out of this state but isn’t going to die soon either. We have some time to figure out how to get him enough energy that he can answer our questions. If this is about the walls that separate the planes, we can’t ask for a better expert than a demon who walks them daily.”

  “And he might be happy if we help him.” I could totally see the benefits. Maybe he wouldn’t need our souls if he was suitably grateful.

  “Kelsey,” Daniel called out.

  I knew what he was going to say. “I won’t trust him, Your Highness. But I will help stash him.”

  “All right then.” Erna turned back toward the cottage. “We have much to do if I’m going to get that thrall stone out of the human.”

  Daniel looked to his wife. “What is a thrall stone?”

  Zoey walked back behind the barrier and I was pretty sure she screamed.

  “What’s wrong with our wife?” Quinn wandered off.

  Oh, I was so glad I wasn’t going to have to explain to those two why they were getting brain surgery.

  “You know you’re going to have to hold them down when Erna does the spell, right?” Dean asked. “I don’t think I can do it on my own.”

  Damn it. I got the demon’s legs and Dean and I did our first body stash.

  It wouldn’t be our last.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Summer

  “Where are we?” I asked, turning over in bed and laying my head on his chest.

  Marcus’s hand smoothed back my hair. “We’re in a cell. I suspect we’re on the Vampire plane. Are you ready to wake? Your body has metabolized the drug they gave you.”

  “No.” I wasn’t sure I would ever be ready to wake. “So you’re the one keeping me here?”

  Here in Venice, making love again and again and again. Time didn’t matter in this place. It felt like I’d been here for days and also for no time at all.

  I didn’t have to be anything here. I don’t mean that in a self-negating way. I wasn’t me and yet I was. I could see myself in a different way. I could see myself through his eyes.

  It was a dangerous thing to do since the male didn’t truly know me at all.

  I had to deal with that. In the time I’d spent with Marcus, I’d grown to feel for him. There was a connection between us, and it went beyond the ridiculous orgasms the man could give.

  I forced myself to sit up because we would have to leave this place soon and he shoul
d know certain truths. I wasn’t sure how Taggart would deal with him. He might decide it was smarter to send the vampire with me, and then Marcus would find out what a bunch of man-hating witches could do to a dick.

  “Bella?” Marcus shifted, leaning back against the headboard. The white sheet bunched around his waist, showing off that spectacular chest of his.

  “I think you should go back to the Refugee plane and find your people.” I turned away from him and stared out at the sea in the distance. We’d left the balcony doors open so the sunshine or moonlight could flood the room we shared.

  “I am not going to do that,” he replied quietly. “Though I suspect they will be looking for us. Kelsey is an excellent tracker. The fact that they took us away on flying vehicles will not stop her for long. Devinshea is quite resourceful as well. If we have the chance to get away, we should take it, but I won’t risk you when I know they’re coming for us.”

  I hadn’t even considered the fact that Devinshea Quinn would come for me. Erna knew that if I got captured, I wanted her to protect Dean. He was more important. He had a whole plane to save. “You have to talk to my father. Make him see reason.”

  “Reason will tell him to save his daughter.” His eyes went to my throat. “Summer, I think it’s time you tell me why you wear that charm.”

  I went silent. I hadn’t thought he would see so much.

  “It’s obvious to me your reluctance to care for yourself comes from some terrible deed you think you’ve done, and you seem to have put all your guilt into that charm around your neck. Is it chaining your magic?”

  I touched the charm. It was a habit, though not because it gave me comfort exactly. I did it almost out of panic even after all of these years. “It’s binding my magic.”

  I felt him reach out to touch me, his big palm going down my back. “Why would you do that? The way I understand it, you are that magic. You could take human form without binding what is essentially your soul.”

  “I killed my people.”

  The hand on my back stopped its soothing progress. “What?”

  Yes, there was the shock I always heard when I told this story. I was glad I wouldn’t have to tell my parents. I’d already decided I wouldn’t be traveling to the Earth plane. I would let Kelsey take Dean. I didn’t want to face the two people who had created me from the love they felt for each other. They would be wretchedly disappointed in what they had wrought on the planes. I turned and faced my lover, who probably wouldn’t be my lover for long. “They call me the Destroyer for a reason. I was a gift from an Unseelie tribe on a far-off plane to a tribe on a plane called Tír na nÓg. It’s the largest of the Fae planes. I was taken in by a tribe near the southern sea. It was a beautiful place to grow up.”

  “How old were you when it happened?” He tossed off the covers and scooted down the bed, coming to sit beside me. Neither of us was dressed and it felt right to be naked with him. For a vampire his skin was beautifully tan, a gorgeous olive tone lighting him.

  “I was seventeen. I was fascinated with magic and wanted to learn all forms of it. My adopted mother was a woman named Haweigh, and she always found ways to satisfy my curiosity. I think she believed if she gave me enough of what I wanted, I wouldn’t go too far with it.”

  “Too far with the magics? Do you have to have spells?”

  “There’s a reason for the spells. Spells direct magic. All spells really do is use the power a witch or Fae has to manipulate the world around her. Or him. On some planes they call it science. We just go about it in a different way. But the spell is to ensure you’re doing it right. It sets parameters.” I’d always known I had magic, but when I was very young, Haweigh had bound the majority of my powers. I’d understood even then. I hadn’t been in control. Despite the fact that I hadn’t truly been a baby as Marcus would have known one, I’d still been volatile. My emotions had clouded reasoning. I could take in knowledge, but not wisdom. “Even with the majority of my powers bound, I was still able to work spells. I quickly moved past what our own magic workers could teach me, and that was when Haweigh decided to bring in a trained witch.”

  “Your mentor?”

  I had mentioned Erna a bit. “Yes. She was from a family on the witch plane. They don’t often leave their own plane, though they do allow immigration to theirs. Only if you can prove magical powers, and even then only if you’re female.”

  “Why did Erna leave?”

  “From what I understand she didn’t get along with her sisters. They considered her to be minimal, which means she didn’t have a lot of power.” I remembered Erna in those days. She’d seemed bitter and angry, but she’d been kind to me. She’d seen tutoring me as a second chance to find a place in the worlds.

  I’d let her down, too.

  “How could she teach you if she didn’t have power?” Marcus asked. He leaned over and his lips brushed my shoulders, an intimate gesture that made me long to lay back down for him. But he deserved to know.

  “They were wrong. Erna has enormous power,” I explained. “She came into it a bit later in life. It can happen. By then she had me to deal with.”

  “Why?” He’d sat back up, his intelligent eyes finding mine. “Why would she have to deal with you? You had reached your majority. I understand why Haweigh would bring in a mentor, but not why she would send you off with her. I know that is not what your mother believed she would do.”

  It was odd to be sitting here talking to someone who knew about my mother. Or Haweigh. Both of my mothers. I mourned them both. “Haweigh didn’t send me away.”

  “Summer, tell me what happened. Tell me why you chose to dull your shine. Even with this collar around your throat, I can sense your power.”

  And that was why I was so dangerous. “I was studying transportation spells. Teleportation in particular. It makes me sick that Dean is doing it now. It scares me, but he’s not me. He’s much better than I was. I trust Dean and he’s doing well.” I was procrastinating.

  He touched my hand. “What happened?”

  “I teleported myself somewhere I shouldn’t have.” I could still remember the cold of that plane. I’d thought I would freeze to death. I had only meant to start a fire to keep myself warm. “I destroyed a good portion of the plane I found myself on. I melted several glaciers and caused flooding. Erna found me and brought me back. The plane didn’t have humanoid inhabitants, so no one came after me. Haweigh told me to stop experimenting with transportation.”

  “But you did not follow the rules, did you?” He asked the question with a sympathy I didn’t deserve.

  “No. I tried again in secret and I got better and better. I managed to take off the binding spell that kept the more volatile parts of my magic in check. I didn’t think I needed it, and being able to access those parts made my magic incredibly strong. It felt right to have my power. I hid it for months from my tribe. I finally got good enough to show Haweigh. I wanted her to admit I didn’t need dampeners or bindings. I wanted to show her I was ready to be an adult and make my own decisions. I thought she would be proud of me, but we fought.”

  “Teenagers often fight with their parents.”

  “Do they usually kill their parents? I remember telling her how I wished she’d never been born and then I lost control. I…I’m not sure what happened to me. I was so upset that I became enveloped in light and when I woke, they were all gone. Everything was ashes. I had burned down the whole village, all the way to the sea. I was left alone and only Erna had survived.”

  “Your whole tribe died?”

  I nodded. “All of them. I was lost in a rage I’d never felt before. I don’t even remember much of it. I remember being angry. Haweigh said if I didn’t behave she would have to bind all of my magic, and that was what did it. I lost control and I burned down my whole world.”

  “Everything but the witch.”

  “She protected herself. She realized what was happening. When I lost control, I exploded. Or rather the magic exploded. I wasn’t stron
g enough to control it. I made the decision to bind all of my magical abilities and to take human form permanently.”

  “You mean you decided to imprison yourself in a mortal body.” He reached out to touch the charm on my neck. “This is a slave collar, Summer. You are a slave to your guilt.”

  “I killed them all. I think I should pay for that. I brought about a fire so hot there weren’t even bones left. There was nothing. It’s why they call me the Destroyer.”

  His hand moved through my hair in a soothing stroke. “You didn’t destroy anything. You had power and you didn’t know how to use it. You made a mistake. Yes, it was a costly one, but I don’t think this is how your adoptive mother would want you to pay for it. She would want you to do good in the world.”

  “That’s what I’m trying to do. I’m trying to help Dean achieve his destiny. He’s going to save the Earth plane one day.”

  A brow rose over Marcus’s dark eyes. “That boy is going to save my plane? From what?”

  “From a wizard who will rise and try to rule the plane.”

  His eyes flared. “Myrddin?”

  I had to hope he would believe me. This Myrddin seemed to be a powerful magician. “I don’t know. That’s why I was stealing the book of prophecy. Erna and I decided the best way to help Dean was to know as much about the prophecy concerning him as possible.”

  “Kelsey will never stop telling me I told you so,” he said with a sigh. “At least the queen will be happy. Dean’s mother is from the Earth plane, I take it?”

  “Yes, she was kidnapped while she was pregnant. She found her way to the Vampire plane and he was raised here.”

  Marcus groaned and fell back on the bed. “If Myrddin is bad, we have much trouble coming our way. At least the queen is at Council headquarters. She’ll make sure he can’t do too much damage until we can return. You will come with us and we will take the boy to Venice. Kelsey can train him there far from Myrddin’s influence.”