Shatter the Earth

by Karen Chance

  “Cassie! Cassie! What the hell?”

  That’s what I want to know, I thought wildly. I finally managed to stop shrieking like a banshee. But part of me was still screaming internally, because—because—because what was happening?

  I knew those eyes, I thought, blankly.

  I should do—I’d seen them in London when something attacked me.

  No, not something. Someone. I clutched the bathrobe around me and stared at my lover, who stared back, obviously bewildered and worried and a little freaked out.

  What was happening?

  “Cassie—”

  “No, no, no!” I tore away, trying for the bathroom, wanting to be alone, but I didn’t make it. I ran into a bedpost instead, hit my head and grabbed hold, the room spinning even as I tried to think. Pritkin couldn’t have attacked me in London! He wasn’t even there!

  So how could his incubus have done it?

  And why?

  The first, and so far, only time his other half and I had had a conversation, it had been all about how misunderstood it was. How it hadn’t meant to drain Pritkin’s wife of life energy; how her death had been a terrible accident, one that Pritkin had unfairly blamed it for. And how, afterwards, he had basically locked it away for life. Why bother to tell me all that, to try to garner sympathy, and then just turn around and attack me the first chance it got?

  To lower your defenses? a little voice asked. To make you assume, as you had, that it was no threat to you?

  It isn’t a threat! If it tried anything, Pritkin would—

  Do what? Lock it away again? But wasn’t it already locked away, as much as he could manage? So that wasn’t much of a deterrent, was it? And if it managed to drain not only you, but the Pythian power?

  Well. He’d never be able to lock it away again, now would he?

  Stop it! Gertie’s court was a hundred years ago! It had no way to get back there—

  It had Jonathan. They’re both after the same thing, after all—the Pythian power. If they teamed up—

  No! It was a visceral, gut reaction. But I knew those eyes, I thought, turning back around to stare at them.

  And even though they were now green, something was similar. No, something was the same. For a second, I swore I could see the starlit ones behind the green, like two images superimposed over one another.

  I shuddered hard, and Pritkin swore. “If you don’t tell me what’s wrong, right now—”

  “Nothing,” I gasped. “I . . . I just need a minute.”

  I abruptly sat down in a chair, and put my head in my hands. Even for me, this was a lot. And something I had no idea how to handle.

  Telling Pritkin what had happened in London . . . no. We’d just reached a sort of equilibrium tonight. An us-against-the-world kind of deal, where we’d finally bared everything, talked some shit out and agreed to trust each other.

  How could I tell him that he couldn’t even trust himself?

  How could I tell him that my chief defender was the one who’d attacked me?

  He would leave, I thought. I didn’t know what he’d do afterward, but I knew that much. He wouldn’t risk what happened with his wife happening again. And I . . .

  What would I do then?

  “Nothing’s wrong,” he said. “Yet you wake up screaming? Did you have a nightmare?”

  I shook my head. And then I thought about it. Had I had a nightmare? Was that all this was—a bad dream that had lingered a bit too long?

  God, wouldn’t that be wonderful?

  “Cassie—”

  “I don’t know,” I said, swallowing. “I’m not sure.”

  Pritkin grabbed the old-fashioned lamp off the little table and squatted down in front of me. He was wearing boxers, despite the fact that he usually slept in the nude, because it had become a habit after we were interrupted several times at court. The pose showed off the thick muscles of his thighs, the taut stomach and the sculpted, naked chest above. Pritkin kept himself in tip top shape, both because it was expected from members of the Corps, and because he’d had to do without the magical boost from his incubus half, once he’d decided to limit its scope, leaving him feeling vulnerable.

  He didn’t look vulnerable right now. He looked like he could take on an army all by himself, especially with the lamplight highlighting all those fascinating dips and bulges, and gilding the blond hair on his legs, chest and jaw. He also looked vaguely fey for once, with a slight tilt to the eyes and a faint elfin quality to the way the jaw blended into the ears.

  How had I never noticed that before? I wondered. He was far too muscular for a fey, but there were hints, here and there, if you paid attention. Especially kneeling in a puddle of lamplight, as if casting one of their light shadows . . .

  “Cassie,” Pritkin caught my hand.

  I vaguely realized that I’d been using it to smooth over the thick shoulders and down the powerful arms, lost in admiration. I still sort of felt that way, watching the golden light dance in his hair, which was tousled from sleep. It felt almost like I’d been drugged. . .

  “Shit,” I said, and looked into green eyes that were sharp, clear and aware—for the moment. “We have a problem.”

  “What problem?” Pritkin’s eyes flicked around the room, and his weapons followed suit, guns and knives and fat potion bombs poking their nonexistent noses into closets, the bathroom and under the bed.

  But, of course, they didn’t find anything.

  The problem was right here.

  I opened my mouth to explain, but nothing came out except for a small groan. And, once my hand smoothed down his chest, grasping hard pecs and soft hair, that changed into something very close to a whimper. I leaned in to kiss his neck, sliding my lips along the strong cords there, sucking on his Adam’s apple, until strong hands grabbed my shoulders and thrust me away.

  “What’s wrong? What’s happening?”

  I wish I knew, I thought. But it was hard to concentrate on the question with him right there. So strong, so warm, so—

  “Cassie!” he said, and then he didn’t say anything, because I was kissing him.

  No, I was kissing him, wrapping my arms around his neck, pressing my breasts against his chest, tonguing the inside of his mouth, which had been open to say something, but which was now otherwise occupied. Because whatever was wrong with me appeared to have passed to him. His arms had just gone around me and he was deepening the kiss better than I’d been able to do. Far better, I thought, groaning again, and leaning into it.

  I vaguely heard his weapons fall to the floor, including one of the guns that went off and shot a chair leg or something. But it was distant, unimportant. Everything was, except for this.

  Pritkin broke away and cursed again, but it was an urgent, desperate sound, like he was fighting a battle he already knew he’d lose. I didn’t know what to do, didn’t fully understand the struggle going on within him. So, I tried to do nothing, but that didn’t work too well with something powerful building between us.

  And then we kissed again, tumbling back onto the bed, and it caught, as it hadn’t since that night in Wales. Not just sex, demon-assisted, but full on demon sex. And okay, no, I thought, panicking, even as the fire flashed from me and into Pritkin.

  “No,” he echoed my sentiment aloud, seeming dazed, even as his hand skimmed down my thigh, pulling me into position. “No!”

  I agreed. The feedback loop was extremely dangerous, as Pritkin’s wife had discovered to her cost. But it was even more so with me. She hadn’t had much power to feed into it.

  I did.

  Because the only other time this had happened, Pritkin’s incubus hadn’t drawn from my own paltry strength. It had gone straight for the Pythian power, magnifying it many times over before feeding it back to me. It was how we’d once generated enough energy to defeat a god. But there were no gods here, and that included the two of us.

  We couldn’t hold on to that much raw power, and if we tried . . .

  It would burn us al
ive.

  Chapter Forty

  My brain and body were having a serious disconnect. My brain was shouting warnings, but my body wasn’t listening. My body was busy grabbing the back of Pritkin’s neck, dragging him down, drawing him further inside. The new angle made him growl and I swear I could feel it all the way to my toes.

  My shudder echoed through him and we groaned together that time, a desperate sound, and a moment later, I was desperate for another reason.

  Because, when I looked up, it was to see the black eyes I’d encountered before, and once again, they’d completely eclipsed the green. I didn’t say anything, because I wasn’t sure who I would have been speaking to, or who I was currently making love with. He pumped into me, long forceful strokes that felt so familiar, shuddering my body, making me cry out. But above me were a stranger’s eyes. Ones that glowed brighter and brighter with each thrust.

  It was a terrifying thought, but my body didn’t interpret it that way.

  My body had a mind of its own.

  It growled “faster” and clamped down on him hard. He snarled back, like a tiger being ordered around by its mate, but sped up. And found that one spot, hitting it at just the right angle, over and over again, making me pay in the sweetest possible way. Colors ran behind my eyes, laughter bubbled up in my throat, fighting for a voice with the scream already building there. I didn’t know what to do or how to feel, or how to express the emotions that built and built and built—

  And then released, when all the power that Pritkin had been absorbing came rushing back into me. A massive flood of it that had me writhing on the bed and staring up at him in shock, feeling like my hair was on fire. My eyes didn’t work right, either, or else he was actually glowing, the skin burnished gold, the eyes emerald flame.

  But whatever the cause, the shock brought me back to myself somewhat.

  And getting rid of the power, at least for the moment, seemed to have done the same thing to him.

  He shook his head, his eyes bleeding back to normal, even as his body kept pumping into mine. “Release it! Cassie, let it go!”

  I tried. But either the part of him running this show had timed things perfectly, or else I was too busy shuddering through the most intense climax of my life to concentrate. And it didn’t get any easier.

  Energy arced and sparked over the bed, which was now steaming. Pritkin’s hair was a wild halo around his flushed face, while his lips moved in a spell. But whatever it was, it didn’t work or it wasn’t strong enough. Because I screamed through orgasm just as the power rushed back into him.

  I collapsed back against the bed, my limbs trembling, my skin singing, my breath coming harsh and ragged in my throat. But that was nothing to what was happening to my partner. His eyes were neon fire, his veins showed clearly through the skin as if they were filled with light instead of blood, and his body convulsed, spasming into mine like a man possessed.

  Which, for all I knew, maybe he was. I didn’t know how this strange symbiosis worked, and doubted that he did. But I knew one thing. Pritkin might be a prince of the Incubi, but that didn’t make him indestructible, not when he’d had a mostly human mother.

  And his human part was struggling.

  I didn’t know what was different about this time; he hadn’t looked like this in Wales. But he was shuddering and convulsing, trying to absorb the power and failing. Just like me. Because the feedback loop wasn’t stopping.

  The flood of energy, so much bigger, so much hotter this time, slammed back into me like a few dozen freight trains. I screamed, half in pain, half in ecstasy, because I’d never felt anything like it. Pritkin was still inside me, and the combination made me come all over again, made me wring orgasm after orgasm out of him, because he couldn’t seem to stop, either.

  It was easily the most intense experience I’d ever had, but it wasn’t going to last. Because we weren’t. If we couldn’t get rid of it, we were going to die. This time, next time, but soon.

  Very soon.

  Pritkin was yelling something as I convulsed, which sounded like “shift!”

  I didn’t know what he meant at first, couldn’t think. But then I realized: the power we were creating was getting too big even for the Circle’s wards to contain. Last time, I’d used it to tear open a hole in the sky, and release a god from another dimension to battle Ares. But I couldn’t do that here. If I did that here—

  People died.

  Hell, half of our army died!

  Was that what this was about? I thought, panicking. Was that what Jonathan had been waiting for? For his incubus ally to try again what it had failed to do in London, and steal enough power to burn down HQ and everybody in it?

  “There must be three.” Me, Pritkin, and Pritkin’s incubus?

  But no, that couldn’t be it. If Pritkin died, his incubus did, too! Didn’t he?

  I didn’t know. I didn’t understand how this worked; not any of it. But I tried to do what Pritkin had said, and shift us away. Somewhere, anywhere—a desert, a mountaintop, a swamp—with no people in it, where we could release all of this safely.

  But I couldn’t. Instead of having too little power, my problem now was that I had too much. So much that it felt like acid in my veins, like my heart was pumping lava instead of blood. And my senses—

  My senses were going haywire.

  The usual incubus effect had hit, magnifying and distorting everything. It was as if the whole room was blending together, to the point that I could taste laughter, hear tears, smell emotions. Pritkin was gasping out another incantation, and I could see the words as they left his lips, spicy red and peppery, the color smearing as they floated over the bed. As if we’d fallen into some crazy comic.

  Using the Pythian power required concentration, and right then, I didn’t have any.

  Pritkin jerked away from me a second later, but it didn’t help. Nothing did. The loop was fire, the loop was eternal, the loop was going to burn us both to cinders and there was nothing I could do about it.

  And it smelled like it had already started.

  I’d closed my eyes in an attempt to calm down the fun house effect, but they suddenly flew open. To show me burning curtains, the material thrashing as it was eaten by flames, the pretty colors glowing brightly for a moment before going black, the pert maidens looking like they were being burnt at the stake. As we would be any minute, whether the power consumed us or not, because the whole room was on fire.

  The power we were shedding was setting everything alight. It was already so hot in here that the room wavered in front of my vision, like the desert at noon. I tried to sit up, to roll onto the floor, to do anything, but I couldn’t.

  Except to watch Pritkin kneeling by the bed, trying yet another spell. I could see his lips moving even though I couldn’t hear him. I couldn’t hear anything but the roar of the fire and the terror pounding in my ears. Or do anything but lie here and wait to die.

  But maybe somebody else could.

  Mircea, I thought, reaching out through the bond, throwing it wide. I couldn’t tell if he heard me; there was too much noise in my head for that. But we were in Lover’s Knot together; he had my power. He could shift us out of here—

  But he’d better do it fast.

  The power flowed out of me again, back into Pritkin, and I gasped in relief. But I hadn’t even taken a second breath before it was back. The flow was almost continual now, an unbroken stream too much for any single body to hold, so it had taken both of us. But that wouldn’t help for long, if it had at all.

  My eyes were flame, my body was fire, my whole world was starting to burn.

  “Mircea!” I screamed, as my left arm went up in flames.

  And the next second, I was slamming against cold, hard ground.

  I knew that much. I could feel dirt against my palm and on the side of my face, yet I burned. So much so that, for a moment, I couldn’t concentrate on anything else. I writhed against the ground, wanted to scream in pain, but my throat was closed
and wouldn’t let anything out.

  Through my hair I saw Pritkin, now kneeling on snow, half of his face covered in a nasty burn. But it was the wild expression in the eyes that had me coming back to myself a little. Pritkin never looked like that. Pritkin was Mr. Cool Under Pressure.

  But not right now.

  I couldn’t see why because he wasn’t looking at me. He was looking at something behind me. But when I tried to turn around, to see it for myself, I bumped my left arm and almost passed out. The world went swimmy, pain lanced through me, and I felt like throwing up. And then I almost did, when I caught sight of my arm: from the elbow down, it was a blackened mess, with the skin cracked and dead, and raw meat peeking through.

  Third degree, I thought, staring at it. And I’m in shock. That’s why I feel this way.

  And then I felt even worse when a voice came floating through the crisp, cold air. “So glad you could join us. I was beginning to wonder what the holdup was.”

  Jonathan. Which was impossible, but so was everything else right now. Like Pritkin watching me bleed and doing nothing.

  Was his incubus in charge? His eyes were green, but maybe that didn’t mean anything anymore. Not if it had absorbed all that energy. And it must have, because the feedback loop had stopped, but the power it had created had to have gone somewhere.

  And I sure as hell didn’t have it.

  I couldn’t even seem to breathe properly, although that may have been smoke inhalation. I wasn’t sure. But Jonathan didn’t seem to like my inattention, because the next moment, I was being kicked over onto my back.

  He looked different, I thought, staring up at the blond head haloed by a blue sky. But I couldn’t put my finger on it. And then I realized: there was no eye patch. Tom’s handiwork was nowhere to be seen.

  There was no smashed-in face, either. And while the Corps’ medics were good, they weren’t that good. So, either a glamourie, which I seriously doubted he’d bother with, or—

  “Chimera,” I whispered, kicking myself for not thinking about it sooner.

  No wonder he hadn’t looked worried in the Circle’s hands. He’d done the same thing that Jo once had, and created a copy of himself before he went on his mission. Or maybe it was the copy that he’d been sending on missions while the original had stayed somewhere safe. Where nothing could scratch his eye out or beat his face to a pulp, and where he could move around freely even while his other half was lying in a Circle jail.