“This is going to be so handy,” Cyrene said, her voice filled with excitement as Jim guided her to the proper procedure for tearing open the fabric of space. “I can’t believe I never thought of doing this before. No more flying, Mayling! No more long lines at a portal station. No more trains and cars and ships! Just a rip and a tear, and a shove through the fabric, and voilà! Instant transportation.”

She swung her hands around as she spoke, tearing off little strips of reality.

“Don’t forget to focus on where you’re going,” Jim warned, ducking as one of her swings went a bit wild. “You have to keep that focus or you’ll end up in Timbuktu. Man alive! You almost took off my ear!”

“Sorry. Focusing.” Her face scrunched up as she held an image in her mind. “Now tear?”

“Yeah.” Jim retreated back to where I stood, well out of her reach. “You do know that there’s going to be a price to pay for this, right?”

“What do you mean, a price?” she asked, her eyes still screwed tight as she reached out blindly to select just the right possibility, the threads of location that would take us where she wanted.

“Dark power isn’t free. You use it, you pay a price.”

“I’m elemental—”

“Yeah, yeah, you can’t be proscribed, but you still pay a price.”

One of her eyes popped open as I asked, “What sort of a price? It’s nothing dangerous, is it?”

Worry gathered in my belly. Had I just done something extremely stupid?

The demon shrugged. “Won’t know until you use it.”

“I’m an elemental being,” Cyrene said with a shake of her head as she reached back out to find the threads she wanted. “There’s nothing dark power can do to me.”

“Famous last words, eh?” Jim said five minutes later as it released Magoth’s feet. I heaved the upper part of him onto my bed in Aisling’s yellow bedroom, and let him drop with an audible grunt.

“And I thought Fiat was heavy,” I grumbled, rubbing my back as I straightened up. Fiat was sprawled, still unconscious, on the armchair next to the bed. I made sure both men were still out before I turned to look at my twin, flinching just a little as the light hit her full on.

Cyrene stared in horror at her reflection in the small mirror next to the door. One hand rose slowly to touch her hair. “It’s . . . white. I’m . . .”

“Black,” Jim said, giving her a visual once-over.

She turned to look at me, her expression frozen. “My eyes . . .”

“Orange,” I said, trying to absorb the new look to my twin. “I think you’ve done a flip colorwise, Cy. All the colors are reversed. Your skin is now very dark brown, your hair is white, and your once-blue eyes are orange. It’s an interesting look.”

“That’s one way of putting it,” Jim said, its head tipped as it considered her. “It’s like you’re a negative image of yourself. Fun.”

She blinked at me with those eerie eyes and then opened the door, her face still frozen in shock. “I need water. Lots of water. I’ll be in Drake’s pool.”

“I just hope Aisling isn’t down there giving birth,” I said as she tottered off.

Jim cocked its head. “No screaming. Besides, she was going to do that in the big tub before she changed her mind and decided on some sort of big chair with a hole in the seat.”

“Birthing chairs are very common, I believe. I suppose I’d better go tell Drake he has a guest.”

“Yeah, I’d better check on Ash and let her know we’re back. She worries about that sort of thing, and that’s probably not too good for her right now.”

I ruffled the demon’s head as I followed it into the hall. “Just when I get thinking you’re nothing but a pain in the butt, you go and show you’re just a big softy.”

“Love ya, too, babe,” it said, rubbing its head on me as we headed down the hallway.

Chapter Thirteen

I knew the second Gabriel entered Drake’s house. The air thickened, and seemed to vibrate with energy. I froze, the words I had been speaking drying up on my lips.

“May? Are you all right?” Aisling asked. She was tucked into bed, with Drake lounging beside her, both of them with attentive expressions on their faces as I told them about our adventures with Fiat and Baltic.

I leaped to my feet, every nerve in my body suddenly tingling as I raced out of the room and down the stairs. Behind me, I could hear Aisling asking Drake what was going on.

“Her mate is here.” His voice drifted out after me, but I paid little mind to my bad manners, intent on only one thing.

Gabriel met me halfway up the stairs, a frantic, desperate look in his beautiful eyes. I flung myself off the top of the stairs onto him, knocking him backwards into the wall, my arms and legs wrapping around him as I kissed every inch of him my mouth could reach.

“Mate,” he growled, his normally lovely voice rough with need, dragon fire running high within him. His mouth burned mine, literally burned it, when I dug my fingers into the familiar soft dreadlocks and sucked his tongue as it did an enticing little dance in my mouth.

“Good evening, May,” a male voice said gently.

It was an effort, but I managed to stop kissing Gabriel’s face long enough to greet his second bodyguard. “Evening, Tipene. Maata’s in the attic. Nice to have you back.”

He bowed, struggling to keep his face straight as I returned to kissing Gabriel, the scent and feel of him filling my mind to the exclusion of everything else.

“Fiat’s here,” I said in between kisses, squirming against his body when his hands stroked down over my behind. “Aisling hasn’t had her baby. Cy has Magoth’s demon lord powers. I need you. Right now!”

“I need you, too, mate,” he growled, his eyes scorching me as I gave myself up to another one of his breath-defying kisses, the dragon shard humming to itself as it made suggestions, trying to force me to shift.

I groaned when Gabriel bit my ear, his ragged breath the sweetest music I’d ever heard. His body was tense and hard, and I knew he was just as aroused as I was. Dragons, I remembered, had an overwhelming need to claim their mates when they had been separated, a policy I wholeheartedly embraced. I tried to peel myself off Gabriel so we could at least go to my room, but his scent, that woodsy, earthy, primal scent that made my soul sing, set me alight. I reared back, my legs still wrapped around his waist, and ripped the black raw-silk shirt right off his body.