Worley had remained silent throughout but at this juncture he said, “You trust an Unseelie, but hold me in contempt?”
Deimne sneered, “He is right…Graely is an abomination.”
“You are no gem,” Trevor said to the Daoine, but we’ll deal with you in good order.
Ignoring Frankie’s father, Graely flicked a wrist and washed the spit off his face, and then looked past him at Jazz, “Tell me everything that happened after you got to this place. All I know is that I felt Frankie’s mind go into a wave filled with shock, and then distress. She was grappling with the walls of the portal. That was all I could see and then I lost our link. I have not been able to find her through our link from that moment on.”
“Your link? Your link? You have a link with my daughter?” Deimne was beside himself and enraged all over again.
Trevor dragged the Daoine and stood between the Sluagh and Graely, and glared at Deimne. “Deimne, you waste precious time.”
Jazz said, “Sluagh, enough! You are getting in my way. Don’t do it any longer.” She turned back to Graely,
Her Fios was now on the alert, and she put up a shield between Deimne and Graely, and stepped within its circle. She and Graely were now untouchable for the moment.
“Graely, it seems to me you must have lost the connection after she was sucked deeper into the portal. I thought that such links, like the one I have with Trevor are not affected by space and time.”
“That is a variable.” He said on a frown. “You two are mated…Frankie and I…are friends.”
“Right, then if she is in Conglam…” Jazz started.
“She is. The Blue Demons come from Conglam. The portal was created by Pestale and Hordly.” He glanced at Worley and asked, “Why does your mate have the Daoine in a death grip?”
“Easy now, and you must promise not to kill him, when I answer you, agreed?”
“Promise not to hurt him?” Graely moved toward the Daoine Prince, but Trevor shot him a warning glance and Jazz grabbed his forearm.
“Graely, promise!”
“I promise not to hurt him now, I can’t promise for the future,” Graely answered on a hard note.
“Quibbling! We don’t have time to quibble. He shoved Frankie into the Portal,” she answered but did not let go of his arm as he appeared as though he were about to break that promise on the spot.
For the moment, she knew that the shield would not let him through, but it wouldn’t hold forever.
It was a Fios shield, designed to help a Fios escape the Fae in a time of danger. It wasn’t meant to work for long. “Your connection to Frankie—hers, to you, is what I am counting on. Tell me, what you know about the Blue Demons.”
Graely’s face was unreadable but he said, “They are working with Pestale, ‘tis all I know.”
Jazz clicked her fingers and the shield was no more. She eyed both her mate and Frankie’s father warningly as she led the Dark Prince to the spot where the portal opening had been just at the edge of the river. “Can you find a way of shifting there and getting past the wards?”
Graely didn’t speak. He ignored them all as he took a step toward the river’s edge, stretched out his arms and hands as though to grab the very air, before he began whispering the arcane words of a world he had never seen anywhere but in his dreams.
Slowly, he turned to them, but ignored Frankie’s father and Trevor, as he spoke only to Jazz and in a whisper, “I will find her and bring her back to you.” So saying, Graely shifted.
In a panic, both Trevor and Deimne immediately used their tracking skills, trying to locate his direction, but it was as though he had vanished into thin air.
Chapter Sixteen
FRANKIE WAS STUNNED. She shouldn’t be. She had known in her heart who was behind it all. She had known the Blue Demons must be working with him and still, seeing him now, standing so cool and self assured, standing—looking like an evil god, rocked her equanimity.
His eyes were as cold as she remembered. She murmured his name and for a moment, thought she just might be in serious trouble. “Pestale.”
“You have one up on me. You are a stranger here, and yet you know my name. May I ask who you are and how you got here?” Pestale inquired softly, his ge
ntle tone at odds with the look of suspicion in his dark lit eyes.
She hesitated and immediately noted that he was studying her carefully. She knew he was bringing all his senses into play, sniffing the air for her scent, searching his memory for her face, and getting closer to her than she had ever wanted him to be.