Frowning, I sauntered to the side of the bed. He followed my movement warily, trembling as though in pain. I paused to test the dual awareness, saw my living room, felt the afghan. It really did seem too good to be true, which meant I needed to stay on my toes. I wouldn’t put it past one of the Mraztur to set an elaborate trap using Rhyzkahl as bait.
“What are you playing at now?” I asked him, wary. Testing. “Why did you call me to your dreamspace?” Experimenting, I pictured butterflies erupting from the cushion beside him. To my surprise and delight, dozens streamed forth in an iridescent flutter to circle and float in the dome. Verrrrrrrry interesting. “That’s what this is, isn’t it? Your dreamspace?”
Disbelief widened his eyes as he stared at the spectacle. “No . . . no!” He swallowed noisily and turned his head toward the door. “Rega,” he called out in little more than a hoarse whisper. “Rega!”
I laughed as the door stayed firmly closed. “The faas can’t save you from yourself, Rhyzkahl,” I told him. “No one is going to answer your call.”
His gaze skittered around the room in wild panic. “This cannot be,” he rasped in distress. His fingers plucked feebly at the sheet. “No. It cannot.”
His dream sendings to me had felt utterly real. Was that how he perceived this? “What cannot be?” I asked with a tilt of my head. “That I’m in your crib? That you can’t read me?” I sidled closer and regarded him. “Damn, you look like shit.”
Breathing raggedly, Rhyzkahl again tried to sit up only to sag into the cushions. “You are here.” A wild and desperate look came into his eyes. “You are here. I feel you. Here.”
“Would you stop fucking saying that?” I snapped. “Yeah, I think we’ve established that I’m heeeeere.” I slung my hands out wide to encompass the whole dreamspace then dropped them to my hips. “And now I get an early Christmas present.” Pursing my lips, I gave him an obvious once-over. “Are you hurting?” Not that I really needed to ask. He was devious, sneaky, underhanded, and deceitful, but even he couldn’t fake all the signs of pain. Cautious breathing, muscle tremors, sunken cheeks, and the misery that colored his aura. Still, I wanted to hear it from him.
“Yes.” His throat worked, and a deeper agony lit his eyes. “Zakaar.”
“What about him?” I asked, voice hard as obsidian. “Don’t you dare try and tell me you give a flying fuck about his condition.”
Desolate despair etched more lines into his face. “I cannot . . . cannot exist . . . without Zakaar.”
Yep, as I suspected, his “concern” went no further than how Zack’s condition affected his own. Rhyzkahl was a hot mess because of the broken ptarl bond, but Zack suffered far more—locked in human form and unable to touch the other demahnk. I leaned close and bared my teeth. “Zakaar warned you. He gave you every chance to stop being a fucking asshole.”
“Cannot fault Zakaar,” he rasped. “He will . . . return.” He lifted a shaking hand to touch my forearm. “He will.”
I jerked away and stepped back, ignoring his low moan as I pulled my arm from his touch. “I wouldn’t hold my breath on that, if I were you,” I said. “I don’t see him returning to kiss your boo-boos and make them better any time soon.” I paused to savor the moment. “Or ever.”
He made a desperate reach toward me. “No, no . . . stay close,” he pleaded then withdrew his hand as if realizing it might be a deterrent. “Stay close. Please.”
Suspicious, I considered him. “Why?” I edged a bit closer, watching him carefully. He closed his eyes, and a small amount of the tension eased out of his face and body.
“Hurts less.” He swallowed. “I can think more clearly . . . when you are near.”
Perhaps my presence grounded him since he no longer had Zakaar to give him balance? But why me? Somehow I doubted that any random human had the same effect. Maybe it was my affinity with the demon realm groves that made me a walking Vicodin for the fucker? Or perhaps it had to do with Elinor—the summoner who’d inadvertently triggered a cataclysm in the demon realm hundreds of years ago. A fragment of her essence lingered on mine, which was a large part of why Rhyzkahl had oh-so-nicely picked me for his torturous sigil scar ritual. For that matter, maybe it was those fucking scars. Whatever the reason, it meant I now had serious leverage over the son of a bitch.
I poked him hard in the shoulder with a knuckle. “How’s that?” I asked with false brightness. “Does that help?”
To my shock my little jab might as well have been a tiny charge of power. A look akin to orgasmic relief bathed his features, and the anguished feel of his aura eased a smidge. “Yes,” he replied, deathly serious as he met my gaze.
Mouth pursed, I nodded, then punched him in the face as hard as I could.
“Fuck You!” I shouted as he let out a wheezing cry of pain. I danced back from the bed and shot him the bird with both hands.
Heedless of the blood pouring from his nose, he struggled off the bed and to his feet as I continued to withdraw. “Kara, no,” he gasped. “Do not . . . leave me.” He collapsed to the floor, hand extended and face panicked. “No, Kara . . . do not leave me. Please.”
“Buh-bye, dear one.” I blew him a mocking kiss. “Now, wake up.”
With no more effort than it took to breathe, I withdrew from the dreamscape into the full presence of my living room. Not a trace of Rhyzkahl in sight or arcane sense. Awake, super-charged with adrenaline, and feeling insanely alive, I shoved the afghan aside and leaped to my feet. Humming with elation, I flipped on the light. Everything dripped with color and vibrancy, and my blood thrummed through my body.
“Rot in hell, motherfucker,” I sang then proceeded to dance badly around the room with only Fuzzykins to judge me.
It didn’t take long for my overall fatigue to catch up and tell me to cut out the dancing crap. I yanked my summoning journal from the bottom of the pile of papers and notes on the coffee table, settled in the recliner and flipped to a blank page. Though I was craptastic about keeping up with day to day journaling, I was trying hard to keep a record of important occurrences. This dream-thing most certainly ranked right up there in importance, especially since I didn’t know how it happened. Could it possibly be connected to the incident with Jill on the valve? She’d said Rhyzkahl cried for me. Yeah, well, he could keep crying for all I cared.
I
dutifully recorded the event—along with some choice expletives. I intended to share this incident with Zack and Mzatal and absolutely no one else, which meant I needed to safeguard my notes. Though the journal itself was warded, I traced three intricate aversions on the page, then added a fourth for good measure. A far cry from the pink diary I had as a kid with its lock that could be picked with a bobby pin.
Riding the tide of my wild and crazy journaling frenzy, I also made notes on the pond valve weirdness with Jill, then dragged my notebook from my purse and transcribed Zack’s sleep-talking into the journal.