Mzatal shifted his hold and worked the stiffness in her joints. “You will soon find it easier to summon again.”
Rasha inhaled sharply as healing warmth suffused her hands, and understanding dawned in her eyes an instant later. “Oh my,” she murmured, then closed her eyes and sat quiet and still while we worked.
A few minutes later she opened them again, brow puckered. Mzatal’s lips twitched in a smile as we continued to work the healing. “Speak, Rasha.”
A whisper of fear crossed her face as she realized he could read her thoughts. “My lord, I meant no offense.”
“Speak,” he repeated.
She took a careful breath. “You call her beloved,” she said quietly, no doubt embarrassed I could hear, but unwilling to defy the lord’s command.
He moved his hands to her wrists, and his smile grew fond. “Yes. I only speak the truth.”
“Yet she calls you Boss, my lord?” she asked, clearly perplexed and probably wondering why he tolerated such disrespect. I studiously kept my eyes slightly unfocused as if I wasn’t paying any attention and carefully suppressed a smile.
“She does indeed name me such,” he agreed. “Frequently.” Mzatal’s smile kicked up another degree. “It is the energy behind the word, not the word itself,” he explained. “Have you not heard a human speak a term of endearment, yet put such harsh intent behind it that it could as easily have been a knife to the essence?”
The old summoner let out a dry chuckle. “Ah, yes, of course.” Then she gave a wistful sigh. “My Sapar, he would call me his third doughnut. Odd, to be sure, but he meant it sweetly. I miss him still.” Her forehead creased, as if struggling to recall those days with her long dead husband.
“You have lived long alone,” he murmured.
She looked into the distance, smile trembling. “I had my granddaughter Jade for many years after my son and his wife died,” she said, then sighed. “Such a joy she was, despite all she’d endured. So beautiful.”
Mzatal gently released her hands, then brushed his fingers along her temple. Her expression cleared, and joy replaced the confusion as if Mzatal had dusted off those old memories.
“Oh . . . my lord.” She lifted her hands, opened and closed her fingers, eyes brimming with tears. “You have given me a great gift.”
“One richly deserved,” he replied.
“Rasha, you have my number by your phone,” I said. “Call me if anyone threatens or pressures you, and especially if anyone tries to hurt you.”
She nodded grateful assent.
“Now you must rest,” Mzatal said and sent her into sleep before she could either protest or thank him. With a tenderness that few, other than I, had ever witnessed, he lifted the aged summoner and settled her on the couch. His hand remained on her shoulder for several more heartbeats before he straightened and drew a light blanket over her.
“I have eased her memory of the ritual,” he told me quietly. “She is able to remember it, but only with focus and intent. It will no longer haunt her.”
“You’re such a softy,” I said with a low laugh, and planted a not-soft kiss on his mouth. He’d expended a good portion of his reserves with the healing, and I resolved to get him home to the mini-nexus as soon as possible.
Bryce and Paul and I finished cleaning up the kitchen and the broken porcelain, while Mzatal restored the wards in her house and beefed them up to demonic lord levels. At long last we departed, leaving Rasha sleeping peacefully on the sofa.
Eilahn emerged from a clump of brush on the other side of the street, smiled and readied the motorcycle. I kept my hand in Mzatal’s as we walked back to the SUV. “I’m proud of you.” I slid a glance his way.
He gave me a sidelong look in return. “My heaviness met your expectation?”
“Well, you did a fair bit of looming for the first part of the visit,” I pointed out.
His brows drew together. “I was simply heavy.” Before I could reply, he moved swiftly behind me, aura shifting to black menace as he pressed close against my back. I felt his breath on my neck as he spoke with dark and sinister horror. “This is looming.”
I sucked in a gasping breath and had to bite back a cry of terror. Ahead of me, Bryce staggered and clutched at the SUV, face paling. Clenching my teeth, I drove an elbow back into Mzatal’s gut.
He grunted at the blow, then let out an actual laugh, horrific aura dissipating to his normal “heavy” mojo in an instant. Bryce and Paul turned to stare at the lord, both apparently finding the laughter almost more disturbing then the menace.
I couldn’t help but laugh as well. It felt good. “Holy shit, she’d have keeled over dead if you’d done that to her.” Throwing my arms around his neck, I planted a kiss on him, and didn’t mind at all when he wrapped his arms around me and returned it with a fervor that was possibly illegal on the streets of Austin, Texas.
Reluctantly, and only because Bryce and Paul were doing their best to look anywhere but at us, I broke the kiss. “Let’s get back home,” I said. “And if we run into Asher or Jerry or Katashi or Farouche, you can loooooom all you want.”
Chapter 34