“For what? I don’t understand— ”
“There’s no time. He’ll be back.”
“Nine, what are you— no!”
He grabs my arm in a grip so tight that I can already imagine the bruise that will be there in the morning. I try to jerk out of his grip, but it’s impossible. He yanks my arm and, suddenly, the room starts spinning like I’ve gotten tossed inside of a tornado.
I open my mouth to scream but the sound gets lost in the rush of air. My hair starts whipping around me, the white-blonde strands mingling with Nine’s raven-colored waves. Dark mixed with light. Black and white.
Ha. As if it was that simple.
Everything blurs. Wind whooshes through me, an angry breeze that slaps me with the ends of my hair, my cheeks rippling at the force of it. It’s a chilly burst of air that freezes the tips of my ears. They’ve always been super sensitive and it’s been so damn long since I felt the wind on my skin like that.
It doesn’t last long and by the time my teeth are chattering from the chill, a suppressing heat slams into me. I choke, then gag. That’s probably not because of the temperature change. The spinning is making my already queasy stomach violent.
I used to get car sick when I was a kid. This is ten times worse.
I clamp my eyes shut, screwing my jaw shut so that I don’t throw up my beef stew all over Nine’s shadowy coat. He might deserve it for what he’s doing right now, but I’d only regret it in the end.
My whole body jerks, like when you’re riding on a train and it stops short. If Nine wasn’t gripping my arm so tight, I would’ve gone flying when the world seems to just… stop.
Once I’m standing still, once I’m sure the world has stopped spinning, I crack my eyelids open—and immediately wish that I didn’t.
My first thought is that I probably should’ve paid closer attention to what the nurse stuck in my dixie cup because one of those pills has got to be wrong. I’m tripping pretty hard on something. That’s the only way I can explain what I’m seeing.
The sky is this freaky pink. Not a soft pale color, either, but a dark magenta mixed with large swirls of a deep, burnished gold. I don’t see any sun or stars or even clouds. Just a purply-pink sky.
The trees are even worse. I mean, they’re beautiful—but they look like they’re made of crystals. If it wasn’t for the heat here, or the fact that it’s still June, I’d think they were bare trees with a silver bark, empty branches dripping with icicles. I don’t know how else to explain their sparkle and shine.
The air is thin here, or maybe I’ve forgotten how to breathe. I bend over with my gloves on my knees and look at what should be the grass. It looks like spun sugar or dental floss or, well, anything but grass. Because in the real world? Grass isn’t this shade of a pretty light blue.
Hunched over, torn between running my fingers through the weirdo grass and flipping out because it’s starting to hit me that I’m not in the real world anymore, I finally notice that Nine isn’t holding onto my arm.
For one horrible second, I think that I lost him in the whipping wind, but then I turn around and he’s looming behind me. From the look on his gorgeous face, I’m betting he didn’t expect to be in this strange place anymore than I do.
He catches my eye. Without a word, he puts one long, pale finger to his lips. There’s a shiny patch of raw skin along the side of his finger and most of his hand.
I’ve seen marks like those before. Nine has a freshly healed burn.
“Where are we?” I whisper. And then, because indignation can only protect me so much and I’m two seconds away from shaking in my slippers, I hiss, “So I know I haven’t been on the outside in a while, but I think I would’ve remembered if the sky was pink.”
Nine ignores my question. “Just stay close to me. We went a few portals too far. We shouldn’t be here. I’ll give you a couple of seconds to recover, then we’ll try again.”
Is that a threat? Now that I’m standing straight again, freaking out has won out and I’m way too busy to notice much of anything else. I force myself to pay attention to Nine. He’s a fae, right? A Dark Fae who just proved we can both walk through shadows together. He knows what he’s doing, right?
A couple of seconds, then we’re getting the hell out of here. Okay. That calms me a little.
I still don’t know exactly what this place is. I start turning in circles, marveling at its strange, undeniable beauty when, suddenly, I glimpse someone in the distance, halfway hidden behind one of the trees. I jump back. From his whisper, it’s obvious Nine doesn’t want anyone else to know we’ve popped in. Crap. That’s definitely a person over there.
I blink. Wait a second. That’s… that’s a person. Not a fae. His skin is a light brown shade—not bronzed, not moonlight pale—and, even from where I am, I can tell that he’s shorter than Nine. He’s still tall, though. And there’s something about him that’s… that’s familiar. Squinting, I look closer.
No fucking way.
Nine is hanging back. The Shadow Man’s gotta be proud of himself. He got what he wanted. I’m here, wherever here is, and I’m not screaming my head off.
Yeah. That’s about to change.
Before he can stop me, I bolt. I have to be sure that I’m right. I don’t know how it’s possible, but I have this absolutely awful suspicion about the guy tucked behind that weirdo tree over there. Who knows? Maybe I’m deflecting. I don’t want to deal with Nine so why not run off into this unknown place?