Chapter 30

30

S omeone was banging on a door in an aggressive beat. Elektra rolled over, her limbs heavy with exhaustion, and pushed at Vanth's shoulder.

"Vanth! Get up! There's a very handsome and angry Irish man outside," Cecelia's voice called through the door.

"We will be right out," Vath grumbled back. He rolled over and kissed Elektra on the cheek.

"Up you get, gorgeous. Galen is going to want to talk to both of us." Elektra didn't move. Vanth brushed his fingers through her hair. "How are you feeling? You're not aching anywhere?"

Elektra did a quick scan of her body before she opened her eyes and smiled up at him. "No. I feel good. A little tired and tender and that I could do with another five hours of sleep. Stop worrying."

Vanth frowned. "I'm allowed to. Aftercare is important. Especially when you have other forces influencing your normal limits, like a mating cycle."

Elektra reached up and kissed him in the middle of his brows. "Thank you for checking. I appreciate you looking after me, but we really need to get up."

"Galen can wait," Vanth said, moving to kiss her.

The wards around the house shuddered, and Elektra laughed. "Galen doesn't seem to be in a waiting mood."

"He better have a good fucking reason for being here so early," Vanth grumbled.

They got dressed, and Elektra went to the bathroom while Vanth answered the door. Elektra couldn't remember getting out of the tub and into bed the night before. She had been so blissed out.

She bit back a gasp when she saw the state of her neck. There was a ring of fading bruises around it and trails of them over her chest. Being fae with rapid healing meant they would be gone by the end of the day. Heat and desire raced through her veins.

Vanth had marked her in a way that would scream ownership to any other fae who saw them.

He wasn't raised to know what this means , she tried to tell her racing heart.

She quickly washed up and put on one of the new shirts she had bought the day before. The collar was high enough to hide most of the bruises. Voices were getting louder out in the kitchen, so Elektra hurried to join them.

Galen was pacing and agitated. He was out of his power suit and dressed in expensive dark blue jeans and a black T-shirt. He didn't look like he had slept a wink.

"Okay, we are both here now," Vanth said, putting on the coffee. "Why don't you tell us what bug has crawled up and bit you on the taint."

Galen collapsed in a chair. "Last night, the demons in the club went crazy around 1 a.m. They lost it and started brawling."

"Is Harper okay?" Vanth asked.

"His power was the only thing that stopped the fights. His incubus side surged, and everyone who wasn't trying to fight was trying to fuck. We had to get the cops in to deal with the humans, and I had to get all the cambions into containment circles," Galen ranted. "I don't know what happened, but when Harper cooled down enough, he said some kind of power hit the city like a shock wave. He said it felt like the other side was pushing its way through. I swear to Christ I never told them a thing about why you visited."

"I don't know what to tell you," Vanth said, rubbing at his chin. "What do you think, Elektra? Is Lazarus capable of something like that?"

Galen looked between them, expression growing darker. "Aren't you two meant to be able to feel something like that? What were you up to..." His blue eyes rested on Elektra's neck, and he swore.

"We aren't linked to the Veil, and the cambions would be more connected to feeling disturbances," Elektra said, ignoring the sorcerer's grumbling. "Maybe Lazarus has begun to poke at the mending to see if it's weak enough?"

Vanth poured them both coffees, and Galen added whiskey to his from a flask in his pocket.

Vanth asked, "Did you come here with any good news at all? Or did you wake us up just to have a rant?"

"I tracked the magic, but the location doesn't make sense. It's like it was on the map but not on a map?" Galen said and pulled out a square of cloth from his pocket. "It was a big signature that tracking it down should have been a dream. I did the magic three times and still got the same result."

Vanth and Elektra shared a look, and he nodded at Galen. "Show us. We know of some places like that."

Galen tossed the cloth into the air, and as it fell, it unraveled into a large map of Inferno and the countries around it. The map began to shift and change as Galen's magic manipulated it.

"This is us," he said, pointing at the city and the expanse of sea it was nestled beside. "This is where the location spell keeps leading me. The best I can pinpoint is that it's here in the Rhodope Mountains, but then it does this." The red dot on the map began to flicker in and out and in different locations along the range.

Elektra's heart skipped a beat as she moved closer to study the dot. Vanth leaned in beside her, and her eyes fluttered closed for a moment, taking in his scent.

Fuck, not now . She forced her concentration back on the map.

"What are you thinking, princess?" Vanth asked, his eyes mischievous. No doubt he could sense exactly what she was thinking when he looked at her like that.

"I think that the original tear in the Veil was located somewhere near the Temple of Magic and Bone. It's why the location keeps moving so rapidly. One of the entrances to the temple located in the human plane is in that range."

"What do you mean by entrances?" Galen asked.

Elektra hesitated. There were some secrets that the temple held sacred. But would that even matter if there were no reapers left to tend to it?

"The easiest way I can explain it is to imagine a house that exists in a space outside of time. There are doors all over the world that open to it. It's between the real world and the Afterlife."

"Like the filling in a sandwich with the living and the dead worlds being the bread," Vanth said. Galen and Elektra stared at him. "What? I'm hungry, and it's how my brain is understanding it."

"So how are you two going to find it if the location is moving?" Galen asked, turning to Elektra.

"We need to go back to the temple and use it as a starting place," she said, tapping her lip thoughtfully. "Is this map enchanted to stay locked onto the source of the magical disruption?"

Galen nodded. "It is, but I can't promise it will work any more accurately. Why?"

"If we take it to the temple, the interference might stabilize it," Vanth guessed.

Elektra knew that she had to go back; she had known it since she had left. She was just afraid to. There had been nothing but death and carnage left behind, the dying demands of the high priestess ringing in her ears that had made her run without thought.

Vanth's arm went around her shoulders, bringing her out of the memory. "Hey, you won't be going there alone. Whatever we find there, we will face it together."

Elektra nodded, leaning into his warmth and comfort. Mate. Mate. Mate , her primal side insisted. That was something for her to examine after all the other mess was over. She didn't have room in her heart for any hope that wasn't beyond surviving.

"If that's all you two will need from me, I'll get out of your hair. I have my own affairs to see to," Galen said, placing his empty mug in the sink. Vanth thanked him for his help, and Galen shrugged it off. He paused by the door. "Vanth, take some free advice? Don't leave Inferno without seeing the dragons. If you fail, and an army of the undead is unleashed on the city, then dragon fire will be the only thing to stop them."

Vanth groaned. "They won't see me."

"Just try to say that you did in case it all blows up in your face." Galen smiled. "Because knowing you, it probably will."

"Okay, but you better go see your priest and get your soul prepared," Vanth teased back.

Galen didn't laugh. "No point. I know who's going to claim my soul as soon as I'm dead, and there's nothing anyone can do about it."

Vanth waited until he was gone before turning back to Elektra and the map. "When do you want to leave?"

Elektra rubbed at her tired eyes. "As soon as we can. He's right about the dragons too. There needs to be some kind of contingency if we fail. The first thing I need to do is have a shower, and you need to come with me."

Vanth's expression brightened. "I do?"

"Yes. I'm not going into some epic showdown with Lazarus and his cult without a hot shower." Elektra pulled him closer and lightly brushed her lips against his. " And without being with you one last time."

Vanth tucked her hair behind her ear. "I'm all for moving lovemaking, princess. Just don't act like we are about to die, okay?" He kissed the tip of her nose. "I only just found you, and I'm not going to let you go without a fight, even if it's Death doing the claiming. Understand?"

Elektra hugged him tighter to her. Despite knowing she shouldn't, reckless hope filled her as she kissed him just below the ear and breathed him in. "I understand."

Elektra didn't settle until she was under the hot steam of the shower with Vanth pressed against her, warm and naked. He was so careful with her that it made tears build at the back of her eyelids.

She couldn't let the fear of losing him overwhelm her or distract her from what needed to be done. At that moment, she didn't need anything but to be with him, so she kissed him, and when he finally slid inside of her, she enjoyed every second of it. She memorized how he looked at her in awe and savored each caress and softly whispered word. It felt more than just getting off, and the urgency her mating cycle had sparked wasn't riding her. It was just them, and she gloried in it.

Afterward, Vanth washed her tenderly and kissed his way over her shoulders.

"Are you feeling better now? You seemed to disappear when Galen was talking," he asked.

"It's not easy for me to admit that I'm afraid of going back to the temple. I was doing what I was told when I left, and it still feels like I am a coward. I don't want you to think that I am too when..."

Vanth turned her in his arms. "Elektra, there's no way I would ever think that. You are one of the most fearless people I have ever met. Nothing we find there will make me think otherwise. You're here with me, and that's more bravery than the majority of people I have met in my life."

"You're not so bad. Maybe your sense of humor," Elektra teased because everything felt too heavy. "But I kind of love that about you too."

Vanth's lips twitched. "You love stuff about me, do you?"

Elektra swallowed hard but nodded. "Lots of things, actually. It's a bit disturbing, and it's not my rampant horniness from my mating cycle talking either."

Vanth's eyes went wide, and he stroked her wet cheeks. "So I'm not alone in feeling that this is something beyond stress relief and a good time? Because I love everything about you. It's killing me not being able to say it."

Elektra's heart thudded painfully against her ribs. "Even me being bossy and kind of mean?"

"Oh, especially when you're bossy and mean, princess."

Elektra rested her head against his chest. "This wasn't what I expected to happen when I saw you dancing with the ghosts that day."

"It wasn't what I expected to happen when I found you rummaging in my fridge. Maybe I had more of an idea when you kicked my ass afterward," Vanth said, and she couldn't stop the laughter that bubbled out of her.

"What a pair we are," she said.

"The perfect pair, in my opinion. How about we go kick Lazarus's ass, and then we can explore how in love we are in detail and many different positions?" Vanth suggested. Elektra went up on her tiptoes and kissed him. She had never heard of a better plan in all her life.