Harper frowned. If Nora wasn’t sure whether or not her only remaining partner in crime was responsible, then that would suggest that… “You’re not working together anymore, are you?”
“Let’s just say I didn’t agree with their belief that we should lie low for a while.” Her face hardened. “I’m old. I’ve waited long enough for the Primes to fall. I was once a Prime, you know. Now I answer to my grandson because a Prime will be challenged by others if it isn’t fit to hold its position. Because I aged, I was deemed unfit.” The latter word dripped with venom. “And now I’m nothing more than a demon within a lair. If there were no Primes, if there were equal rights for all demons, I wouldn’t be thought of as an antique,” she added bitterly.
Harper shook her head. “Our kind craves power too much to ever simply exist alongside each other and be content as equals. The hierarchies within each lair exist for that reason, and they work.” But Nora wasn’t listening. She was gazing around her, wearing a serene expression, like she was in a freaking meadow or something.
Nora clasped her hands. “This truly is a fascinating place. Time is different here.”
Not liking the sound of that, Harper warily asked, “Different how?”
“An hour in the vortex is a minute in places beyond it. Think of what that means. You’ve been here for, say, an hour. To anyone away from this place, you’ve only been here a minute.”
As the implications of that sank in, Harper’s stomach dropped and panic fluttered through her. Even if Knox was able to get her at a pace that was supremely fast to him, enough time would have passed here for Nora to end Harper’s life first.
“In other words, don’t be counting on a rescue, Harper. Call out to Knox all you like – he won’t hear you. Not while you’re trapped in the vortex.”
Huh. Well, that wasn’t actually correct, but Nora didn’t need to know that. “He’ll find a way to get to me.”
“Oh, I doubt that.”
“You shouldn’t. People have hurt and taken me before – he’s always come for me.” And both Harper and her demon trusted that he’d come for her again.
“He won’t come, Harper. As I said, time is different here. Let’s say that Larkin goes into the restrooms and finds you gone – she’ll sense the leftover magickal energy, but she won’t understand it was from a portal. Of course, she’ll run to Knox. He’ll feel the magick too, but it’s highly unlikely that he’ll sense there was a portal. Still, he’s smart enough to know he’ll need an incantor to ‘read’ the magick.”
He’d be aware that there was a portal for the simple reason that Harper had told him – that was yet another thing that Nora didn’t need to know.
“I’m sure he’ll find one, and I’m sure they will be willing to reopen the portal for him. However, that process takes up to fifteen minutes to complete. Now add all that time together and, for Knox, that will be – at the very least – twenty minutes before he even steps through the portal. That’s twenty hours to us, sweetheart. By then, you’ll be dead, and we’ll all be gone.”
Okay, that was bad. Really bad. Dammit, she had to get the fuck out of there.
Nora’s expression turned sober as she spoke to her companions. “Get into position.”
While Linda stayed still, each of the others copied Nora in moving to stand near a boulder so that they surrounded Harper.
Another shot of adrenaline pumped through Harper, and she flexed her fingers. “I suppose you intend to kill me now before Knox has the chance to get here.” And, heartbreakingly, there wasn’t a single thing that she could do to stop it.
“Not just yet,” said Nora as she and the others sat cross-legged. “I want you dead, but I want the baby first. If we can’t destroy Knox, we can at least control him. What better way than through his child?”
Harper’s heart slammed against her ribs, and her knees almost buckled. She put a protective hand to her stomach. “You can’t have the baby.”
“Oh, but I can. You have to understand, Harper, that there’s no real way for demons to exist as equals while someone so powerful lives. Knox could take complete control at any time. Trying to kill him hasn’t worked. Holding the baby’s safety over his head, though… yes, that would keep him under my thumb.”
Nora raised her hands and began to chant under her breath. The others joined in, and the stale air suddenly turned heavy and oppressive. The clouds thickened and darkened, making the sky look almost bruised.
“What are you doing?”
It was Linda who spoke. “Inducing labor, of course.”
Harper shook her head, stomach plummeting. “The baby isn’t ready yet. They’ll kill it.”
“No,” said Nora. “I have a team of people on standby who can give it whatever care it needs to ensure it survives.”
“And I’ll be there to care for the baby,” declared Linda, chin up.
Nora’s smile faltered. “Yes, and you’ll be there.” She went back to chanting, and the wind picked up, whipping the snarled trees and making dirt swirl in the air.
A gust of wind sailed at Harper, making her dress flap against her legs. Panicking, she called to her wings again, and yet more pain wracked her. The baby’s mind touched hers. She felt its fear, and that almost broke her. “No, you don’t get to take my —”
She cut off as what looked like black drops of rain sprung from Nora’s fingertips and, quick as lightning, hit Harper right in the chest. She tried to wipe them off, but they sank into her skin. She felt the magick inside her, then. Felt it slither around her bones, snake around her organs, and settle over her womb like an oily blanket. “What the fuck did you just do?”
Pain blasted through her abdomen, and her womb contracted so hard that she dropped to her knees. It hurt like holy hell. She’d never felt pain like it – not when Knox’s power poured into her mind, not when the hunters sawed at her wings, not even when her body spent hours fighting the hex.
The wind rushed at her again, stealing her breath and knocking her right on her ass. Vines sprouted out of the earth and shackled her wrists, pinning her hands. She managed to fight their hold just enough to stay sitting upright, but she couldn’t free herself. She tried infusing hellfire into the grass, hoping the vines might catch fire, but only smoke left her palms. Motherfucking vortex. She could feel its sinister, repelling energy slithering between her fingers.
Another spasm wracked her womb, making her spine arch like a brow. All the breathing exercises she’d read about went completely out of her head. She gritted her teeth against the pain, clenching her trapped hands and unintentionally scraping the soil. Her shoulders slouched as the pain finally faded. Her heart thudded in her tightening chest, her breaths burst in and out of her. “I’ll kill you all, I swear to God, I will!”
“No, you won’t,” said Nora calmly. “You won’t even get the chance. Once the child is born, that magick you absorbed will attack every cell in your body – you’ll be dead within moments.”