“Suck up, show-off,” Falcyn muttered. Then louder, “Fine, take mine.”
Medea hesitated as a bad feeling went through her. She couldn’t explain it, but something in her gut didn’t like this. And the look in Falcyn’s eyes said he was every bit as suspicious.
If the others felt it, too, they gave no clue that anything was out of the norm.
“So how do you take this time from us?” Medea glanced back to the zeitj?gers.
The copián laughed. “It’s already gone. As I said, you don’t even miss it. You didn’t even know we did it.”
Falcyn leaned down to whisper in her ear. “Told you. Insidious bastards.”
No kidding. The only clue was the strange slurping sound the zeitj?gers made. At least, she assumed it came from them.
Maybe not.
Yeah … c-r-e-e-p-y.
The copián walked toward the portal and lifted his staff. The moment he did, the portal came alive with swirling, vibrant colors. He moved his staff through it until the mist began to mimic his movements.
Red fire shot out from the torch and was absorbed by the mist.
“It’s ready.”
Urian grinned at Medea. “Ladies first.”
She rolled her eyes at her brother. “Like you’d know if I didn’t make it.”
“You might be polite and scream … then again, it is you. Maybe Blaise should go first? I know he’d scream to warn us.”
He turned an angry glare to Falcyn. “I thought you weren’t going to tell anyone about my screaming fits?”
“I didn’t. That was Max who outed you.”
“Oh.… Remind me to kill him later.” Blaise headed for the portal. “Fine, I’ll go through first.”
Brogan took his hand. “I’ll go with you.”
Touched by the gesture, Medea headed up the platform to the strange humming beast that seemed to have a life of its own. Yet as she reached the portal, Falcyn held her back.
He quirked a peculiar smile at her. “In case my usual luck holds and this all goes to hell.”
Before she could tell what he intended, he lowered his head and captured her lips with the hottest kiss she’d ever been given. He held her as if she were the most precious thing in his world.
As if he loved her.
Stunned, she couldn’t breathe. It actually took her a moment before she could even react enough to kiss him back. But when her brain began to work, she had to admit he was exceptional at this.
More than that, he set her on fire. It’d been far too long since anyone had kissed her in such a manner. Since any man had made her feel exceptional. While she hadn’t been chaste, she hadn’t been promiscuous either. Mostly because she’d avoided any emotional entanglement with another living being, other than her mother.
It didn’t matter how much time passed. Thoughts of her son and husband forever haunted her. Nothing could chase away the memory of their smiles. The warmth that she’d once taken for granted.
Fear of losing another had kept her heart locked in ice.
Apollites and Daimons were hunted creatures who often lived exceptionally brief lives. Even their strongest were often annihilated by Dark-Hunters, sooner rather than later. And that only compounded her fears to the point that she’d been incapable of opening herself up for more heartache.
But Falcyn wasn’t an Apollite.
He definitely wasn’t a Daimon.
And when he pulled back, she was left dazed and breathless by the taste of him. A gorgeous smile hovered at the edge of his lips as he stared down at her.
Without a word, he led her into the portal and kept her steady.…
Falcyn cursed the moment he felt the energy pulling at his body.
And then it sucked them into the stinging vortex.
He’d always hated stepping through one of these gates. Blaise was a lot more used to it than he was, since he held one of the keys that enabled him to travel to and from the veil world where Merlin had pulled Avalon and Camelot to so that she could protect the other worlds and realms from Morgen’s evil. After the death of King Arthur, it’d been the only way to secure the realm of man, and the other eight worlds from Morgen and her evil Circle. Otherwise, Morgen’s fey court would have enslaved them all.
But as for Falcyn, he liked to stay planted in one dimension. This kind of hopping through nether portals crap was not his forte.
And as the colors swirled and he lost his bearings and feared his lunch would follow, Falcyn definitely understood why he’d always felt that way. This shit sucked! Give him wings and flight or teleportation any day.
Especially when he went slamming hard into a dark, damp ground a few minutes later.
Gah! That was going to leave a mark.
Groaning, he lay on his back as everything spun around like a Tilt-A-Whirl. And he hadn’t even got a funnel cake or fried Twinkie out of it.
With a grimace, Falcyn rubbed at his eyes. “Blaise? You dead?”
“No.” He didn’t sound like he was in any better shape than Falcyn, though.
“Good. I want the pleasure of killing you myself, you bastard!”
Blaise snorted.
“Don’t scoff, dragon,” Urian said, his tone every bit as peeved. “Soon as I can move again, I intend to help with your murder and dismemberment.”
Falcyn turned his head to the right, where Medea lay a few feet away from his side, unmoving on the grass. “Medea?”
She finally lifted a hand to brush her hair from her face. “Not dead, either.”
That made him feel a bit better. “Brogan?”
“Just wishing I was.” Shifting her legs, she made no move to rise. Rather she seemed content to lie on her back, staring up at the dismally gray sky. “Is it always this miserable to travel in such a manner?”
Blaise sighed. “Pretty much. Least I didn’t slam into an invisible force field this time.”
Rolling over, Falcyn pushed himself into a sitting position, then scowled as he caught sight of the dark, twisted trees around him. Trees that lined an equally screwed-up, bleak landscape the likes of which he hadn’t thought to ever see again.
Oh, this can’t be right.
Yet he knew he wasn’t dreaming. And he definitely wasn’t imagining this.
“Hey, Blaise … Why the hell are we in Camelot?”
“Whaaaaat?” He rose with a fierce scowl and looked up as if he could see the sky, which he couldn’t. But it didn’t stop him from trying.
Falcyn let out a tired, irritated sigh. “Correct me if I’m wrong.”
His white-blond hair shimmering in the fey light, Blaise paled as he sniffed the air. “Well … you’re kind of wrong.”
“How so?”
“This isn’t Camelot … exactly.”
That only made his stomach tighten with dread. “What’s not exactly Camelot?”
“Val Sans Retour.”
Ah shit … He’d rather be in Camelot. With Morgen, tied to her throne. Naked and declawed.
Muzzled even.
Sitting up immediately, Medea scowled at them both. “The what?”
Falcyn let out another groan before he answered. “The Valley of No Return. So named because no one ever comes out of here alive. Like Blaise … because I really am going to kill him as soon as I find my strength.”