The Shifting Price of Prey

My mate.

And I/it was his.

Mated.

No!I tried to shout, to push it out, but it raked claws through me, slicing me into smaller and smaller bloody pieces and casting them down into the darkness.

As I fell it reached out to Fi

The memories rained down on me, burning like acid tears.

Chapter Fifty-Three

I woke with a raging thirst, a hammering in my head that rivalled a dwarves’ workshop, and a nauseous roiling in my belly. I groaned, rolled groggily away from the sunlight sending knives into my eyes, and got a face full of fur. I groaned again, belatedly realising my Hot.D/Reviver double-postponed hangover had sucker-punched me. As had Gold Cat.

Fucking animus had mated me and Fi

I scrambled up, dizzy with the hangover, to find Fi

But Viviane was back, sitting with her game of Patience.

Shit. I should’ve known better than to trust her small agreement. I should’ve negotiated a cast-iron bargain with her and damned the consequences.

‘You and Gold Cat pla

She calmly moved a card. ‘Not so much pla

‘Why?’

‘Why isn’t important right now, bean sidhe. Not if you want me to help you save the satyr, as we agreed.’

I snorted then wished I hadn’t as the dwarves in my head hammered another couple of nails in. ‘No thanks, Viv. After your last bit of help, in which you, oh so helpfullyfucked Fi

Her cards jerked up on end, quivering with umbrage. ‘I agreed to help release you from that circle. In order to do that without your dying, the ritual had to be completed. As stated on page thirty-nine of the notes taken from the witch archives.’

My hands stilled on my shirt buttons as the ramifications hit me. If I hadn’t had sex with Fi

I rounded on Viviane. ‘Where is it?’

She shrugged. ‘I do not know. But I can tell you that what happened between you and Fi

I stared at her, horrified at the worse-than-having-sex-with-Fi

She tossed her black hair back in irritation and her cards flew up into a line in front of my face. Like a slide show they showed seven huge wolves at the cave entrance. Then three black-haired, olive-ski

A vice squeezed my heart. The Emperor’s werewolves had taken Fi

‘I was here,’ I said, my voice flat. ‘Why didn’t they take me?’

‘No doubt they had a reason.’ Viviane flicked her fingers and the cards returned to a tidy stack in front of her. ‘But if you want my help to save the satyr along with all the other victims of the Forum Mirabilis we should get moving.’

‘Told you,’ I snapped. ‘Your help is no longer required.’

She gave me an arch smile. ‘Then I wish you luck finding your way back to the humans’ world.’

Crap. Like I’d ever find it. Betweendidn’t go in for handy signposts and I’d been unconscious on the way here. Even if I struck lucky and found an entrance, right one or not, opening it would take another miracle. Being magically challenged sucks. Big time.

‘Fine,’ I snapped. ‘Let’s move.’

The way back felt like I was climbing-through Dante’s nine circles of hell. My Hot.D postponed hangover, which even the painkillers in my backpack couldn’t nix, didn’t help. Neither did the cave being so far off any regular paths, so not only did I have fucking garden fairies screaming in my ears and sulphurous-smelling swampies to dodge but all the other magical beasties and half-formed spirits that plague Betweendecided to come out and party too. Most of them decided retreat was the best option as soon as they got a look at Ascalon, but enough wanted a piece of me that by the time we reached the double oak tree with its bramble- and weed-tangled and impossible-for-me-to-pass exit back to London’s Primrose Hill, I already looked like I’d been pulled through a hundred hedges backwards.

I glowered at the bespelled tangle, cursing my lack of magical ability, the Emperor and anyone else who’d had a meddling hand in my life. Slicing and dicing my way through the half-formed hadn’t done much to take the edge off my rage and fear for Fi

I turned to where she hovered silently. Once we’d left the cave she’d changed her outfit to a lavender-coloured Victorian dress, complete with beribboned bustle, feathered bo

I reached out and grabbed her wrist.

Her mouth dropped open in shock. ‘You can’t do that. I’m a spirit! Incorporeal!’

Except I could. As I’d discovered during my skirmishes with the half-formed. It hadn’t just been Ascalon that had chased them off; my fists and feet had too. The first time had been by accident; two seven-foot cyclops-types with orange exoskeletons and snapping lobster claws got me in a pincer movement (bad pun aside). Ascalon declawed one (a minor injury, if not for the fact it was caused by the blessed, bespelled sword), blasting the cyclops-lobster back into the magic, and my automatic elbow to the gut got the one behind me. Its surprised look as its carapace cracked had mirrored my own, then, as it gathered its leaking magic back to re-form and attack again, I instinctively calledit and absorbedit. Horrified about what nasty side-effects might arise from ingesting a half-formed, I spat it straight back out. Or rather I spat out an orange amorphous mass. It floated off, drifting gradually apart until it fadedaway into the ether.

It took me a few more fights, and absorptions, to put my new ability together with the sorcerer’s soul I’d consumed during the demon attack last Hallowe’en, and realised that I could do more with souls and spirits than just chomp on them and regurgitate the magical remains. Like spells, I could grab them and, once they realised my touch controlled them, let them go (at which point most of them beat a hasty retreat) or I could absorbthem and spit them back out whole. Well, I could after my ninth attempt. Of course, those spirits had found the whole experience a tad traumatic, but then they hadn’t exactly wanted to be absorbed.