"Do you feel the shift of power within you?" Eberny asked, moving around Hellen as she stood in the very center of the carved-out rock.
"Yes," Hellen said. They had been working since daybreak, the hybrid instructing her with each step as she found her rhythm. "It's as though I'm taking from the rock, from its structure, its strength, pulling it into my blood and sending it back out, farther and farther until I feel the edges of our world and theirs."
"Very good. You are quick," Eberny praised. "You see the barrier in your mind, the hellfire?"
"Yes. But-" She opened her eyes. "Mine is green. My hellfire is different from . . ."
"From Abbadon's, yes. So much of you and what you are made up of is different, Hellen." The hybrid stopped circling her and came to stand before her. "You could do so much good."
They were words she didn't want to hear, refused to hear. "I'm going, Eberny."
The hybrid sighed. "You won't be able to survive up there for any length of time. Why do you think Abbadon was so intent on getting a foothold on Earth? As the Devil, he could remain only for a few of their days at most. He believed the blood, the DNA of vampire/demon child, would grant him that."
Finding her power, unleashing it, containing it; the work had made her emotions flare. "I'll go for as long as I can."
"Then what?" Eberny demanded, this new ferocity unnerving.
"I don't know." Turmoil, frustration, fury all ran through her. She was trapped, always trapped.
"I do." Eberny turned away, blue robes swishing with the movement. "You will die. And in the meantime, Hell will have no one to rule and govern and inspire."
"I could go and come back," Hellen offered. "Travel back and forth. I can live in both places."
"You don't understand. You don't want to see the truth in this situation."
"I don't turn away from the truth, Eberny!" she cried. "I never have! I'm just trying to find answers, some solution that doesn't involve me getting my fucking heart broken."
There was a moment between them of silence, of sadness; then the hybrid sighed heavily. "If you went aboveground, once you return to Hell you must allow your body to readjust before you could go back."
"How long is that?" Hellen asked greedily. "A day?"
Eberny didn't answer.
"A week? What?" Dammit. She was in love. The male loved her. This had to work-she would make it work. "Why do I have to give up everything?"
"Why do you see it that way?" The hybrid turned around. "This is your home. Without Abbadon, Hell could be a wonderful place for demons."
Through gritted teeth and an aching heart, Hellen implored her to understand. "I want him."
"Keep him."
"He can't stay here. He has a child, a child whose life is up there. Whose family is up there. He wants to be a father to that boy, Eberny." Tears pricked at her eyes. "I can't ask him to walk away from his child. I would be no better than my father."
For one moment, the hybrid appeared sympathetic. "If you go with him and can only stay for a few days at the most, isn't that worse? You will draw him back here with you. He loves you that much. I can see it. He will leave the boy."
Tears fell from her eyes onto her cheeks, and around her, inside her, the hellfire erupted to life.
The hybrid reached out and touched the rock. "You feel the portal's birth?"
Hellen nodded, misery clinging to every inch of her. "It's ready."
"I do not envy your choice, Hellen." The hybrid's eyes burned into hers. "But, then again, I never have."
Hellen shut her eyes tight against the pain, against the tears, and called up the power within her. The pressure started at her feet and grew until it could no longer be contained. Then she sent it out in every direction and waited for the bounce back.
It came instantly, like a fierce, deadly wave of energy, pouring over and through her.
She had done it. Hellen, the Demon Queen, the Devil. Whoever-whatever she was, she had opened the portal.
"Where are they?" Ladd asked.
Leaning down, Erion whispered into the boy's ear, "Keep your eyes open and your arrow ready."
"What color are they again?"
"Blue."
"Oh, there's one." Ladd whirled to the right and sent his arrow flying across the fields. "Did I get it? Did I?"
Erion walked forward and pretended to follow the direction of the arrow that was somewhere deep in a low-hanging cloud by now. "Just missed. But you'll get him next time." When he turned back, Ladd was grinning.
"I love this," he said.
"I am glad, balas."
"I feel like I've been here before," he said with a wry grin, then turned back to Erion. "Do we have to go? Leave the Underworld?"
Erion felt a strange pull at the boy's question. Ladd had bonded with Nicholas and Kate, he was like a son to them, and yet he was Erion's blood. He was part demon. Should he know? Should Erion tell him the truth right here, now?
The momentary euphoria of releasing such a closely held secret was tempered by the reality of the pain it would cause Nicholas and Kate. And perhaps even the rejection that might come Erion's way from the son he so badly wanted to love him.
"We will come back," he said, touching the boy's shoulder. "I promise."
"I feel good here," Ladd said, placing another arrow in his bow. "Strong. Why is that?"
Your skin, your cells, your blood-all began here.
The demon inside Erion scratched to get out, tell the boy that his demon was scratching too, but it wasn't the time. "I'm not quite sure."
Ladd pulled back the arrow and tracked the Rain Fields with the tip. "Well, I do miss Uncle Nicky and Uncle Alex and even Uncle Luca."
Erion's mouth twitched. "What of Helo and Phane and Lycos? Do you not miss them?"
"Oh, sure. And baby Lucy and the baby we don't know the name of yet."
Erion chuckled. The boy was singular and funny and good-hearted, and, he thought with a wave of melancholy, someday perhaps even forgiving of the father who hadn't known of his existence.
"Erion?" Ladd said quietly, putting down his bow for a moment and looking at the demon.
"Yes?"
The boy bit his lip. "We will always be together, right?"
"Who, balas?"
"You," he hesitated, "and me?"
A great thundering need to run at the child and pick him up, hold him close, perhaps even rock him and say comforting words, rolled through Erion. It was a miracle. The boy liked him, trusted him-he could see it plainly on his determined little face. The boy saw him as something more than Nicholas's fearsome, deadly demon twin.
"You and I will be together for as long as you want," Erion replied. The words felt strange, maybe even sounded strange, but it didn't matter. He had Ladd and he had Hellen, and for the first time in his life, he felt grateful for his existence.
Ladd was grinning. "A promise is a promise."
Erion nodded. "I know. Never fear, balas. We will all be together. One family."
"Hi."
Both males whirled around, one with an arrow pointing straight at Hellen's heart.
She smiled at him. "You have good form, Ladd."
Her words were kind and her smile was bright, but Erion knew his mate. Sadness rolled off her skin and pain hovered beneath the surface of that forced smile.
What is wrong? he wondered. Had she been watching them together? Did it bother her to see their affection? Was she mourning the loss of the child she couldn't have?
He went to her and took her hand. He wanted to reassure her that he needed no other balas. She and Ladd were everything he could ever want and desire and hope for. His most perfect family.
But before he could say a word, her eyes cleared and she gave them the news they had been waiting for.
"The portal's open," she said. "We can go."
"Oh!" Ladd exclaimed. "Let's go get Kate," he added, springing to his feet. "We're going home!"
Erion squeezed Hellen's hand and smiled. "Home."
They'd been denied access to the Underworld. Over and over they'd tried jumping into the hellfire until Luca and the mutore took off and the day started to break.
Now they were waiting out the sun, and it was nearly down. The church basement they huddled within had barely kept the rays from their skin, and both had been burned on their necks and hands. But they refused to leave the portal until they found a way inside.
He wanted his mate and Ladd.
The Brit wanted the vampire prick.
A sudden tremble below them had Synjon jumping to his feet.
"Did you feel that?" he asked, backing up toward the wall.
Nicholas stood too and sidestepped a pencil-thin beam of nearly dying sun. "I did."
"We need to go and see."
"It's barely evening."
"So we get a little singed."
"Again." Nicholas moved to the window and ventured one painful glance out the window. The burn on his cheek hurt like a motherfucker, but it would heal. His mate would see to it. His mate. Gods, he missed Kate. If anything had happened to her, if anyone had hurt her-
"Holy shit!" he exclaimed, inching closer, forgetting about the pain on his cheek or the dimming light.
Synjon was beside him in a second. "What?"
Without answering him, Nicholas broke for the stairs. "Let's go. A few more seconds and the sun will be down. A few more seconds. Burned or not, something has emerged from the portal, and we are going to take it."
Synjon followed. "What the hell did you see out there? Your mate?"
Nicholas reached the top of the stairs and growled. "Cruen."