We stared at each other, truly breathless, and I understood what was happening. We were too close to the full moon, and now that I’d changed, I could no longer control my wolf in Calliope’s realm. I started to panic, wondering if we’d be trapped here forever, however short a time that would be without air, when the vacuum gave way.
Desmond and I, both bloody and gasping, stumbled through the other side of the passage and found ourselves safely in Calliope’s waiting room. A fire was burning, and Holden stood next to the Oracle, waiting for us. Desmond pulled his claws free from my wrist and collapsed on the rug, sucking in air and holding the wounds on his forearm. I cradled my brutalized wrist in the crook of my arm and tried to keep my half-wolf hand hidden.
It was pointless. Neither of them missed that we’d staggered into the room claws-deep in each other.
Holden’s nostrils flared as the scent of fresh blood filled the room.
Calliope, wearing a crimson-colored satin party dress, her black hair hanging in loose waves over her shoulders, gave Desmond and me a cursory once-over.
“Secret, you promised me.”
“I know.”
“Yet here you are, and here he is, and it seems once again you’re asking me to break my rules for you.” She crossed her arms and frowned, her supple lips turning into a delicate pout. It was almost offensive how beautiful Calliope was.
“We need your help,” I said.
“Clearly.”
I followed her gaze to Desmond and watched him tremble. A line of hair grew and then faded on his neck. Over his body the same thing was happening—coarse hair appearing and instantly vanishing, seemingly in time with his heartbeat. Just watching him made a shudder rumble through me. My wolf could smell his wolf, and she wanted to accept the invitation to come out.
I had to look away from Desmond. I wanted to help him, to hold him until he got himself under control, but I was certain the moment I touched him my humanity would melt away entirely and we’d all be screwed.
My inner wolf wasn’t exactly a good listener.
Holden seemed to sense the internal dilemma I was wrestling with and came to stand beside me, placing a hand on the back of my neck like Desmond had done in the elevator. His touch felt blissfully cool against my too-hot skin. Just his touch and the nearness of the scent of vampire helped me pull back from the edge. The bones of my hand realigned—very painfully—but by the time I glanced down again they were normal.
“Now him,” I said, pointing to Desmond. I still didn’t trust myself with touching him.
The vampire hesitated until one glare from me, and he grumbled but did as I asked. He bent over Desmond’s shuddering form and put his hand on the werewolf’s neck. Desmond jerked, but Holden didn’t back away. He lowered, whispered something to the wolf, and Desmond went still.
For a long moment I wasn’t sure if it had worked, but then Desmond let out a sigh and got to his feet. His claws had retracted, and he didn’t have any hair other than what he was meant to.
One problem down.
I looked to Calliope, her mouth set in a firm line. She was angry with me, and I wasn’t sure if it was solely because I’d broken her No Werewolves rule. She motioned for us to follow her. “Let’s get this over with, shall we? If you thought this was dramatic, you have no idea what you’re in for on the other side.”
Thankfully being pissed didn’t impact Calliope’s hospitality. She provided fresh blood for Holden and me, and made sure Desmond had eaten about half a cow, before she explained what we should expect from the other side. I gathered we’d be needing all our strength for this coming experience.
“Did Gia say what Kellen had promised?” Calliope asked as she walked us down one of the many winding halls of her estate.
Desmond, his voice gruffer than usual, replied, “From what we were told, she promised herself.”
Calliope stopped walking and turned to face Desmond. “Are you sure? Those exact words?”
Not accustomed to being under the direct scrutiny of Calliope’s gaze, Desmond stammered for a moment before answering, “Yes.”
The Oracle drummed her nails on the wooden door we’d stopped in front of. “That’s…complicated.”
“How complicated?” I asked.
“I don’t know if you’re going to be able to get her back,” Calliope admitted. “If I had to guess, I’d say she met one of the high court, he whispered some sweet nothings, and she said something you stupid human girls are wont to say. I’m all yours or some such nonsense. To a fairy lord, that’s a promise. In our laws, he has every right to lay claim to her.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” I chose to overlook her lumping me in with stupid human girls.
“If I were kidding, Secret, you wouldn’t be running off to the fairy realm to reclaim a missing girl, would you?”
I bit my tongue.
“This one is going to be difficult for you.” She pointed to Desmond. “I can promise you’re going to regret bringing him.”
“No more than I’d regret leaving him here.”“I never thought I’d say this, but I wish your fate was clearer.” She grabbed my hands, not bothering to look at the palms, and gave them a squeeze. “I don’t know how this is going to end for you.”
“I’ll be fine,” I assured her, although I had no way to know that, and I was hoping she’d be telling me I had nothing to fear. “Cal? Can I ask you something before I go?”
“About the boy.”
I had anticipated she would know. She was the Oracle after all. She might not know if I’d live to see tomorrow, but she knew I wanted to accuse her of murder. Funny how that worked.
“Did you…?”
“No.” She rubbed my hands between hers, warming them. “I knew him, but I didn’t kill him. You’ll find out soon enough, lovely, that I am not the only one of my kind. Though I wish it didn’t have to be this way.”
“Why would this have been the last place he visited?”
Calliope ran a thumb over my knuckle and frowned. “I don’t like to speculate when I don’t know the answer.”
“Can you try?”
“This house is a gateway, as you know. But for the fae, there is no need to come into the mansion. They can simply use the doorway to come and go as they please. They don’t require my permission. If I were to guess, the young man ran afoul of a fae passing through.”
“That’s it? Wrong time, wrong place?”
“That or someone isn’t fond of the wayward monarchy and they’re doing it to intentionally frame me.” She smiled again, weariness showing in her eyes. “But I don’t know.”
She let me go and turned to Desmond. With renewed intensity, she prodded him in the chest with her finger. “You. This is not the end I was talking about. Understand me?”
The werewolf nodded.
Lastly she looked at Holden and gave him a sad smile. “Chancery.”
“Oracle.”
“You bring her home to me.”
“I will.”
Calliope withdrew a key from around her neck and slid it into the lock on the door. The click of the tumblers was louder than any lock I’d heard before and sent a shiver rolling over me. When she pushed the door open, the inside was all darkness. At least this time she hadn’t needed my blood to get me through.
“Secret?” she said, as she stepped aside from the opening.
“Yeah?”
“Give my love to my brother, won’t you?”
Before I could respond, she shoved me into the empty void of the open door.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Knowing the half-fairy Oracle has a door in her house that leads to the top of the Empire State building had given me the unfair impression Calliope would deliver us directly where we needed to go. Her otherworldly GPS was on the fritz, though, because we were not anywhere near where I believed we had to be.
We were nowhere near anything.
The night sky was a twilight purple so vibrant I could see everything around me without the aid of standard moonlight, which was for the best because this world appeared to have four moons and none of them were bright enough to see squat by. Each of the four was in a different phase, but neither the full nor new moons had completed their transition.
The three of us stood in a field of luminous red flowers that bore a passing resemblance to poppies. Except the only time poppies started glowing on Earth was if you ate them. The center of the blossoms around us shone like the red hand of a Don’t Walk sign. I didn’t know whether to take it as a warning or just appreciate how beautiful it was.
Last time Calliope had transported Desmond and me somewhere, the journey hadn’t been gentle. We’d landed hard on a cold roof with the force of being dropped from great height. This time we’d walked through a door and onto another plane of existence as easily as if we’d stepped into another room of her house.
Nevertheless, it was a disconcerting shift of reality, and I was left feeling dizzy and out of sorts. Small insectlike creatures flitted to and from the glowing flowers, and when they bounced off the centers, they giggled and began to shimmer. Considering how dark it was, the amount of ambient light should have made me feel like I was in New York. But in New York bugs didn’t giggle and there weren’t four moons.
Dragging my gaze from the undulating field, I turned towards my travel companions. Holden’s hair had become mussed in the journey, slipping from behind his ears and showing its length in a roguish, Austen-era-hero manner. His pale skin reflected the redness of the flowers, giving his cheeks a blush quality that made him look alive. Really alive.
My heart caught in my throat, and I struggled to swallow, overwhelmed by the shock of his beauty in this light. I imagined this was like seeing him in his living years, when he was a farmhand in England and didn’t know a damned thing about the world of vampires.
I’d never seen Holden dazzled by anything. Two hundred years can show a man a lot of things, but I doubted any of us had seen something like the world we’d been dropped into. And this was only one part of it.