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“I’m going to open the portal,” he says. “Grab your phone and whatever else is at the house. It’s late at night in the human world now. With any luck, nobody will even know you were there. You can do this, Melissa. Now. Go.”

He hits the Enter key on his keyboard, and a big square door-shaped portal opens up in front of me. It doesn’t look at all like the one Ornix used when we first came through, but that doesn’t surprise me. I bet they all have their own ways of summoning and constructing magic. Equinox is based in tech.

I take a deep breath, and I walk through.

The first thing I feel is my feet on carpet.

Carpet. Only a day away from the human world and I’d almost forgotten about the existence of carpet. Fuck. It’s weird the things the mind erases when it finds itself in another dimension.

Also, I forgot to get changed.

When I look down, my clothing is different. I don’t know how that happened, but it has been done. Equinox’s tech, I guess. I’m wearing a knee-length denim skirt, long socks, trainers, and a jacket. It’s kind of a weird combo, like something out of a retro hackers movie, but I guess it works.

One thing he was wrong about is the time of day. It’s not the middle of the night. It’s more like two p.m. The sun is shining warmly through the floor-to-ceiling windows, and I feel like I can hear Tempest somewhere in the house.

I want to go to her, tell her what happened. But I know if I do that she’s going to think I am insane. So I go and I grab my bag. It’s still out by the pool, almost as if nobody even noticed I was missing.

I wonder how much time has actually passed here since I left. A whole day went by in the dragon realm, almost two, really. Maybe that’s why dragons live forever. Wait. Does that make sense? And am I still immortal here? I don’t know if I functionally age here. I forgot to ask about that.

I check my phone. Nothing.

I slip out of the house. It’s so big there’s no way anyone is going to see me, besides maybe one of the security guys, but even theydon’t really have eyes everywhere. It’s hard to pay attention to everything all at once.

He’s supposed to be sending a car, but I don’t see a car. I decide to start walking. I feel weird. I thought it would be a relief to be back in the human world. I thought it would wrap around me and make me feel better. It feels… strange. Like a favorite piece of clothing that I loved once, and now I’ve tried it on again it just doesn’t fit or look as good as I remembered.

The roads are narrow and windy and go uphill here. My shoulders are itching again. It’s so annoying. It’s enough to make me turn around and go back to back with the wall, scratching against it.

But this time, scratching doesn’t seem to do anything, or it kind of feels like it’s doing too much. I feel the skin on my back move underneath my clothes, like really bad sunburn can sometimes, sloughing off.

“What the fuck?” It feels weird, but it also feels good, like a relief.

And then there’s an even stranger pressure that makes me take the jacket off. There’s something on it. Something thick and dark… is that blood?

CHAPTER 7

Ornix

The castle wall cracks with the impact of my nephew hitting it. He spits blood out of his mouth as he slides down the wall. The little shit thought I’d be confused by his magical misdirection, but I felt Melissa’s departure the moment it happened, and I knew it happened from my very own palace.

The door to his chambers hangs open, ripped from the hinges by my fury. The computers he uses to perform his insolent programming and undermining of my rule are smashed to a thousand pieces. He will never touch a keyboard again. After this, assuming he survives it, he will be imprisoned. I have already decided. He is far too dangerous, impudent, and interfering to ever be trusted again.

He lies at the base of the wall, winded. I see the look in his eyes. He is considering whether or not he should get up. I make the decision for him. I stalk over to him, pick him up by the throat, and pull him back up so I can pin him against the wall.

“Where is she? What did you do with her?”

He twists his face as he replies, daring to judge me even as he admits his treasonous betrayal.

“I sent her back where she belongs. You stole her from her world. You had no right. You interfere. You claim. You take what you want and you don’t care what it costs anyone else. I let her go because she deserved to be free of you.”

“You are my brother’s son, but I will kill you if you do not send me to her this moment,” I swear.

He swallows in fear, but he answers back anyway, because he is impertinent.

“You killed my father. Why not me? You will do it anyway, as soon as she bears your whelp, you’ll no longer need me. Your lineage will be direct. I’ll be a threat. Disposed of.”

This is the worst possible time for family politics to emerge. Every family has its problems, its dark secrets, its cruel regrets, its unforgivable actions. One of them is unfolding now.

“So that is what this is about. You sent my mate away because you are scared of a baby who is yet to be born, or possibly conceived. You are afraid of a collection of cells who may or may not even exist. Your father died because he forced my hand. Don’t make the same mistake he did, Equinox. I adore you, but right now I want to kill you. Open a portal to my mate. Now, or you will die.”