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It’s hard to be gentle with someone who breaks every rule you give them. Even harder to maintain discipline when my mate is unable to follow orders. She’s an absolute brat, through and through.

As she starts to settle, and finally even relaxes against me, I risk drifting off again. This time, however, I keep my arm wrapped around her firmly, keeping her in place. Finally, we sleep.

CHAPTER 10

Melissa

We are preparing to go back to the human world, and I am deeply excited. I miss home. I miss everything about how mundane it is and the stupid things we worry about and how nothing I do ever really matters there, whereas here there’s always some fucking insane consequence.

Three of us—me, Ornix, and Equinox—are in Ornix’s study, where the expedition will be staged.

“I cannot trust you out of my sight,” Ornix says. “I am not even sure I can trust you in it. But we do need to retrieve the seal, so the three of us are going to go back to the human world. Equinox will handle logistical matters, and I will handle you.”

“What about my wings?”

“We will have to deal with them. Don’t worry, I’m not thinking of cutting them off every time they appear, if they appear. But that doesn’t mean we let them explode everywhere and get instantly broken.”

“She needs a leash, doesn’t she?” Equinox pipes up with a comment probably designed to appease Ornix. It doesn’t work. Both Ornix and I give him a dour look.

“A leash isn’t going to stop me if I want to do something,” I point out.

“The consequences of your actions might,” Ornix says. “You do remember last night.”

That is enough to make me instantly somber.

“What happened last night?” Equinox immediately picks up the shift in energy, of course.

“I tried to make a portal in the bathroom and I opened a window to hell.”

“Oh, yes. The hell dimension. We’ve all seen it,” Equinox says dismissively.

“Actual hell,” I say. “We could all end up there.”

“Oh, no, nobody actually goes there unless they’re into it. I know it looks scary, but the universe is more based in consent than we think.”

“The horrors and atrocities would suggest otherwise, Mr. Live-Laugh-Love.”

“I feel like you’re insulting me, but I don’t understand how.”

I smirk.

He’s a dick, but the sort of dick who tries to help from time to time. And I can’t blame him, because I know I have caused him trouble and gotten him thrown into a dungeon. Most people wouldn’t be very chill about that.

“Enough bickering,” Ornix growls. “I’m going to use your senses, Melissa, to find the relic. So I want you to think of the seal as I open the portal. Ideally, we would open the door directly to it, take it, and be gone within seconds. But. Just in case, we do need to ensure we are dressed appropriately. Put this on.”

We step through to once again terrorize Los Angeles. According to Ornix’s instructions, I am wearing a special harness designed to stop my wings from ripping out of my body and flying of their own accord. It looks kind of awesome, made from gold, set against the rest of the white outfit I’m wearing. Equinox and Ornix are wearing black suits. They’re trying to blend in, I think. They’re failing. They’re too hot and the family resemblance is too striking. Even in a place where everybody is attractive, they are drawing attention to themselves.

I would feel out of place between them, except for the way Ornix holds my hand in his much bigger one.

It’s funny, because in their dragonkin forms, they are much larger than in their human passing ones. But they’re still ridiculously tall in these forms too. People are taking pictures.

Someone darts up to us. “Oh, my god, can I ask you some questions for my TT?”

We walk on without answering, but I bet these guys, and me because I’m with them, are going to end up on street fashion accounts.

I can only just feel the seal.

“I don’t know where it is, but I don’t think it’s close. Maybe not even in the city anymore. I don’t know.”