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“What is it?”

It has been another long and exhausting day, and I wish nothing but to sleep by my mate. It is the one time I know she is not getting into trouble.

“You did not seem to want to be disturbed, but you should know that Equinox has made an escape. He moved through a portal not long after you two left. It was not opened on this side. Humans made it.”

“Get the human,” I say. “The male we brought.”

Mikey looks wide-eyed and afraid. The same feelings that my mate has struggled with. He will not find it as easy as she does in my realm. He will not be coddled as she is.

“Will Equinox be able to open further portals to this realm from where he is? Or now that he is in the human world, will he be similarly blocked?”

Mikey looks around nervously, then nods, quickly. “I don’t think he will be able to return. Not the same way. The frequencies have been adjusted in such a way that they cannot be reached in the human world. They are out of spectrum entirely. It’s like the way bees can see infrared, except it’s making doors through adjacent realities…”

“Then his departure is a banishment, and it will stand as punishment.”

Problem very neatly solved.

CHAPTER 18

Ornix

For the first time in what feels like a very long time, all is well.

The humans have been dealt with. Equinox is cut off from his magic and stuck in the world of the mundane. In his absence, my realm settles. I can almost feel the sigh of relief being breathed by every creature in creation. There is a peace I did not notice had been lost until it reasserted itself.

Severing the world and the realm was brutal, but necessary, and I have no regrets. I believe Melissa may soon fall pregnant. She has been bred many times, but the stress of her coming here and the ongoing drama with Nox no doubt caused more than a little discordance inside her. Now she can relax and begin to turn her mind and body to the potential of being a mother.

In this realm, pregnancy does not happen accidentally. A woman cannot be forced to bear young. She must be mentally and emotionally aligned to receive the seed. It may have seemed toher as though she had no choice, but the truth of the matter is she has ultimate control.

I should probably mention that, but it keeps slipping my mind. There are many wonders in our realm and that is merely one of them. I have so much to teach her, and I know that the magic in her is only starting to emerge. Wings are only the beginning of the wonders she will perform over time.

I should, perhaps, not have become so comfortable so soon, for my advisors come to me one day with deeply disturbing news.

“The kobolds are dead.”

“Hm?” I look up from my tome. “Some kobolds have been killed? That is the order of things, from time to time.”

“No, Ornix. Not some kobolds. All of them. Some dark force has moved through the forest and the kobolds have been slaughtered. Every last one. Man. Women. Children. They have spared nobody.”

No beast would do that. No horror would do that. There is only one creature any of us have ever encountered who eliminates entire species in their wake.

“Humans,” I say. “There are still humans in the realm.”

“Yes, sire. They may have been trapped here when the realm was sealed. We have been tracking them since we discovered the massacre. They have made camp over fifteen times since they arrived, and have now moved on to other regions. Nothing remains in their wake. They have killed every living thing. There are carcasses scattered across the forest and beyond, skinned, butchered, and left to rot. These creatures are animals of the worst kind.”

“There are still humans here?” Melissa pops through the wall at what feels like the worst possible time. Of course, she does not literally walk through the wall, she just seems to. She is everywhere, this mate of mine, driven by insatiable curiosity. I do not think there is a scrap of palace gossip she does not know.

“Yes. Do not act like you did not hear it all,” I rumble, pulling her into my lap. “Can you explain their behavior?”

Melissa frowns. “It sounds like they’re leveling.”

“What do you mean? Are you talking about the game again?”

“Yes. That’s what they’re doing. They’re leveling to get experience, materials, and gear. It’s normal to farm the forest when you first start. Once you finish the forest, you go to the Cauldron of Hades, probably via the gulch.”

It never ceases to amaze me what a grip on our geography she has.

“They will not survive the cauldron. There are even more dangerous beasts there.”