Page 16 of Another Damned Storm (Another Damned #3)

HOOK

I had always known that pixie dust was strong magic, but I had to admit that I hadn’t bothered looking into potential applications for the substance. Before I’d made the mistake of liaising with Anya, I’d had no interest it. And after, I’d wanted nothing to do with the last pixie in the realm.

Aside from killing her.

But she’d stolen a piece of my magic, and I didn’t dare wipe her from existence without rectifying the situation.

Despite the sorrow that had attempted to swallow me whole in the wake of Never’s calculated escape—a feat that made my heart ache and swell with a perverse sense of pride each time I thought of her—ending the wicked pixie’s life had buoyed me in a way. It marked the end of a dark chapter.

And if she could help me in death, all the better.

I leveled Criton with a look that would have made a mortal wither. “Explain your meaning.”

The leather satchel dangled from his fingertips. “Your magic is what anchors you here.”

A fact I was well aware of. I moved my hand, letting it rest on the pommel of my sword in a silent warning to hurry things along.

“Pixie dust can be used to travel,” he added quickly.

“Within realms, not between them.” The one caveat was that pixies themselves could travel through the in-between spaces with their magic. They could not, however, use their dust to send others through. Not even if the pixie herself were to make the trip alongside them.

If all a person had to do was sprinkle a little dust on their reckless heads and focus on a pleasant thought in order to fly from this world to that, history would have been filled with airborne fools flitting between worlds.

But it was a tale. A whimsical fantasy. Nothing more.

Criton opened the bag, sprinkled a few glittering specs on the back of his hand just above his thumb, and promptly snorted it.

“You do realize the sensation of flying is not the same as actually flying, don’t you?”

He pinched his nose and tipped his head back. “It’s all in how you use it.

“I swear to the stars, Criton. If you are wasting my time…”

He squeezed his eyes shut, and with his head still tilted back, held up an index finger.

I was tempted to grab that digit and wrench it backward until he was on his knees in front of me.

Instead, I ground my teeth and waited. If that vile dust could help me get to Never, restraining myself would be worth the effort.

A tremor shook his body, and he appeared to go into slight convulsions where he stood.

Wonderful. Gods couldn’t die from an overdose, but with a powerful enough drug, it could render them useless for a time.

Since Criton was a demigod, it followed that a dose of pixie dust would have an even greater impact on him .

But a moment later, he dropped his hand, rolled his neck languidly from one side to the other, and shot me a look that, for a splinter of a second, flashed turquoise.

That was curious.

“What kind of witch was your father again?” Because he certainly wasn’t a run of the mill elemental witch. Not with that reaction.

His smile was sly as he shook his head. “Do you want to see if this stuff works or not?”

Fine. Let him keep his secrets. I truly didn’t care. “What do you want in exchange?” I asked, though I already knew.

“The rest of the dust.”

As predicted. “Tell me how it works first.”

He did, with a razor-sharp focus that was at odds with how I remembered pixie dust affecting me. Apparently, all one had to do was mix it with enchanted water and drink the resulting elixir. The hard part for most, after getting one’s hands on the elusive dust, was finding enchanted water.

A substance the Nassa had in abundance.

“What then?” I asked skeptically.

“Then you think about where you want to go, but this is the tricky part because for the magic to work, you really have to want it. We’re talking about a sell-your-soul kind of want.”

That wouldn’t be a problem. There was nothing in all the worlds I wanted more than Never Darling. “And you really believe this magic will override my own curse?” It seemed a little too easy.

He shrugged.

How reassuring. “Why have I not heard of this before?” I might have been in the Nassa for what felt like forever, but I’d spent plenty of time out in the worlds before.

Criton’s clever expression fell. “Have you spent a lot of time around addicts, Atlas? ”

If drunks counted, then yes, but I had the sense he was talking about addictions that consumed lifetimes. I shook my head.

“It’s a fringe theory. I’ve heard of it being done, but I’ve never needed to use it that way,” he offered.

I was tempted to ask the man himself to help me transport to the human realm to find Never, but he’d already earned his keep. Also, if Thrain was keeping an eye on her, the smart move would be to draw as little attention as possible, and nothing about Criton struck me as particularly subtle.

“Very well.” I stalked back to my room and gathered the three remaining pouches of pixie dust.

On deck, he was leaning with his elbows on the banister, looking down at the water below. I held up the satchels. “How much should I mix with the water?”

When his gaze met mine, it carried a faint green glow. Was that his innate magic or the power of the dust inside him? “Your guess is as good as mine.” He shrugged. “Maybe start with a little and work your way up?”

“What about side effects?”

He huffed out a laugh. “From drinking it? Hell if I know.”

“You are aggravatingly unhelpful.”

“I only know what I know.”

As did all creatures, but it still took significant effort not to toss him overboard. With a sigh, I set two of the pouches on the banister in front of him and pocketed the last one. “For my travels.”

“Is that it then?” Criton asked, staring out across the water.

“It would seem so. I appreciate your assistance.” It was only half a lie. If he was telling the truth about Thrain covertly watching Never while no one else was taking notice, there was more going on than met the eye .

He snagged the satchels of dust off the railing and straightened. “Watch your back, Atlas.”

Tension tingled up my spine and along my nerve endings. “Why do I get the feeling you’re not telling me everything?”

He watched me for several silent seconds. Then, with a double-snap of his fingers, he dematerialized into the smokey shape of a man that was whisked away on the warm breeze.

He was most certainly holding something back, but there was nothing I could do about it now. If the other gods wanted to come for me for attempting to leave the Nassa to find Never, let them come. Maybe then they would also see that something was very wrong.

It took a matter of minutes to collect a pitcher of enchanted seawater and gather my things.

The last time I’d found myself in Never’s world, I’d stood out.

This time, I donned a pair of the blue jeans she’d had made for me, a simple black t-shirt, and boots.

Instead of my sword, I looped a dagger onto my belt.

William looked concerned when I handed him the proverbial reins, but it wasn’t as if I was leaving for good. Even if I did manage to break free of this realm, it’s incessant pull would try to drag me back.

Was it trying to pull Never back as well? It followed that a curse on me might amount to a curse on her, given what we shared, but she was holding the demon blood wild card. There was no telling how the human realm might mix her blood and my power to warp her fledgling abilities.

Once I was alone in my quarters, with the warded copper bracelet she’d left behind tucked safely in my back pocket, I stared at the pitcher and the leather pouch lying beside it on the table.

I was tempted to dump the whole thing into the water for good measure, but without knowing what the potential side effects might be, I started with just a pinch in the bottom of my goblet .

As I poured the enchanted water into the cup, the silvery, turquoise dust turned into a brilliant, seafoam green concoction with a gentle mist resting on top. A promising sign. I swirled the contents of the goblet a few times.

“Bottoms up.” With Never’s face clear in my mind and our connection tugging at my bruised heart, I drank it down in one swallow.

The drink itself wasn’t unpleasant. Sweet and salty with a twist of mint. But I was braced for all manner of ill effects.

Except nothing happened. I waited. And waited.

I’d just reached for the satchel of dust to try again, convinced I hadn’t used enough, when an invisible force ripped me backward so violently that I fumbled it.

The world around me went black, with just a few specks of light spinning wildly.

I was tossed side to side, up and down, like a rag doll caught in the turbulent waters beneath a fall.

Then it stopped as abruptly as it started, leaving me stumbling and disoriented. Dead brush and dying trees surrounded me, but before I could do so much as gauge which way was North, I was struck hard from the side and taken to the ground.

My instinct was to throw my attacker off, anger already boiling in my veins. Until a sense of elation overwhelmed everything inside me and a deliciously hot mouth was crushing my lips.

Never.

I wrapped my arm around her tight and rolled, pinning her beneath my weight. “You reckless woman,” I growled. “I could have killed you.”

Her hand slipped between us, cupping me through my jeans, no doubt finding me hardening for her. “You already did that once, remember?” She smirked up at me.

Oh, I remembered. Bringing her up out of the water and not being able to rouse her after I’d driven Petra’s shadow out was the single most excruciating moment of my long life.

She must have felt the pulse of pain bleeding from me because her expression turned apologetic. She opened her mouth to say something, but I smothered her words with another brutal kiss. How was it possible that I felt like I was seeing her again for the first time in decades?

A thousand thoughts flickered through my mind, all the things I wanted to say to her, to do to her. But wherever we were, it was the wrong place and the wrong time.

We were not alone. I couldn’t see who was there, but awareness crept along my senses.

I shifted my attention to Never’s neck, nipping the sensitive flesh before whispering, “We are being watched.”

She went rigid beneath me. “Demons?”

I shook my head. “I don’t think so.”

“The infamous Atlas, I presume?” A man said, stepping out from behind a towering longleaf pine tree.

I was on my feet in a blink, blocking his view of Never with my dagger in hand. His blue gaze struck me as vaguely familiar as it raked up and down my frame. To further my confusion, the chief emotion coming from Never was annoyance.

“I cannot believe you followed me,” she said, brushing brittle leaves and pine needles from her clothes.

The man didn’t advance, but I pointed the blade to keep him back all the same. “Who are you?”

Never reached out and guided my hand down. “This is Matty,” she said, looking as though she didn’t entirely believe it herself.

“Matt,” he corrected.

She rolled her eyes. “You’re going to have to give me more than a few hours to make that adjustment. ”

His attention shifted, roaming the forest around us. “You got what you came for, right?”

Never looked up at me and nodded. “Yeah.”

“Then we need to go.” He didn’t explain and didn’t wait to see if we followed.

I was still trying to grasp the situation as Never marched ahead of me trying to catch up to him.

“Is that truly your brother?”

She turned and pressed a finger to her lips. “It surprised the shit out of me too,” she whispered back.

Why would she be whispering? Who were we hiding from?

A rustle in the brush to our left brought us all to a stop. Tension crackled in the air. Never pulled her dagger from her boot as Matt unsheathed a thin sword from the scabbard slung across his back. I weighed the unfamiliar blade in my hand, scanning the winking shadows around us.

“Demons?” she asked quietly.

“Probably,” her brother replied.

I inhaled deeply, scenting the air. It was filled with the sickly-sweet perfume of decay, but layered over top of that was the scent of… “Strawberries?” I asked.

Matt whipped around with a fearsome glare. “What did you say?”

I inhaled again and tapped the side of my nose. “Strawberries and cream.”

His expression turned positively furious. “Angela Never Hinkins,” he fumed. “Get your ass out here this minute.”