Page 23 of Another Damned Storm

“This world is different now.”

I whirled around at the voice, bracing for a fight, but my shoulders slumped when I recognized the black cloak. “Goddammit, Tenebris. You scared the shit out of me.”

His response was, well, nothing. He just stood there.

“You followed me?”

“You shouldn’t be here,” he replied.

“No, I’m right where I need to be,” I fired back.

“You have to go back, Never.”

“If you really think I’m going to take orders from a faceless cloak, you’re delusional.”

His responding silence seemed to amplify even the sound of my own blood coursing through my veins. Then, with one hand, he reached up and slowly pulled back his hood.

I couldn’t say what exactly I was expecting, but a normal guy sure as shit wasn’t it.

Tenebris was handsome enough, with dark hair cut close to his scalp. He had thick eyebrows that loomed over big, dark brown eyes, and he definitely looked way too young to be any kind of immortal being. At least Nerebis had the sense to choose the appearance of a middle-aged human.

“There. Now the cloak has a face,” he said, and I’d be damned if he didn’t sound different now. “As I was saying, you must return to the Alius.”

I narrowed my eyes. “No.”

He arched one of those impressive brows, then motioned toward the park like that was the way back to the damned realm filled with demons. “I really must?—”

“Can you make me go back?” I asked point blank.

His grip on his scythe tightened, but he didn’t answer.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” See, being some weird ass unicorn had its perks. “Here’s how this is going to go, Ten: I’m going to find my brother and my friend and make sure they’re okay. If they are,thenI’ll go back.” Okay, maybe not entirely true, but it might be in a roundabout way.

He was silent for several seconds before saying, “This isn’t your world anymore, Never. You must understand that.”

I did, sort of. I was still me, Never Darling. I was born intothis world, grew up in it. It would always be mine. I just might not fit in so much anymore.

Not that I’d ever really fit in to begin with.

I offered him a curt nod. “I just need to find Matty and Lily. That’s all.”

“Every moment you spend here will put them and everyone else in the human realm at risk,” he countered.

No shit. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

9

HOOK

Criton didn’t waste a moment agreeing to work with me. He didn’t even pause long enough to ask what he would have to do to earn the pixie dust accumulating behind me first.

“How did you get here?” I asked, crossing my arms over my chest.

When my father had unceremoniously stripped me of his power, I’d lost some of my strength but had retained the ability to flash. I’d always assumed that was due to the fact that I was born with the capacity.

A demigod with a human parent wouldn’t have that kind of power. Of course, judging from the way he’d materialized, flashing wasn’t what brought him to my realm.

He huffed out a sigh. “My father was a witch. God plus witch equals interesting powers.”