Page 80 of Dante's Circle Reborn

“I can’t transport myself like other banshees.” She shrugged. “It’s a quirk. I have to take the long way from realm to realm. So, unless you know how to transport more than one person, it’s going to take us a while to get to the human realm.”

“I don’t know how to do that. We’ll walk together. Or drive or whatever we need to.”

“That’s good because we’ll want to figure this all out fast before whoever is actually coming to kill me arrives.”

“I’m not going to let that happen.”

“Good, because I don’t want it to happen.”

She held out her hand, and he looked down at it, wondering why she was so patient with him, so caring already. “We can do this, Ashen. We’re going to find the answers.”

“I hope so. Because it’s the not knowing that hurts the most.” And then he slid his hand over hers and squeezed.

She grinned, and they were off.

The realms weren’t situated logically. In fact, many of the realms were haphazardly placed next to each other, pressed against one another, or even on top of one another in some cases. Unless you had a portal, a magical spell, or an inherent gift to transport from one realm to another, you couldn’t easily just go from one place to the next. And, unfortunately, the banshee realm was in a far distant part of the universe compared to the human realm. Ashen had a feeling that only the hell realm, and maybe even the reaper realm, was farther away.

If it had just been him, he would’ve transported. However, Eva couldn’t, so they were going to do this the slow way. And that meant traversing through other realms, and hopefully not setting off any wards or getting caught. There were traveling portals that could get you from one side of the realm to the other, and they allowed free passage as long as there was a treaty in place between the realms. But it got complicated and a little scary for some quickly. Add in the fact that Ashen only knew part of that from what he had read during this training and couldn’t remember all of the intricacies and politics in each realm, and he realized that he was going to have to rely on Eva for a lot.

“What is the nearest realm to the banshees?” Ashen asked as they made their way to the end of the hilly area where a portal to the next realm would be.

“That would be the leprechaun realm.”

He frowned, wondering if he had ever known a leprechaun. He’d had to, right? That familiar pain slid through him, but he ignored it. He hated that he couldn’t remember his old life.

“And, after that?” he asked, looking around.

“After that, it’ll be the dragon realm, and then a few others. But, thankfully, the road from portal to portal on this end is quite short. If you stay on the portal road, you’re not technically trespassing.”

“That’s always good.”

“Well, I would hope so. Because I don’t really want to end up in a territorial battle or war right now.”

“I don’t either.”

“Especially because most people don’t know that reapers exist. It’s going to take all day for us to travel, but we’ll make it,” she said quickly.

“And then we’ll figure out exactly what to do,” Ashen said.

They made their way through the portal, the magic clinging to his skin. The bear who lay dormant within him started to shift, slowly waking up and stretching.

He rubbed his chest over his heart, wondering what would happen if the bear indeed came back.

Could a reaper shift? Reaper hadn’t been too helpful with that question earlier, but Ashen hoped he could take his other form. He missed his bear, even if he didn’t quite remember what it felt like to shift. But it still felt as if he had lost a part of himself.

“We’re here, at least in the first realm,” Eva said beside him. He looked around, his eyes wide.

“Wow,” he said, his voice a whisper.

“Yeah, the leprechauns don’t really do anything halfway, do they?”

She wasn’t joking. There were literal rainbows crisscrossed over the air, and it looked as if that was what they used as roads. Everything was green, and there were gold pillars everywhere. It looked like a box of that children’s cereal had exploded all over the realm. He couldn’t quite keep his eyes on any one thing because it almost hurt to look at it.

“This isn’t my favorite place, even though I know a couple of leprechauns who are amazing. They don’t live here, though.”

She said the words quietly, and Ashen held back a smile. He hadn’t even realized that he was going to smile, and his face hurt a little doing so, but he liked it.

Eva was funny. His mate was fun.

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