Page 17 of Pain

Omaera met my eyes again, tears running down her cheeks with abandon. “I’m going to kill him. And I’m going to make sure he knows why I don’t plan on showing any mercy.” Her nostrils flared and pure fire glimmered back at me through the blobs of tears in her eyes. She steeled herself, released my hand, sniffed, and wiped the tears away. “All right. Let’s go to Hell.”

“How far out from the portal are we now?” I asked for probably the twelfth time since we left Melissima’s house nearly seven hours ago.

The bear was driving while Omaera sat in the front, and the mage and I sat in the back. I’d have much rather shared the back seat with my mate, but there wasn’t much arguing when she climbed into the front and the bear slid in behind the steering wheel.

Zandren growled. “About fifty miles now.”

“Dude,” Maxar said turning toward me, and fighting a yawn, “you’re wired as fuck. What’s your deal?”

Omaera spun around in her seat, settling her gaze on me. “He’s keeping something from us.” Her brows rose. “More than one thing, but we’ll addressthat part at a later date. Right now, I want to know why you’re wound tighter than a fucking top. This isn’t you.”

My gaze shifted between Omaera, Maxar beside me, and Zandren’s probing brown eyes in the rearview mirror. I wasn’t sure if it was better that they knew about the potential ambush, or if their surprise would feed into the narrative that we truly didn’t suspect Howar to double-cross us. How good could these people act?

“Fucking tell us, man,” Maxar said, his voice a darker growl than I’d ever heard from him. “I’m not keen on having my entire body ripped to shreds, then reassembled. So if there’s something we need to know before we walk through this fucking portal, then spill.”

“Is that what happens?” Zandren exclaimed, swerving the SUV as he jerked his head around to gape at the mage. “We’re ripped to shreds, then put back together?” The bear looked like he was going to drive off the road and run into the woods with his tail between his legs.

Omaera leaned over to him and rested a hand on his thigh. “Pull over, Pooh Bear.”

He growled, grumbled, but acquiesced to her request, finding the next wide shoulder to park on. Then he spun around in his seat, glaring at both me and the mage. “What the fuck are you talking about? Is going to Hell painful?”

“Unimaginably painful,” Maxar said blandly. “I take it you’ve never been?” That next bit dripped with sarcasm.

Zandren growled, and his nostrils flared.

“Hang on,” Omaera said, squeezing Zandren’s thigh. “Maxar, please tell us exactly what happens when we walk through the portal. What are we to expect? What happens to our bodies?”

Maxar took a deep breath. “It’s not like walking from one room into another. Time and space are literally bent when someone walks through the portal. And in order to keep people from coming and going from Hell to Earth and back, they made sure it wasn’t easy. When you step through, it will feel like a bomb has exploded inside of your chest, bursting your body into a million different microscopic pieces. They call it ‘body dust.’” He smirked. “Though it’s too wet to bedust, if you ask me. So it’s more like pink mist.”

Zandren’s low, angry growl brought the mage back to the discussion.

“Right. Anyway, it will feel like you’re traveling through a wormhole or being sucked into a vacuum, all one million pieces of you. Then, toward the end of the vacuum, your cells will begin to find each other again and you’ll start to reform. By the time you reach the end, youshouldbe reassembled. The reassembly isn’t painful, just … weird. Like you know you’re missing a toe and you’re just waiting for the molecules of your toe to navigate back to your body and reattach.”

“Let’s circle back to the word you used a moment ago,” Zandren said. “‘Should.’ Weshouldbe reassembled. Are you telling me there’s a chance we won’t be reassembled?” He instantly looked down at his lap. “There are someveryimportant parts of me I’d rather not have exploded and turned to pink mist, let alone never reattached to my body.”

Maxar snorted. “You and me both, brother. But that’s the way it goes.”

Omaera’s gaze landed on me. “Have you ever been to Hell?”

“Once,” I replied. “We were escorting a prisoner—a vampire—who was found guilty of treason. You have to go in one at a time, otherwise you risk body parts or memories reattaching to the wrong person. So it was me, another member of the security team, and the prisoner.”

“Why the hell didn’t you just execute the bastard?” Maxar asked, giving me a look of disbelief. “Or drain him? Vampires are good at that.”

My fangs dropped just slightly from his dig, but I refused to bite to his antagonizing. “Ordinarily, we would have. Butsheis of royal blood.” I shifted slightly in my seat, meeting Omaera’s probing green gaze. “It’s the Queen Mother. Howar’s mother.” I swallowed. “My aunt. The same war that killed Howar’s father, my father, and your grandfather. She was … sheisthe reason the shifter and vampire war started.”

Omaera’s eyes widened, and a thousand questions burned in the emerald fire. But I wasn’t willing to answer any of them right now. Particularly since I didn’t have all the answers.

Zandren made an angry noise deep in his throat. “What can we do to ensure every part of us reassembles? Can I like … hold on toit?”

Maxar’s laugh was brittle. “You can try. Won’t do you much good when your arms and hands are exploded off your body and turned into mist. But sure, hold your junk and see what happens.”

The bear lurched in his seat a little, growling. But the seatbelt and Omaera’s hand on his thigh kept him from launching his fangs into the mage.

“Can we get moving again, please?” I asked.

“Not until we know what secret you’re keeping,” Omaera said. “I’d rather get to the portal in one piece before we’re exploded into a million pieces, thank you. And Zandren seems close to driving off the road in a panic with all this new terrifying news.”

I was quiet for a moment, collecting my thoughts. Who knew how the bear and the mage would react, let alone Omaera? She questioned me back at the cottage about what I was keeping from her and it had to be the Mate’s Ache. It’s the only thing that made sense.

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