Page 74 of Their World

Lifting up on my toes, I kissed him lightly on the lips. “Thank you.”

We resumed unpacking and as I opened the box of my books, a memory occurred to me. I gasped. “The book!”

He frowned. “Book? Which book?”

I pulled out the journal I had been recording demon information in while in the demon world and flipped the pages until it was near the back. As I had recalled, there were notes written by one of the females, the one who had actually advised me to accept the shadow powers, the real Talrinir. There were notes about the Third to Reign’s powers, powers that I now alsopossessed. It wasn’t a comprehensive guide, since they didn’t know everything about her powers, but it was enough to get me started and learn some things I did not know before.

“What is that?” Mason asked as he rested his chin on my shoulder to read the notes.

“Information to help me with my new powers,” I explained. “I had forgotten about it until now. I think a leftover side effect from the Grand Advisor’s brainwashing and memory sealing.”

I sat on my bed, set the book in the middle of it, and summoned the smoke snake. It blinked ruby eyes at me and its tongue darted out.

“Ready to practice?” I asked it.

It dipped its head in agreement.

With a deep breath, I imagined the smoke snake growing, increasing from two feet in size to over six feet and becoming proportionally larger as it did.

“Whoa,” Mason whispered.

The snake curled around my upper chest and shoulders, and I already felt an increase in power.

“Your eyes are glowing red,” he whispered. “They’re … beautiful.”

Rereading the information first, I then sent a thought to the snake, asking it … no,her, to become my armor.

She swirled around me and suddenly, I had black smoke scales all over me.

I tapped my fingernail against one of them and was surprised to find it solid. “It’s … hard.”

“That’s what she said,” Kayden blurted as he walked into my room. When he realized what we were talking about, he rushed over and tapped the scales covering my arm. “Whoa. That’s surprising.”

“Also, what she said,” Mason whispered as he grabbed my arm and examined it closely.

I rolled my eyes at their silliness.

Kayden turned his hand into a wolf paw and tried to cut my arm with his claws, but they scraped against the scales ineffectively.

“What the fuck, Kayden?” Mason shouted and shoved him in the chest away from me.

“It’s okay, Mas. He didn’t hurt me.”

“He could have,” he growled and brushed off my arm like he could erase the memory.

“We need to know how strong they are,” Kayden said.

“What else can you do?” Mason asked and turned to the next page in the journal, completely ignoring Kayden, a bit of rage still simmering through the bond from him.

I let the shadows dissolve back into my body so I could focus.

That page described sending the smoke snake to bite another being and inject a poison that could paralyze them for a brief period of time. Weaker beings could also be killed by it.

“Wow, these are some really beneficial powers,” Mason said as he turned to the next page.

“Princess?” Piper called from the doorway.

“Come in, Piper,” I called back, while reading the new page on temporarily disorienting someone by causing them to see and smell only the smoke.

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