Page 29 of Midnight in the Garden of Okay and Meh
“Bon voyage,” Aisling said, looking cheerful as she gave me a thumbs-up. “I really hope this works for Gabriel.”
“It should. Right.” I turned to the portal operators, conjoined twins named Sami and Parek, who watched us with obvious amusement. “I’ll step into the Beyond just before I go through the portal.”
“It’s calibrated for you and the dragon to go through together,” Parek said with a nod. “Just remember to keep your arms crossed.”
“Will do. All right, here we go.” I stepped into the shadow world, and was delighted to see the handsomest man in creation leaning against the door. “Oooh, imagine that. There’s a silver-eyed gorgeous dragon waiting right here flaunting his sexy self at me.”
“It’s a good thing I’m incorporeal right now, because I’d be tempted to show you just how much I love you,” he answered, waggling his eyebrows in a way that never failed to make me giggly. “Shall we, Little Bird?”
“We shall,” I said, and, waiting for a second for Gabriel to merge his spirit with mine, stepped into the twisting, turning miasma that was the portal device.
Exactly two hours and twenty-seven minutes later, we all entered the Beyond through its Bali entrance, and paused to get our bearings.
“Well, this isn’t what I expected,” Jim said, looking around with a slight curl of its lip. “Like, why is it so grubby?”
I knelt down to touch the powdery gray substance that seemed to coat everything before showing my fingers to Gabriel.
“Scales?” he asked, quickly moving in front of me in a protective gesture.
“Dragon scales,” I agreed, wiping the faintly glittery power onto the side of my leg. “But I thought that dragons—Baltic aside, because of his father—couldn’t go into the Beyond normally? Why is the whole place covered in dragon scales?”
“Whoa,” Jim said, snuffling a door, which swung open to reveal a grimy garden. We’d entered through a small building in the mortal world, which, when viewed in the Beyond, appeared similar, but just off slightly, leaving me with the feeling that none of the angles in the building were square. “There are dragons here? Who?”
“Xavier,” Gabriel said in a low tone that sent a little ripple of apprehension down my spine. “Archer and Hunter told us Xavier had escaped into the Beyond when challenged by them. I dismissed that as a fanciful interpretation of the situation, but now I see I was mistaken. This bodes ill not just for dragonkin, but all immortals if Xavier has impacted the Beyond in this manner.”
NINE
Parisi
“I can force them! I’m the Sovereign—I can make them accept you.”
“To what purpose?” Desi, shot me a glare I knew was powered by frustration and denial. “We’ve had this discussion for so many years I’ve lost track. The blood moon and I are equally part of Abaddon. I can’t remove the relic without releasing the magic it contains, and that would spell doom to the mortals and immortals alike.”
“Then leave it there,” I begged, kneeling on the bed next to where he lay stretched out, naked and sweating after our bedsport. “I know the other princes would try to attack you without the blood moon to keep them in their places, but if you were in the Court, then I could protect you.”
“I can’t do that, my love.” His eyes, the dark gray that could look so icy, were now liquid, like a stream of quicksilver. “You know it. I know it. I wish our lives were different, but they are not.”
“If you could leave the other princes control of the blood moon—” I started to say, but he rolled me over so we were lying on our sides facing each other, one of his legs draped over mine.
“Parisi, there is nothing I would not do for you simply to garner one of your smiles, but what you ask is impossible, and not just because Hath and Wat would destroy the Court trying to get at me, but because now there is a new man petitioning to join Abaddon. He’s a dragon named Bael, and he has a talisman of power that he has offered to the other princes should they accept him as the fourth demon lord. I have distrusted him from the time he sought to woo me into naming him prince, and denied his request, but over the centuries he has grown more powerful, and I suspect the Fates have already written his future with Abaddon.”
“I can protect you,” I repeated, hating the despair that I heard in his words. “The Court can protect you from any number of demon princes.”
“Without the blood moon, no one can protect me,” Desi answered, his body reassuring despite the situation.
Anger rose in me at his answer, anger and fury and, yes, even a little pettiness as I gazed at the man who held my heart. That he wasn’t willing to even try drove me to standing on the bed, ignoring my nudity to glare down at him. “Then I see no future for us. I will not be happy with a few stolen days when we could be living together in harmony. This is it, Desi. I am through with you.”
I hopped off the bed and started gathering up my garments, yanking my tunic over my head, but I thought I caught the last edge of an eye roll from Desi.
“Do you not think I’m serious?” I asked, my hands on my hips. “We’re through. I never want to see you again. I will continue to thrive and be immensely happy in the Court, and you can skulk back to Abaddon with your tail between your legs.”
“I understand how you feel, but there is little I can do about the situation without it ending in destruction of one or both of us—” he started to say, but I was tired of the excuses, tired of the heartache.
Tired of the loneliness.
“Then there is nothing else to say.” I continued to dress, unable to keep from admiring Desi’s thighs and arse when he rose and donned his linen braies. “Since there is no way forward for us to have a future together, there is no reason for us to ever meet again.”
“Parisi,” he said on a sigh, taking my chin in his hand and tipping my head back so that his gaze met mine. “Always so quick to make a decision. Sweetling, if there was a way we could be together, do you not think I would move the stars and moon itself?”
