Page 25 of Sequel to the Easter Bunny

The Mother Scorned

Jack shows me how to get back to the doorway to Juun’s domain. But he draws me to him before I can step inside.

One of the dark sofas that fill Babel sits outside of the entrance and he drops to it, his fingers still twined in mine.

“I can’t go back with you.” He glowers at the doorway and its shimmering veil. “That was one of Juun’s explicit rules.”

I lean down and kiss him, trying to drive away that frown. “I can take this one on my own. She can’t hurt me, right? I’ve made my bargain, I’m following her rules. I passed the first test.”

“Do you wonder what she wanted to happen with that trial?”

“To drive me crazy?” I imagine if I hadn’t known the kittens, it would have taken longer to get to Lako, and then, I might have clawed out of my skin.

“I think she wanted you to go to Lako on your own.”

“She wanted me to bang the Yule Cat?”

“Remember what she thinks of you… you’re a greedy mortal. You wanted the Power, and you got it….”

“She wanted me to betray you.” She wanted him to think I’d chosen Lako like all the others.

His thumb trails over my hand. “She doesn’t know you.”

And that might be what saves me through all of this. “Whatever the next task is, we’ll take it together, like last time.”

“And if she doesn’t let us?”

“Then you know that everything I do from here on out has nothing to do with you and me and everything to do with her. If I have to fuck every single person in Babel to keep you… it’s not because I want them. It’s because I will do anything to keep you.”

He nods, one ear flopping as he does.

It stands upright again as soon as I stroke the long span of fur on his cheek. “She thinks the Power was my prize. That’s my task—holding that place in the mortal realm until our child takes it from me. You are my reward.”

He drags me into his lap and holds me to him. I don’t try to go.

With the fever gone, I’m tempted to linger with him, but I don’t know how Juun would take that.

“Don’t wait another month to come back to me, Lily. I’ve never missed anyone before… I don’t like it.”

“I don’t like it either.”

His grip on me loosens as I kiss him, and when I stand, he stays put, but he keeps ahold of my hand.

“Whatever it takes. Come back to me.”

“Always.”

He doesn’t move as I go to that doorway and I hate the look in his eyes as I step through. But the sooner I go, the sooner I can come back.

Darkness to blinding light.

The cool neon of Babel is replaced by the horrific heat of Juun’s desert and I suddenly wish I’d asked Jack to give me something else to wear.

The gown—while gorgeous—doesn’t cover my skin in any way to ease the sharp bite of that heat on my skin.

If it was the sun, I’d no doubt have burnt to a crisp already. But Juun’s wrath only works if you survive the pain.

I don’t have as far to walk this time.

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