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Text copyright© 2018 Parker de Vesci

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Cover: Stock photo. Posed by model.
Chapter 1: Alex

LIFE ON THE streets was hard enough without piss-pouring rain and lecherous cops. Alex was in a foul mood as she sloshed through the last puddles of the alleyway, soaked through and through. Her black hair clung to her face and neck in skin-stuck waves, and her threadbare sweater suctioned itself in the same way to her curves. She was too drenched to notice the effect that had on the guy on lookout as she passed the threshold into 'the pad', a rundown shithole she sometimes called home. Cursing under her breath, she stood on the weathered boards of the entryway, wringing her hair out, shaking off what she could.

Down the hall, cigarette smoke trailed out of one doorway, and from the one across the hall, Cindy's laughter. Alex frowned, recognizing the sound. Cindy only laughed like that when...

"Don't tease me like that, baby," Vincent moaned.

This made Cindy giggle even more. She loved to tease Vincent. It was possibly her one true goal in life. And the thug was possibly the only man she cared about in a long lineup of men who would use her and be used by her. Alex was glad that Cindy had this one little piece of happiness in her life, but for the moment, her stomach rolled sideways. Vincent was secondhand man to Hector, and his presence felt like an omen in her gut.

For a moment, Alex turned her face back to the open doorway and considered the rain. She was already soaked, so what would be the difference if she walked the couple of miles to the next place she might crash? As if in answer to her thoughts, a bolt of lightning hit a pole at the end of the alley, sending a shockwave of thunder at her. Her scowl deepened. She'd have to make do.

Heaving a sigh, she stepped forward down the hallway, her boots squishing, her tattered, muddy pantlegs dragging. She got as far as the common room, but no further. He was there.

Hector was leaning one hand on the table, towering over two of his minions, who were sputtering out a report. His eyes moved up and took her in, then he stood up straight, never looking away from her. His face was blank, unreadable.

Alex nodded once in greeting, casting her eyes to the floor.

His footsteps moved around the table and came toward her, each step paced evenly, slowly. His boots moved into her line of vision. Alex had no choice but to look up.

Hector took a moment, scanning from her face slowly down her body. "Where you been, Alex?"

She shrugged uneasily. It was true that she'd been avoiding him. She'd also been trying to do her job, but things didn't always go according to plan, and he wasn't going to like that, either. "I've... been trying to find Anthony... but... well..." She didn't want to go on.

"But?"

Best to just spit it out. "He's gone. I think he's running."

With a roar of rage, Hector's fist smashed a hole into the wall only inches beside her face. Alex only flinched, looking down, away, but knew better than to move.

The next five minutes or so were filled with Hector cursing, raging, then pacing, running his hands through his hair, breathing heavily like a bull. The room had fallen utterly quiet. Some of the junkies and whores had vacated it entirely. The ones who could not escape without being noticed kept themselves utterly still.

When Hector's rage had finally run its course, his eyes flicked to her, considering. He glanced back at the guys at the table. "We'll do this later."

They took the dismissal without a word of reply and got the hell out.

Alex's eyes darted around the room. Somehow, she was the only one left.

Again, Hector moved toward her. This time, he came further into her space, within inches. Involuntarily, she took a step back, but there was a wall behind her. He leaned closer, his hand going to her waist. "Tell me where you've been, little pigeon."

The truth was, Alex had been all the usual places, sleeping in one place one night, and a different one the next. She'd simply been doing a better job at anticipating which place he would be at, and avoiding it. But the last thing in the world she wanted was to make him mad. It was his protection that kept her in one piece. For years now, that protection had saved her from being forced into prostitution or being otherwise abused, but she'd had the feeling, lately, that it wasn't going to protect her from him. She'd been only twelve when he'd found her, struggling on the streets, dressed as a boy. She'd run away from the latest children's home, and she'd been half-starved and sick. He'd taken her under his care— under the care of his business— and put her to work carrying messages, which was way better in her book than actually dealing, like most of them. She'd done a good job for him, and so he'd protected her when others had had better ideas about what she was good for. Everyone was aware who she worked for, and it had been a long time since anyone had really messed with her. But Hector himself had had his eye on her for a long time, now, and it seemed that the barrier that held him back was thinning. Usually, he didn't touch her. Now, his hand gripped her hip with the same hunger that was in his eyes.

She swallowed and managed in a shaky voice, "I haven't been anywhere different. Ask Cindy. Ask Lenny. They've seen me around. They know."

His dark eyebrows drew down in the middle. "I haven't seen you. I'm the one who matters."

"I'm sorry." Her voice was little more than a whisper. She suddenly felt than an explanation was necessary. "I— I was afraid you'd be mad about Anthony... and... I wasn't sure, yet. I'm still not. I'm trying to find out."

He snorted, dismissing it altogether. His hand went to her face, tilting it up to him. "You're a little liar, bitch." There was a strange affection in his words, a tenderness that worked in paradox to their meaning. "You're afraid of me, and I don't blame you. You know what's coming."

Alex stared straight ahead at the tattoo on his neck that said, "Maricela" in flowing, cursive script. She opened her mouth to deny what he said, to mention the girlfriend who supposedly had him wrapped around her little finger, the only reason he had held back before this.

But Hector had taken her hand in his. He slipped it between them and pressed it to the front of his jeans, made her feel how hard he was underneath. "Feel what you do to me," he murmured, his breath hot against her cheek. She could smell vodka. He'd been drinking. There was very little chance that he was going to hold anything back, now.

Alex gingerly retrieved her hand, pulling it back, wrapping her arms around herself against the sudden coldness she felt inside. "Hector, I—" she whispered, but he silenced her lips with one warm finger.

His hands went to her face, gentle as they lifted her chin, caressing even as he made her look at him. "No man has ever touched you," he murmured. "I know, because if they had tried, they would be dead. I knew I would claim you for my own, one day." He put his hands on her waist and slowly slid his fingers around her back, over her bottom. His mouth moved softly against her neck as he whispered, "I've been saving you up." There was a soft, low laugh as the thunder crashed outside again. "For a rainy day."

Alex's heart was flailing inside her as she pressed her palms against his chest, holding him back as much as she dared. Thoughts whirling, she tried to think of a way out. She couldn't reject him. He would turn on her, then. Without his protection, she'd meet a far worse end than simply becoming Hector's plaything. But he terrified her. She clamped her eyes shut, tilting her head away from him, pressing him away from her, and tried to reconcile herself to what was going to happen. Tried to get a grip before the horror of the moment could completely take over.

Hector's hold on her had tightened, crushing her against him so that her dripping clothes were giving him a good soaking, too. One hand came around and pawed at the top of her sweater, tugging it roughly downward in an attempt to expose her breast. His hot tongue probed at her collarbone and squirmed its way up her neck, licking raindrops.

Alex broke. With a cry of rage and disgust, she slammed her knee upward into his crotch. He made a noise and doubled over. She ran.

She bolted into the rain and thunder, tore down the alleyway. Behind her, she could hear Hector's fierce exclamations, commanding his underlings to give chase. He wouldn't go out into the rain after her himself, but none of the others would be gentle with her, especially not after chasing her around in the storm. And when they brought her back to him.... The only option was to not get caught.

So Alex ran like she had never run before. Mindless of puddles, headless of anything or anyone who got in her way, she sprinted through alleys, around corners, leapt over crates, pulled trashcans over behind her to create obstacles for those who gave chase. She'd been running for blocks and blocks, and most of them had fallen behind. But Freddie and Hal were catching up with her, and they were probably the worst of the lot. She made an unfortunate turn into an alleyway that was a dead end. She skidded to a halt, looking desperately for a way out. Their footsteps sloshed up behind her, slowed. They were laughing, now.

Alex whirled on them, ready to fight. She'd gotten a beating from the two of them once before, for messing up a delivery. She was pretty sure they'd enjoyed it. They reminded her of it often enough. Today, they'd make that beating look small. They'd make sure she was suitably punished before they dragged her back to their boss. And that would only be the beginning of it. Alex decided right there that she wasn't going back, even if it meant the end of her.

"Come here, sweetheart," Hal said, moving toward her, grabbing at her. "I need to talk to you."

She dodged away. He made another grab. She turned to evade him. Freddie barreled into her from the side, driving her hard to the ground.

Alex kicked and screamed and bit and clawed, but he had hold of her. He rolled them over and dragged her to her feet, getting his arms around her and pinning her arms from behind. Hal stood in front of her, now, shaking his head. He slammed his fist into her stomach, driving the air out of her.

As she struggled for breath, Freddie said into her ear, "It's about time Hector made his move on you. He likes them fresh, you know. But he doesn't mind giving us the leftovers."

A primal noise of rage rose in Alex's throat as she tried to kick at Freddie, but he neutralized her by lifting her off the ground.

Hal was laughing outright. "This is going to be fun."

There was a growl from behind him. Hal did a doubletake over his shoulder, then went down screaming. On top of him, there was a huge black dog, jaws clamped onto the arm he'd flung up to shield himself. Its fangs tore a long red gash, spattering blood. It went for his throat.

"Shit!" Freddie was yelling, but he hadn't let go of Alex.

Hal rolled sideways, dodging the dog's attack, and somehow made it to his feet. He tore off around the corner, the dog chasing him.

Freddie locked an arm around Alex's throat, shoved her forward. "Let's go, bitch."

"No!" Alex stomped on his foot, to little effect.

He punched her in the kidney and tightened his arm, constricting her airflow. "You can do as I say, now, or later on I can really hurt you." His voice brooked no nonsense.

But Alex had decided she would not go back, and if he meant to make her, he was going to have to fight her to the last. She twisted, trying to get away, trying to free her arms so she could hurt him.

That's when the dog came back. Appearing in the mouth of the alley, it ran at them without warning. Freddie only just saw it as it launched itself through the air toward them. He dropped Alex, ditching sideways, and hit the pavement hard. His wrist cracked. As he rolled to the side to struggle up, the dog was on him, its teeth in his shoulder. He cried out as it ripped a strip of flesh and t-shirt off of his back. He curled into a ball, covering his head, whimpering.

Alex had hit the ground, too, bruising her hip. She staggered to her feet. Her eyes were wide on the scene unfolding before her. Frozen, at first, terrified, she stared at the huge animal, bigger than any dog she'd ever seen. Shaggy and wild-looking like a wolf, but black as the darkness itself. She stumbled backward a few steps, watching it mutilate Freddie's exposed back. She wanted to run, but she seemed incapable.

She backed away, making it as far as the end of the alley, where she braced herself with one hand against the wall. Only then did she realize she'd been limping. One arm was clasped protectively around her stomach. Her hip ached, and she was scraped up everywhere. She finally tore her eyes from the attack and turned to go. Limping away down the street, she knew she wasn't moving fast enough. But at least she was moving.

She turned a couple of times and didn't stop until she was four blocks away. There, she ducked behind a dumpster and leaned up against a brick wall, breathing deeply. Rain was still pouring down, washing blood in red rivulets from various scrapes. She was as cold as she could ever remember being. Only then did the tears start to come. And with them, hopelessness set in. Hector owned most of this city. She was a goner.

It hurt to sob, so she broke off into a little whimper, giving in to her tiredness, sinking against the wall and closing her eyes. She wanted to sit down, but the way her stomach hurt, she couldn't bend to do so. Her shoulders shook with her sorrow.

At first, she did not distinguish the sound from that of the raindrops. Tick, tick, tick, tick. But then it stopped, in front of her. She opened her eyes. The black dog was there. It walked up to her and pressed its nose against her leg, sniffing. Alex froze, fear coursing through her. The great snout moved up her thigh, nuzzled into her bruised belly, tickling and wet. She shrank away from it. The dog kept sniffing, moving closer, pushing its nose into her armpit, then down, scenting between her legs. She pushed its head away gingerly at first, but when it tried to force its head between her thighs again, she gave it a huge shove. "Bad dog," she shouted, glaring at it, but expecting to be eaten at any moment.

The dog looked at her then, looked her right in the eye. Its own eyes were a strange grey, the color of ash. They were fascinating eyes. She got stuck in them.

After a moment of their staring contest, Alex began to wonder if it was considering its next meal. The dog's body was full of tension, muscles ready to react, ears pricked forward in a predatory way. Its jaw worked. It made a noise between a growl and a whine, cutting off into a sharp sound like faulty brakes. It moved now, only a fraction, inching forward like a trained attack dog waiting for the release of the attack command.

Alex narrowed her eyes and growled at it. "Bad dog," she said again, determined to show it she wasn't afraid.

It let out a low woof, trotted forward, and nipped her on the waist.

She yelped, tried to smack it, but it had danced away. A second later, it moved in and nipped her again. She did smack it this time, but the dog paid no heed. It jumped up on her, paws raking her shoulders, and in a moment she'd been tackled to the ground and the damned thing was licking her, whining in excitement. Its nose pushed against her neck, her shoulder, nuzzling her excitedly.

Alex had had enough. She'd been molested by a drug dealer, and now by a crazy rabid dog. "Stop!" The word shrieked out of her, blasting from deep in the pit of her stomach.

The dog backed up.

She sat up and glared at it, the pain of that movement shooting through her stomach like a knife.

It sat down, whining, wagging its tail.

"Oh my god," she groaned. "Don't tell me I've made a friend." Grabbing onto her stomach as she tried to maneuver herself, she managed to climb to her feet again. She pointed one finger at the dog as it thumped its tail. "Stay."

It grew quiet, closing its mouth.

"Good." She looked at it for a moment, then attempted to limp away. She needed to put some distance between herself and this place. Find shelter. It was quickly growing dark. She was shivering now, and soon she would be able to see her breath on the moist air as the nighttime temperatures dropped. But as Alex began to pick her way across town, she realized that she had company. The dog had fallen in beside her. There was no getting rid of it. The more she thought about it, the beast might come in handy. It had certainly made quick work of Hal and Freddie. But if it had torn them apart, then why not her? Had it simply eaten its fill, for now?

Eventually, she ended up in another alley, further across town. She knew she couldn't go to any of the normal places she would have sheltered. Those all belonged to Hector. The rain had turned even colder, and Alex wasn't sure she would survive the night, wet as she was. But with nowhere to turn, she managed to ease herself down in an alley where the walls sheltered her from some of the wind. The animal curled up next to her. It smelled exactly of wet dog, but somehow the scent was comforting. Heat radiated off the beast, as though a fire blazed inside it, so she snuggled up next to it, tentatively at first, and then more boldly. It didn't seem to mind. As a matter of fact, it lay its head in her lap, heaved a big sigh, and went to sleep. For a while, Alex managed to doze on and off, though she still shivered.

A couple of hours after darkness, the sound of a motor awakened Alex. She uncurled herself and pressed herself against the alley wall, moving toward the street to peek out. There had been other motors, so she couldn't say why she was curious about this one, but something drew her to the street. As she gazed out, she saw the motorcycle. It was across the street, idling. Its rider sat, his broad back to her, considering the distance, like he might not want to get off, after all. He hadn't stopped the motor. Alex studied the shoulders, the shiny black bike, the shoulder-length blonde hair, wet and messy though it was at the moment. He shook his head, flinging water away. Alex wanted to laugh. She'd met this guy once before, only a couple of days ago, and she'd liked him. But more than that, he didn't work for Hector in any way, shape, or form.

She thought about it for a moment, remembering their meeting. She'd been dropping off a message for a dealer at a local club, and this guy had been hanging with one of the bouncers she happened to know. They'd been introduced. He'd smiled at her, a dimpled smile. His blue eyes had sparkled behind that smile. And for a little while, he'd tagged along after her, asking for her number... not that she had one. Asking to see her again. She'd turned him down flat, knowing better. But the only way she'd gotten rid of him was by slipping out the back when he wasn't looking.

There was something about this guy that had set her on edge, made her nervous. But at the same time, she found him fascinating. He was beautiful to look at, muscled like a beast and yet perfectly formed as a sculpture. He had an assured way of carrying himself, a confidence in his manner. She'd found herself thinking about him later. And now... here he was.

She didn't trust him. She didn't trust anyone. But she knew she wouldn't survive on the streets for long. Maybe he might know somewhere she could hole up for a while.

_Yeah, probably his place_. She laughed at herself, because she knew it was likely true. But if the choices were between Hector and... what was his name again? She had to think for a bit before she remembered it. Jess. Hmm, Hector or Jess. It wasn't a hard choice at all.

She sighed and stepped out to cross the street. Behind her, the dog whined then growled, but stayed in the alley.
Chapter 2: Jess

JESS KEPT HIS eyes on the building in front of him, feigning hesitation. Below him, the bike rumbled. He could hear her footsteps, splashing as she crossed the street. He'd been waiting for her, but he didn't want her to know that.

_Alexandria O'Malley. Twenty years old. Black hair, grey eyes. Last known address, Saint Mary's Home for Children, eight years ago._

None of that did any justice to the lithe little package that moved its way across the street toward him. He'd been knocked senseless by her beauty, blindsided by his immediate attraction to her. He had to admit, sometimes this hunt could be fun.

Her footsteps stopped beside the bike and he turned his face toward her, raising his eyebrows in surprise. He blinked a couple of times for good measure, then beamed a killer smile at her. "Hey, it's you."

She smiled back, hands tucked in her pockets. She was beautiful, even sopping wet. Especially sopping wet. He could think of a few scenarios in which he would like to— He shook away the thoughts racing away with him and gave her a puzzled frown. "What are you doing out in the rain?"

"Just going for a stroll." She shrugged, still smiling.

He scanned over her again. On second perusal, she looked a little roughed up. There were scrapes on her arm, her jaw.

"What are you up to?" she asked, before he could say anything else.

He shrugged back at her, grinned. "Just going for a ride."

She laughed, and her laughter was as soft as the wind over the meadows of High Shelar.

They looked at each other over a moment of awkward silence, then he dove in and asked, "You wanna come with me?"

Her eyes lingered over his bike, then glanced at the sky. It was a terrible night for a ride. He should have invited her somewhere else. Anywhere else.

"Sure," she said, then laughed again. "I don't suppose I can get much wetter."

His cock awakened at the phrase. He started to imagine just how wet she was, and he was burning inside. He wanted to reach out, then, and touch her. He hoped desperately in that moment that she wasn't the one. That he could investigate, and have a hell of a lot of fun investigating, and leave her in the end. He sucked in a breath, tried to get control of his body, and nodded casually over his shoulder. "Hop on."

She swung her leg up over the back of the bike and slid up behind him. Her arms laced around his stomach, making him clench at the touch of her. She felt cold and wet, pressed up behind him. He wanted to warm her up. To stop her shivering. To make her shiver in a different way.

He pulled the bike away from the curb, revved the motor, and they sped away into the night.

Jess drove the city streets for a while, trying to think of somewhere to take her. He should have rented an apartment, but he hadn't. Now he cursed himself for that oversight. It would have been nice to take her someplace warm. Anywhere public was out of the question. This wasn't a date. He was on a mission. It had taken a long, long time to track this one down. Now, tonight, he was going to find out if it was her. He was done waiting for it. And he was done waiting to get his hands on her.

He drove out past the edge of town, where he knew of an abandoned warehouse that was too far out to draw much in the way of occupation. It wasn't exactly romantic, but it would keep the rain off. He pulled up to the broken window, swung off the bike, and took her hand. "Come on."

Alex glanced around, looking a little nervous, but climbed off the bike and went with him. They stepped through the window and into the hollow, dark space inside.

"It's out of the rain," he said.

She gave him a funny look, the light from the window shining on half her face.

He needed an explanation, quick. "Uh... my roommate has his girl over. They were... you know."

She nodded understanding, wrapped her arms around herself, and took a couple of steps into the darkness, her eyes exploring the black corners she couldn't see into.

"Don't worry. No one ever comes here." He moved further in, as if to prove that it was safe, then came back to her. He put his hands on her arms. Her skin was cold as a corpse. "Aw, you're freezing," he murmured. He was glad for the excuse to rub his hands up and down her arms. And even gladder to pull her toward him. "Come here. Let me warm you."

She gave in, let him pull her close, probably thankful for any warmth he could give her. Her teeth were chattering. He placed one hand on the back of her head and pulled her cheek against his chest, enveloping her in his embrace. She smelled like rain. She was like ice against him. His heart caved a little, pitying her. He lowered his face, let his nose touch her forehead. "I'll warm you," he said again. And it was stupid to do it, stupid to expose himself at all, but he opened up a tiny fraction of his sunsoul and let the heat sink into her.

She sighed and melted against him. Her eyes sunk closed, jaw went slack. She stopped shivering. She was literally like putty in his hands.

Jess looked down at her, at her face adrift in utter relaxation. The relief in her expression. The innocence. He was sure she was the most stunning creature he had ever seen, and he wanted her like he had never wanted anything before. But the realization of that turned his core to ice. Something inside him knew. No mortal being could possibly affect him in this way. This was her. It had to be her.

He almost snapped her neck right then.

But he was still looking at her face. And as he did, her eyebrows tilted up in the middle, and she gave a little sigh. She shifted against him, like a child. She slipped her arms around him, returning his embrace, offering him that trust. He realized that she must have been colder than he had known, been through a rougher ordeal tonight than he had imagined. Whatever had happened, she curled into him like a kitten, now, absorbing the warmth— the safety— that he offered her.

Jess's heart opened to her a little more. His shoulders relaxed, his arms gathering her closer. No. If she was offering him her trust, he was damned well going to take advantage of it.

Gently, tenderly, he worked a strand of wet hair loose from her cheek and pushed it away from her face. "Better?" he whispered, and when she tilted her face up to him, he smiled at her. There was very little light for her to see his smile, but he'd placed them in the glow from the window for that exact purpose. And so that he could see the thing he needed to see. _Or not_. It was a hopeful thought, a desperate thought. Part of him still denied that it could be this girl, so sweet, so soft. Nothing in him wanted to hurt her. So she had an effect on him. Was that really incriminating evidence? Surely he would have recognized something in her....

"You're so warm," she murmured. "So... hot." There was a question in the end of her statement, puzzling over it. Yes, it had been a stupid move. But she laughed, her breasts jiggling against his chest. "I didn't mean it like that. I swear."

"It's OK if you think I'm hot," he teased, before she could return to anything else. "I think you're hot, too."

Her laughter faded away as she gazed up at him.

Jess drew her in and kissed her. Her lips were still cool, and tasted of fresh rain. They were plump and swollen, moving against his own cautiously, at first. He prodded with his tongue, running it along her teeth, flicking the tip of her tongue. She opened her mouth to him and he plunged inside, taking her deeply. Her knees caved and he clutched her waist to him, bending over her, molding his body to hers. Blood rushed through his veins, pounding in his ears and throbbing in his cock. His hands wandered, around her ass, twisting into the back of her thigh, and skimmed up to cup one gorgeously full breast. Her nipple was hard, standing up beneath the wet fabric of her sweater.

All at once, Alex pulled away, extracting herself from him, retreating. He went after her reflexively, trying to retrieve the prize he'd lost, unable to separate himself from his longing. His hands were reaching for her of their own will, but she held him at arm's length.

She was panting, wiping her mouth with the back of one hand. "It's... a little fast," she said. There was fear in her voice. Uncertainty.

Jess tilted his head as he looked at her. Really looked at her. She stood away from him, their hands at a standoff between them. Her whole body was filled with nervous tension. Had she never...? And... what had she been through that night? Again, he was bombarded by a surge of emotion, wanting to protect her. He had to remind himself that he was not there for that reason. Quite the opposite.

"I... didn't bring you here to..." he said. It was a lie. He shook his head, lowering his hands. "I'm sorry. I've never felt so...." He couldn't say the rest, because none of it was a lie. Nevertheless, it sounded good, and it would serve its purpose.

She wrapped her arms around herself again.

He considered his next move.

"It's OK," he said softly. "We can take it slowly." _For a few minutes_.

She seemed to relax a little.

He took a small step toward her, nice and slow. It was like taming an animal. He kept his voice soft. "Tell me what happened to you tonight."

She flinched at that. Probably not the best move, but if he meant to regain her trust, he needed to get her talking.

"Nothing," she said. She'd frozen up.

"So you really were just out for a stroll." His voice was dry with the unlikeliness of it. He reached toward her jaw, where it was scraped. "Is that how this happened?"

She rolled her shoulders in a shrug now, like she was trying to shake something unpleasant off her back. "Just some guys," she mumbled, looking down.

He paused. "Hey." His voice had caved in with the rest of him. He said it again. "Hey." And then he was gathering her up into his arms, and she was fighting back tears, and none of it seemed contrived at all.

For a long while, he held her, and she shivered against him, not with cold but with memory. He pressed his face against her shoulder, wishing he could comfort her more.

Eventually, she pulled herself away again. Not so much, this time. Just a little. They looked at each other from inches away. Her face was very serious. Her eyes read his.

Touching her face, he gave her what she wanted, what she didn't know she wanted. "I won't let anyone hurt you," he whispered. "I promise."

Her eyes flickered back and forth, sparkling in the moonlight, and then she came to him, pressing her soft lips to his.

He let his hands move over her more cautiously this time, gently easing her across the boundary that would allow him to find out if he would hurt her or not.

His kisses were smaller, gentler. He held back the rush of longing inside himself, though he felt he might explode. His hands explored her waist, her hips, and he eased himself against her rather than crush her to him the way he wanted to. He let them linger like that for a while, let his restraint reassure her. Looking into her eyes, he whispered, "Alex. My sweet Alex." He brushed her long, silky hair away from her face. "How is it that I've only just met you? I feel like I've known you for a thousand years."

Her expression softened into a smile, her gaze moving from his eyes to his mouth.

He kissed her slowly, this time, drawing it out. When he was done with it, she shivered in his arms and gazed up at him with something new in her eyes. She wanted him. And god he wanted her, too.

Jess could no longer hold himself back. He went for her sweater, breathing a silent prayer to the substance of the universe. Please let it not be her. If it was her, could he just put it off a little while longer? Take her first? Would that not be a suitable victory?

It was dangerous thinking. Very dangerous.

Alex shied away as he lifted the bottom hem, exposing her stomach.

"It's OK," he soothed, continuing his efforts. "It's OK."

She froze with indecision, her eyes wide, her elbows clenched at her sides to trap the sweater in place.

He slipped his hand underneath, slid against her skin, found her breast. Her nipple tightened under his touch. He let his hand rest there for a moment, let her get used to it. "It's OK," he kept whispering. He didn't give a damned, right now, if he could check for the mark or not. He'd get the sweater off, sooner or later. His palm tingled with the thrill of touching her. His cock pressed against the cage of his jeans, wanting out, wanting to taste her.

Only her voice found movement. "Jess..." She was trembling now with fear. No, she didn't trust him, and she was wise not to.

"I won't hurt you," he whispered, kissing her nose, kissing her forehead. He hoped he wouldn't have to.

A little sigh shuddered out of her, her warm breath tickling his neck.

"It's OK," he whispered one more time, and she softened to him, just a little.

He let his hand move on her breast, stroking slowly, caressing. He brought his thumb onto her nipple, circling. She rose to him. He placed a tiny kiss on her lips, slid his other hand under her sweater, took her other breast. Her breath stuttered inward, her eyes fluttering closed. He had her, now. He wanted to tear her clothes off and take her hard, but he paced himself, opening her up slowly. He slid his hands down her ribcage, over her hard stomach, and once again took hold of the hem of her sweater. He looked into her eyes, this time, preparing her for it, and then he pulled upward.

Something flew at him, blacking out the moonlight. He was on the ground, teeth in his arm, claws tearing at his chest. Jess backhanded the Hound, sending it back about a foot. He tried to kick it. But his cock was still hard with lust, limiting his normal movement. He miscalculated, missed. The beast lunged at him and almost got him by the throat.

Alex was shrieking, at first, then yelling, "Bad dog! Bad dog!" She grabbed the thing by the scruff of its neck and tried to drag it off him. So she didn't know what it was, but she'd seen it before. And Jess no longer needed to see if she was marked. He'd found her. He'd found his mortal enemy.
Chapter 3: Alex

ALEX'S FINGERS FISTED into the scruff of the dog's neck, hauling it back. The beast did not budge. It was snarling, tearing, ferocious. She was terrified for Jess. The beast was trying to kill him. "Bad dog," she shrieked at the top of her lungs, and kicked its back paws hard.

It stumbled, rearranged itself to get at him, but Jess had gotten one foot between himself and the creature and shoved.

The dog flung backwards across the room, caught its balance thrusting forward on its back legs only, and lunged for him again. Jess rolled to the side and was on his feet in a flash. He drew himself up to fight, but his eyes leveled toward Alex, not the dog. And she could only see him because the room was no longer dark. It was glowing. He was glowing.

With golden light spilling off him in a full-body halo, blonde hair flying, he looked like an archangel. A deadly archangel.

Alex only had a split second to register all this. Fists clenched, he rose one foot and stomped it on the ground toward her. A shockwave of light burst from him, blinding her. She blinked and could see nothing but spots. "Wha...?" She blinked some more, furiously. The only thing that resolved was one spot that was brighter, hotter than the others. It flared and came at her.

Alex was on the ground, the wind knocked out of her. Something had hit her, but not the flare. This thing had come from the side, heavy and shaggy. The dog? Was it attacking her now? Disoriented, she rolled onto her stomach, trying to crawl to her knees. The sound of vicious snarling came to her, but not nearby. It was across the room.

"Oof." More snarling, tearing. The sound of feet scrambling on the dirty floor. Claws sliding against the concrete. A loud, hollow smack. Droplets sprinkling the floor.

A black nose came out of the darkness. A tongue flicked her cheek. Still, the noises of struggle came from across the room.

Alex's vision was starting to recover. She managed to climb to her feet, encouraged by the nuzzling of the black dog. Another flash lit the walls of the room, but she had her back to it this time.

The dog's mouth clamped down on her arm, vicelike, but not harming her. It dragged her toward the window.

She stumbled with it in a fog of confusion. Whatever was happening had surpassed all possibility and entered the realm of the surreal. _Did someone drug me?_ she wondered at a distance. _Am I dreaming? Delirious? Unconscious? Did Freddie and Hal knock me out and drag me back, after all?_ The last thought was filled with terror. She frowned and looked at the room, hard, trying to find any flaw in its floor, its walls, the gaping window. There were too many details, too many textures for it to be a dream. The huge black dog, too, was entirely believable. The tiny speckles where its whiskers protruded. The slick pink of its gums and white of its fangs. Its weird ash-grey eyes urging her toward the window. Its thick, sleek fur, shining with the glow of the moonlight... and the light from behind. She tried to whirl, to look back, but the beast held her arm fast, dragged her the last pace to the window.

Alex went through, moving in a daze. Her mind was still puzzling things at a distance, trying to reconcile the obvious reality of the situation with the fact that it simply could not be real.

"Die, beast!" Jess shouted behind her, and another wet smack sounded from within the warehouse.

Again, she tried to turn back. Again, the dog had her by the arm, dragging her away. She stumbled across the cracked, weed-poked pavement of the old parking lot, into the open grassland at its other side. The dog's claws gripped the earth, urging her forward.

With the unlikeliness of it all tumbling down on her, she dug her heels in and tried to stop. That's when the other shape bolted by her, turned on a dime, and skidded back beside her. The other large, dark, furry shape.

This beast looked at her with eyes the color of sage flecked in gold. It was bigger than the other dog, if that were possible, and it was covered in blood.

"T—two—?" Alex managed, looking from one beast to the next.

The second dog's eyelids came down, just a little. It lunged for her upper arm, twisting as it connected, somehow yanking her down, throwing her halfway across its shoulders. It twisted the other way and grabbed her arm on its other side. The first dog grabbed up one leg, lifting her entirely off the ground. And they were running. Running away with her.

_Someone drugged me_ , Alex thought as she was repeatedly jarred against the massive shoulders of the green-eyed dog. Its mouth was warm and moist around her wrist. She could feel the tongue of the other creature, pressing her ankle. She had given up trying to make sense of it. There was only one question. _What will I find when I wake up?_

It seemed hours or days or only moments before they stopped. They were on an open hilltop under the heavy, golden moon. Around them, the smells of the countryside were potently sweet. The rain had stopped, and in its place, a heavy moisture clung to the earth.

The two dogs released her, let her sag to the ground. Slowly, Alex picked herself up, wiped her arm and leg, brushed her knees off.

A third dark shape bolted up beside them, stopped a few paces off, and turned back to look at her.

Alex counted them carefully. One. Two. Three. Her mouth was open, but no words would come out.

The new beast paced toward her, thrust its huge head at her, sniffing. Its eyes were icy blue, but they didn't turn to her face. It was more interested in her scent, tracing it from one end of her to the other. The others joined in, the one with the green eyes sticking its nose up her backside, its tongue flicking. She batted at it, spinning, and what she managed to push away on one side happened on the other. She felt like a female in heat. They were insistent. She dropped to the ground, sitting to protect her bottom. She curled into a ball, hugging her knees. "Stop it!" she shrieked, not expecting them to listen.

But all three of them hesitated, stopped. They were making that noise of anticipation, agitation. When she peeked, all three were sitting back on their haunches, considering her with working jaws, like they might decide to eat her at any moment.

Before she could decide what to do, their ears pricked. They looked off to the side, open mouths scenting something in the distance. The two newest ones rose and loped off, quiet and predatory.

She sat with the dog with the ash-grey eyes, and they considered each other.

"What am I going to do?" she asked it. "How do I get out of this dream?"

It cocked its head.

"I don't know what happened," she said. "Did they... Did they...?" She was trying to think how they had drugged her. Had Freddie injected her with something when he was behind her? Or had she been drugged all along? Was all of it a dream?

The beast rose to its feet and moved silently toward her. It touched its nose to her cheek, the tenderest gesture from such a wild, intense creature. She found herself reaching up to stroke its shoulders, tangling her fingers in the warm, dark fur of its ruff. There was infinite comfort in that touch. She wanted to draw the dog to her, wrap her arms around its neck and bury her face in its fur.

The tiniest tip of its tongue tasted her cheek.

She laughed, moving her face away, and brought both hands to its neck, now, wriggling her fingers deep into the silky fur, scratching. She lifted them and stroked along the back of its neck. Something icy and thin tangled on her fingers. Frowning, she rose to her knees to see what it was. A thin silver chain, hardly more than a thread, circled the animal's neck. It sparkled in the moonlight, full of raw, liquid beauty. But it was so incredibly cold on her fingers. She didn't like it. It didn't belong on this wild, untamed thing.

The black beast whined as Alex climbed to her feet and bent—only the slightest bit, because the animal was so big— to examine the thing. She tugged the silver thread, expecting it to break, to fall free. It was so fine that it should have come easily off, but it wouldn't. She lifted it and hunted the length of it, looking for an end that could be worked loose. All the while, the dog whined beneath her, its shoulders quivering.

She found the end, a tiny lump that was the catch. It unscrewed. She twisted it free, pulled the ends apart, and let go. The chain floated to the ground, catching on the air like a spiderweb.

The beast uncurled itself and pounced on her, taking her down to the ground. It was over her. No, he was over her. Not a dog, but a man. She was flat on her back and he was on his hands and knees above her, but his knees were spread wide, his elbows bent, so that his body was only inches above hers. Rich brown, wavy hair tumbled toward her face, forming a curtain around them. His arms, his shoulders, and clearly the rest of him was bare, because the tip of his hard cock struck her belly like a drum. He lowered his face into the crook of her neck, sniffing, tickling. His hips were working, dragging just the warm tip of him against the skin of her belly. His tongue flicked out and tasted her neck.

This drug trip had turned decidedly erotic... and weird.

Alex turned her face away and said, "Bad dog!" because she wasn't really taking it seriously, and it was the only thing she could think of to say.

He stopped, raised his face just inches above hers, and those ash-grey eyes stared into her again. "You can quit saying that, now," he said, his voice dry with humor. "It's really not amusing at all."

Alex pressed her lips together, got one knee between them, and pushed him back. "Get off!"

He stumbled back onto his feet as she rose to hers. Only then did she get a good look at the size and power of him. He had definitely let her push him off. He was massive.

His arms and shoulders were like armor, his pecs perfect, sculpted squares of muscle, one of them bearing a tattoo that Alex could not quite make out through the shadow. His stomach was lean and hard and chiseled, the muscles leading into a deep v-shape that pointed to his considerable arousal. Below that, cords of muscle wrapped his thighs, his legs. Alex suddenly wanted to see his backside, to turn him around and examine him from every delicious angle. She forced herself to stop, to breathe. Her eyelids fluttered closed for a moment as she gained control of herself. Then she fixed a dark gaze on him, pointed one accusing finger at him. "What are you?"

His head cocked as he considered her.

She demanded it again. "What are you?"

There was a long moment when his gaze was running up and down her before his eyes fixed on her face, came to some kind of focus. "I'm yours," he finally said, as if finding the words had been difficult.

They faced off in the moonlight. The answer was not good enough for Alex, even though none of it was real. Her nails dug into her palms. "What are you?" she asked again, her voice softer this time, but no less demanding.

He didn't answer her.

The question dropped into silence. He turned half away, his attention drawn to something in the distance. He seemed to be watching or listening to something that she could not sense. Time ticked away. She watched the alertness in his eyes, his jaw, for a long while before he suddenly lost interest in whatever it was and let his eyes fall from it.

"What are you?" she asked again, softly.

His silver eyes flicked to her, waking to hunger. They moved down her body. His cock had finally started to bend sleepily, but now it sprung back to fullness, the pink tip swollen, as if the blood inside him strained against the bonds of his flesh.

"Can you put that thing away?" she asked, wrapping her arms around herself. "It's distracting."

His eyes glanced downward and he laughed softly. "Just where would you like me to put it?"

Alex had no answer for that. She had no clothes to give him. She looked away and muttered something about trying to control himself.

He peered into the darkness yet again. "I have little control right now," he said. "I've been an animal for too long. It's all instinct. It's taking everything inside me not to simply mount you."

The thought was not without thrills, but Alex had had enough of men trying to mount her that night. She narrowed her gaze at him, started to issue a warning, but thought better of it. He was far more powerful than her, and if animal thinking was in control, the last thing she needed to do was challenge this dominant male. She bit back the words, let her eyes run over him. He was turned to the side, the firm, lifted muscles of his buttocks creating a luscious curve above a long sweep of corded thigh. She pulled her eyes away from his body and followed his gaze into the darkness. After a moment, she asked, "Will it go away?"

His eyes flicked down to his cock and the corner of his mouth turned in amusement. "I'm pretty sure it's here to stay."

Her lips pressed together. "I mean the animal thing."

"...Eventually."

"How long?"

He raised one eyebrow at her, again glancing downward.

Alex could not help but laugh with him. "How long until it goes away?" she corrected.

He shook his head. "I don't know."

She sighed and turned toward the dark night, putting him behind her. "Well," she mused, "you are a very helpful dog." She couldn't believe she was having this conversation, drug trip or not. Again, all the little details hit her. The glimmer of golden blades of grass peeking out of a dark patch of meadow. The flutter of a bird, somewhere. The moist breeze on her cheek. The smells of night. Of blood. A warm, lingering musk of animal fur. She watched the night for a long time, trying to make sense of it.

Behind her, there was a crackling noise. When she turned back to him, he was squatting over a pile of sticks. There was fire.

"How did you—?"

He glanced over his shoulder at her. Something in his eyes held the rest of her question back. Held all her questions back. It wasn't the time.

She walked over to him. Her fingers trailed lightly on the hard muscle of his shoulder. Why she wanted to touch him, she didn't know. It was a bad idea. But there was so much comfort in the warmth of his skin.

He turned his face up to her. In the firelight, she could see more of it. It was a gorgeous face, strong jaw, long, narrow, eyes lined in dark lashes, a wide, kissable mouth. He cupped one hand behind her knee, not starting something, but seeking the same physical contact that she had. Their eyes locked, and she had the feeling she knew him from somewhere long ago. Somewhere deep and personal, but forgotten.

"Do you have a name?" she asked.

The wide mouth stretched into a hint of a smile. "You call me Silver."

"...Is that your name?"

"It's the name you gave me."

She opened her mouth to ask more, but the others were back, panting, sniffing. The blue-eyed dog dropped something at her feet— a rabbit. The green-eyed dog nosed between Alex and Silver, issued a low growl, and snapped at him. Silver removed his hand from Alex's leg, but his eyes met the green eyes of the dog in silent challenge. A growl rumbled in the human's throat.

For a moment, Alex worried that they would tear into each other. But they both dropped the challenge at the same time, the dog turning away, Silver reaching for the rabbit. He took it to the edge of the circle of firelight, raised it to his mouth, ripped it open with his teeth. Alex's eyes went wide, watching him. Soon, she had to turn away, as he gutted the rabbit and prepared it for cooking with nothing more for tools than his teeth and hands. He was bloody when he brought it, skewered on a stick for roasting, back to the fire. When he took in her alarmed gaze, he shrugged an apology. "Sorry. I forget how to be human." He found a handful of grass blades to wipe his face and hands.

The blue-eyed dog had settled down, lying in the grass near the fire. The green-eyed one was pacing a wide circle around their perimeter, clearly on watch.

"You have to remove their collars," Silver said softly.

Alex glanced from him to each of the animals. "Are they...?"

He nodded.

She thought about it a moment, wondering if she wanted more burly, naked, animal-lusting men prowling around her.

"Sage has more self-control than any of us," Silver said, nodding over his shoulder at the green-eyed dog who patrolled the perimeter. Clearly he'd read her thoughts. "It's Ice you'd need to watch. But he's injured." His eyes fell on the beast lying near them. "I don't think he'll be any trouble, considering."

Alex really looked at the animal for the first time, noticed its shallow breathing. The ribs rose and fell too quickly. It's tongue was out. Panting. Something inside her broke, drew her to the beast. She dropped to her knees at its side, ran one hand delicately along the ridge of its back.

It turned its ice-blue eyes to her.

"Are you hurt?" she whispered. It seemed a stupid question, now. And what about the other dog, the green-eyed one? Even now, blood was drying in its thick fur.

Silver stepped up beside her, but remained standing. "Remove the collar. Then you can tend his wounds."

The blue-eyed dog rolled onto his side, exposing his neck to her. Did he understand Silver's words?

She reached for the animal's neck, her fingers searching for the cold thread that bound him. As soon as she did, there was an urgency in her body, a need to remove the thing, to get it off him. She was quicker this time. She found the catch, unscrewed it, and flung the thread away.

He was lying half on his back, half on his side, one hand limp on his chest.

Ice's blue eyes glowed against his dark, chocolate skin. Those eyes were tilted up, just at the corners, full of mischief. His cheekbones were high, prominent but delicate, sculpted over an angled jaw. His lips were so full. Her eyes fell to them. She wanted to suck on them.

"He's right," Ice choked out in a deep voice that would have been as smooth as butter if not for the note of pain restraining it. "I'm the one you need to watch out for." He had a fistful of the neck of her sweater. He yanked her toward him. Alex caught herself on one hand above his opposite shoulder, not wanting to hurt him, but he had hold of her, and he was kissing her thoroughly. She couldn't seem to find anything within herself that wanted to resist.

She started to wonder if it was a drug trip or maybe just a dream. It seemed too real to be the latter, but it was starting to get too good to be a drug trip.

She eventually managed to extricate herself from his plump lips, his roaming grasp, and right herself again, crouching at his side. "Behave," she chided. "Let me look at you."

"It's nothing," he murmured as she lifted his hand away from his chest to prod at his ribs, but the way he surrendered to the ground suggested otherwise. There was a tension in his body that hinted that her lightest touch brought him pain, though he clearly tried to hide it.

Alex attempted to focus on the evaluation of his wellbeing, but his stunningly-crafted musculature was emphasized by the moonlight on dark skin. He was beautiful. And very, very naked. She ignored his lower half, which was mostly covered by Silver's shadow. Prodding Ice's chest, she found one spot that made him grunt. And then another. A third place was the worst of all. She tilted her face up to Silver. "His ribs are broken."

"Not a lot to do for that," Silver said, shaking his head. "A couple of days. He'll be OK."

The two of them exchanged a glance that accepted the annoying prognosis.

Alex doubted that anything of this magnitude could heal in a couple of days, but it certainly wasn't the weirdest part of the dream, or drug trip, or whatever. She paid it no mind. Already, her thoughts were turning to the third beast. She peered into the darkness, looking for it. As if it had sensed her, it had stopped walking, sat down. It turned its face toward her. Even over the distance, she could read longing in its green eyes, but the set of its massive shoulders, the little puff of a sigh... those were full of patience.

She rose and went to it. The beast gained its feet again. This one was the biggest, so huge that its head rose past her shoulders, even on all four legs.

"Alright, Sage," she breathed softly, taking its head in her hands. She looked into the green eyes. "Your turn."

It... he... leaned into her, shifting his weight toward her in a way that spoke of total trust. She had to push him back, a little, to be able to find the silver chain.

She had it off in a heartbeat, and he stood before her, towered over her. Sage didn't move. His eyes were locked on hers, full of intensity and longing.

Alex didn't move, either. Not for a long while. They stared at each other, soaked each other up.

He was gorgeous, golden-skinned with brown hair— a million rich shades of gold and brown and copper. It was straight, cropped in one sweep at the level of his chin, the longer front pieces pulled back into a topknot while the rest hung free. His jaw was stubbled, his face shaped like a heart, his eyes large and penetrating, his nose hooked at the bridge, where maybe it had been broken. The size and shape of his muscles was devastating, making her heart slam into her ribs. But none of it compared to what she soaked up in those green eyes. They enveloped her. She could see that he wanted so badly to take her in his arms, and she wanted that, too. She stepped into him, and those thick arms wrapped around her, crushed her shoulders as he buried his face in her dark hair.

The embrace lasted about three heartbeats before he made a noise of pain, let go of her, and walked away.

Alex watched him stride off into the darkness, her lips parted, mind wandering. Something was trying to break through to her.

None of this seemed like a dream.
Chapter 4: Alex

AN UNEASINESS SETTLED over Alex as she turned back to the fire, where Ice lay, eyes closed, one hand protectively over his chest. Silver crouched on his haunches, turning the rabbit. She studied the graceful curve of his back, the ripple of muscles across his broad shoulders.

"Tell me," she said, stepping up beside him where the warmth of the fire could warm her and dry her damp clothing.

Silver turned his face toward her but didn't look up. "Tell you what?" he murmured.

Briefly, she shook her head. She didn't know what. "Tell me... Tell me I'm dreaming."

"You're not."

"Then what kind of delusion is this?"

Amusement flitted across his lips. "Sage told me... you said that once before."

Alex shook her head again. "I don't know you. I've never known you."

"Is that so?"

She hesitated. "It's a dream. I feel I know you because you're part of myself."

He made a noise that was part acknowledgement, part curiosity.

"This is nuts." Her voice was heavy with defeat.

Silver pulled the rabbit stick from the fire, held it up for inspection, sniffed it. His eyes narrowed. "Probably not the best judge of it right now." He held it up to her. "Is it done? I'd as soon eat it raw."

She gave him a look and took the stick from him, careful not to burn her fingers. She poked at one piece of meat and it came apart, its aroma wafting toward her. She couldn't remember the last time she'd eaten. "Yeah. I think it's done."

He nodded.

She tore off a large chunk and knelt beside Ice, tried to give it to him.

He shook his head. "Sage and I ate when we hunted. You two share this."

She gulped, imagining the two huge animals feasting on raw prey, remembering Silver wiping blood from his face and hands. His earlier words came back to her. _I've been an animal for too long. It's all instinct._ Trying not to allow her hands to shake, she took the rest of the rabbit back to him, sat cross-legged in the dirt beside him. She kept the portion she'd torn off and passed the rest back to him.

He accepted it and sniffed it once again.

"How long were you a dog?" she asked, as if it were the most normal question in the world.

"Not sure." He ripped off a huge bite of rabbit, swallowing without much chewing. "How old are you?"

"Twenty..."

"At least that."

"Twenty years?" she blurted out.

"Likely a good bit more."

Alex stared at him for a moment before she remembered her rabbit. She bit into it, finding it juicy and tender. She swallowed and took another bite so fast that she was starting to feel like a dog, herself.

Silver was tearing into the rest of the rabbit, silently, with great relish. When he'd torn off the meat, he started in on the bone, crunching through it as easily as Alex would have finished off some potato chips. When he saw her watching, stupefied, he gave her a shrug, but stayed focused on the food.

She watched him quietly until he'd finished. Meanwhile, she'd picked all the meat from her bones. She held the bones out to him with a tentative smile.

He met her eyes, flashed her a dangerous grin as he took the offering. "Careful I don't bite off your hand."

She laughed nervously, unsure whether he meant it or not.

He made short work of the bones she'd given him, and finally, licking his fingers, paid her his full attention once again.

They sat for a moment listening to the sticks snapping in the fire, and Alex tried to filter out a million questions and find the ones that were important.

Silver looked out into the darkness. "We'll move soon. When Sage comes back."

Her eyebrows rose. "Move? To where?"

"Away from here." His ash-grey eyes turned back to her. "Best not to stay too long."

She thought back to Jess, to the warehouse, and suddenly felt cold. She'd put all that in the back of her mind, and now it was peeking through again, asking to be made sense of. Not that she could make sense of anything that had happened that night. She shivered. "The guy back at the warehouse..."

"Jess?" It was Ice's rich voice, still restricted with pain, but he laughed softly. "You don't need to worry about him. Not for a while."

Silver's eyes turned to regard Ice silently, though Ice couldn't see him from where he lay.

"You... know him." Alex's voice fell flat.

Silver seemed to be waiting for Ice to reply, but when he didn't, Silver said, "Yes. We know him." He offered no elaboration.

"Well, who the hell is he?" Alex demanded. "What the hell is he?"

"He's from the Realm of Sky," Sage said behind her, walking into the camp. "He's been hunting you."

She laughed in nervous disbelief, twisting around to see him. "Why?"

He and Silver exchanged a look. Sage's green eyes were incredibly serious, his very presence commanding. With his golden skin, gold-flecked eyes, and copper-streaked brown hair catching the light of the fire, he looked down at her and said, "It's time to go."

Alex climbed to her feet, turning to him, unable to keep her gaze from sweeping down him. He seemed completely oblivious to his nakedness. Unconcerned by it. She shook her head. "I want some explanations. This just keeps getting weirder and weirder."

"We'll explain everything," Sage assured her, reaching one hand out to touch the back of her hand lightly for just an instant before he let his own drop. "But we can't stay here."

Behind her, Ice was struggling to his feet. Silver took him by the elbow and helped him up then let go and stepped closer to Alex. His arms went around her, his body pressing close to hers. He was so warm, and she could feel the lumps of his muscles and... She wiggled away a little, remembering his words once again.

"Don't be afraid, Alex," he said softly in her ear. "It's about to get weirder."

"...What?"

His arms tightened around her. There was a whooshing sound and they lifted off the ground. Simultaneously, in front of her, Sage sprouted enormous black-feathered wings, gave one great flap, and ascended with them.
Chapter 5: Silver

SILVER FELT ALEX go stiff in his arms, her breath catching. As they shot into the sky, he started to worry that she had forgotten how to breathe at all. He knew he should have given her more warning, but he enjoyed teasing her so. Enjoyed the surprise. It wasn't often that he could shock her like this.

And it was her fault anyway. It was the Wyld.

He let out a whoop as they reached altitude and he swooped into a wind current, riding into the speed of it.

"Ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod," Alex was saying. At least she'd remembered to breathe, even if she couldn't remember to place spaces between her words.

He laughed wickedly and dropped without warning into the current below. Adding the stroke of his wings to the power of it, they swooshed forward. He pulled his wings in tight, then, transforming their joined bodies into something like a spinning torpedo. Giddy dizziness thrashed at his brain as the sky circled them. He was halfway unsure which way was up and which was down. When the momentum of their spin faded, he kept his wings folded close. Their forward motion faded, curving into a drop. His insides hit the back of him as they plummeted, completely weightless.

Alex, coming unfrozen, squealed and attempted to twist, clutching at him.

"Don't make me drop you," he warned, opening his wings to catch the wind. He was half playing.

She yipped and tucked into a ball in his arms.

Balls were for tossing, and he was very tempted. But one glance down at her and he thought he'd better not. She'd had one hell of a night, already.

Sage shot past beside him, throwing him a glare. He would likely get his ass kicked later for his little stunt. May as well make the best of it, then. "Hey, Alex."

She unclamped one eyelid to peek up at him.

"We'll never let you fall. Promise." He grinned at her. Then he shouted to Sage, "Catch!"

He flung her through the air, watched her starfish as she spun, grapple at nothingness in the clouds. It was a beautiful moment.

Sage snatched her from the air, tucked her into his arms, throwing Silver a glare that was truly deadly this time.

Silver laughed merrily, hovering. He was still laughing when he sensed motion coming up behind him. Yes, Ice was keeping up... almost.

Ice gave him a dark look. "You dick," he said, but his voice was full of mischief. They laughed as they hurtled a blast of wind and caught the next current.

Silver did not try to catch up with Sage in favor of hanging back with Ice. He was a little worried about the ribs. But besides that.... "It's been a long time since we've seen Jess," he said.

"He didn't know us," was all that Ice said in reply.

Silver thought about it for a moment. "I wouldn't have known us," he finally said.

"No," Ice agreed. "Nor would have I."

"He got away, then?"

Ice gave him another look. "No. I ate him."

They laughed again.

There wasn't time for much more conversation, because ahead of them, Sage circled downward toward an empty field. They followed his lead to the ground.

Sage had already set Alex on her feet, and as Silver hovered to a landing, she was running toward him, fists clenched, black hair streaking in chaotic streams behind her. He considered hovering just out of reach to toy with her, but she was mad enough already. So he dropped to the ground and let her come.

Her fists slammed into his chest. He'd missed those little fists. All that power in such an adorable container. He laughed as she pommeled him, baring her teeth, growling her rage. His laughter only incited more fierceness. She was going to bloody her knuckles, trying to beat him....

"Lucky for you she doesn't know, yet," Ice said quietly to the side.

"Know what?" Alex demanded, backing up only to charge at Silver like a bull. He couldn't help but laugh at that, and she shrieked at him in a frenzy, bringing out her claws, since her fists seemed to do nothing to him.

"Enough," Silver laughed, catching her in his arms, swaddling her in his dark wings. He had her in a feathered cocoon, now, so close to him that she could no longer strike out. She struggled against him. "Shhhh..." he soothed, and at last she became still.

"I'm going to tear you to pieces," she whispered fiercely, lifting her face to gaze defiantly into his eyes.

"I was only playing," he said. "And anyway, Sage will tear me to pieces for you. He's only waiting for you to finish your business first."

"I'm... not... done!" She somehow managed to wiggle one fist up between them and thunk his chest with it.

He laughed and kissed her forehead.

She struggled anew, trying to get some purchase with her fists, but there was no use to it. She resorted to words, instead. "You evil son-of-a-bitch!" she yelled, completely unaware of what her wiggling was doing to him. "I hate you! You— You're a bad dog!" She thunked him again. "A very bad dog!"

And before he knew it, his forehead was pressed to hers, and they were giggling. She tried to staunch it, but it was too late. She'd laughed. He squeezed her tighter and let his laughter come fully, now, feeling himself open up to her. Had he ever been so alive?

But Alex was clearly not ready to forgive him. Somewhere, she found the willpower to stuff down the laughter, and she thunked him one more time for good measure. "Let go of me." She'd used her calm voice. He knew enough to let go.

He watched her march away from him, chin tilted up, dismissing him like the bad dog he was. He grinned giddily, watching her go.

The joy of that moment was cut short as Sage's gaze fell upon him. Silver tipped his chin down, eyes up, meeting the challenge. Their bodies were already in motion, charging each other, as they morphed into beastform.
Chapter 6: Alex

WITHOUT WARNING, SNARLING came from behind Alex. She whirled just in time to see the two animals collide midair. White fangs glowed beneath red gums, spittle and chunks of hair flying as they tore into each other. Twisting, muscled, black-sheened bodies, ruffs up, claws scrambling for purchase. They sought each other's throats.

"Stop!" she yelled, but neither of them noticed her above their fierce growls and the deadly heat of their battle. "Stop!" she yelled again, glancing around for anything that might help. She wanted to separate them, but only a fool would put themselves within range of those snapping teeth.

Ice's hand was warm on her arm. "Come with me," he said, when she looked up at him.

She shook her head, her eyes flying back to the others. "They'll kill each other. We have to—"

"Don't worry." He laughed softly, now, drawing her away. "They'll stop as soon as they realize that they've left you alone with me."

Alex didn't know why she was following him after a comment like that. She wondered exactly what kind of danger he posed her. But somehow that danger was magnetic. She let him lead her.

It was only a handful of steps away, and they were still in plain sight of the others. She glanced back over her shoulder to see that both sets of fangs were reddened with blood. Her shoulders crawled with worry.

Ice stopped, looked at a very normal patch of ground, considering something. "This will do."

She squinted at him, wondering what he was about.

Before she could ask, he raised one fist in the air, drew it down swiftly. A staff flashed in his hand, glowing and unreal, traced in phantom lines of red, carved in runes that weren't there. As its bottom struck the dirt, a pulse burst out in a small shockwave, sending wisps of grass and grains of sand flying. When it dissipated, there were steps before them, leading down into the earth. The staff in Ice's hand flickered and disappeared. He let his hand drop.

For a moment, Alex's mouth worked. She crossed her arms and considered the carved rock of the steps, the glyphs etched into the stone wall that curved downward out of view. Her gaze rose to Ice, who stood waiting expectantly, holding his strong, sculpted body with only the tiniest hint of pain. His wings were folded behind his back, and now they grew inward and disappeared, a fascinating transformation. His blue eyes were so light that she thought they might be glowing, and the dark richness of his skin only emphasized that effect. She shook herself, considered the steps again. Sooner or later, she was going to have to wake up.

"Yes. It's a dream." His voice was soft, but something in it taunted her. She could read no insincerity on his face, though. He only looked at her with expectancy, with calculation.

She glanced again at the others, who had backed off and were facing each other with lowered heads and fierce growls, even as they paced a little closer. Meeting Ice's cool blue gaze, she pointed at the steps. "I don't care if this is a dream. I am not following you demons down into the reaches of hell. I will not sell my soul to the devil, or any other of that kind of business, dream or not."

Ice's eyelids lowered, head tilted back, as he looked down on her.

"Shall I fling you over my shoulder and carry you down, then?" Silver's voice came from behind her as he and Sage ran up in human form, no wings now. They were smeared in blood and dirt, a number of sizable gashes showing on both their naked bodies.

Sage growled, and for a moment, she thought they were going to go right back to being dogs again.

"It's not hell," Ice said. "And we're not demons."

"Then what are you?"

"Figments of your imagination." His face was so serious, his gaze intent. "You conjured up exactly what you wanted. Don't you like us, Alex?"

Silence fell between them as she tried to read him but couldn't. She had almost decided to believe him when Silver, beside her, failed to contain his laughter any longer and it broke out in a muted snort. She cast him a glare and answered Ice's question. "No. I don't."

Sage was watching all this with a curious detachment, having put aside his anger... for now, at least. He stepped toward Alex, lightly brushed a lock of raven hair away from her shoulder. "Do you believe we're real?"

She gawked up at him. "No." But she could no longer be certain.

"Then it doesn't matter."

She hesitated. "And if you were real?"

"If I were real," said Silver, "would I be holding this poodle?"

Alex blinked alarm as she turned and registered the poodle— no, the rainbow-colored poodle— in his arms. She took a step back, struck entirely dumb. Silver grinned at her.

Poof. The poodle disappeared.

"Definitely dreaming," she muttered.

Ice gestured to the descending stairs.

She shook her head, turning away from them. "This is my dream, and I'm not going down there. I don't want to be chased by monsters or—"

Strong hands gripped her waist, lifted her into the air, and tossed her over an incredibly muscular shoulder, presenting her with an impressive backside not that far from her face. They started down the stairs. Alex kicked her legs and pounded on his back, but her fists accomplished nothing and an iron grip descended upon her thighs, nailing her legs in place.

"I'm going to kill you, Silver," she shouted, pounding her fists uselessly on his back.

"Me?" Silver asked innocently, and the voice came from behind her, following them down the steps.

She lifted her head enough to verify that it was him. Then—

"Be still," said Sage, pinching the back of her thigh hard enough to make her yelp. "It's narrow, and I don't want to bang your head on the rocks."
Chapter 7: Sage

WHEN ALEX HAD finally quit struggling against him, Sage began to explain. He figured it would soothe her a little and spare him from her wrath later.

"This is not a passage to hell," he told her, as they wound their way downward. "It's only a passage. You think we are going down into the earth, but we're not. We're only going somewhere else."

Alex made a small noise of anger and stubbornness, then finally asked, "Where else?"

Sage considered the feel of the passage that Ice had created, glad to find that it led to somewhere quiet. They would need a chance to regroup before making their stand. "To the Wyld," he said. "Home."

There was another long silence. "What is that?" she mumbled. "Is it like... oh, I don't know... hell?"

"A little."

She wriggled on his shoulder. "You _are_ demons, and you're carrying me off to the underworld."

"We're taking you home," Sage said, and the joy of that rang through him.

"I don't have a home," Alex insisted. "And if I did, it certainly would not be in hell."

He didn't answer that for so many reasons. Firstly, because there was no point in arguing with her once she got her stubborn head on. Aside from that, he knew he could not communicate to her the things that she simply must see, must remember.

Silver, however, loved to argue with her, and he jumped in now. "Not only do you have a home," he said, "but you have a whole Realm. Don't disown it until you've at least seen it. It's kind of nice."

As Alex tensed on his shoulder, Sage felt the muscles of her stomach and thighs tighten. His thumb brushed surreptitiously over the too-thick fabric of her tattered jeans, wanting to touch skin.

"A Realm?" Her voice was full of contempt and disbelief. "What am I? A goddamned princess?" There was a pause, a solitary chuckle, and a moment later she bounced on his shoulder, cracking up. "That is priceless," she giggled. "Absolutely priceless."

Sage reached up and smacked her on the ass, perhaps a touch hard. Hard enough to make her jerk and yelp. "Quit wiggling."

Teeth sunk into the side of his back. He gasped. She'd bitten him? He almost dropped her, a rush of blood storming through his veins. Almost slammed her down against the wall and jumped on top of her. He'd been fighting the urges all night, still fresh and beastlike in a brain that was hardly human at all. His feelings were consuming and puzzling, demanding physicality, demanding something to sate emotions that could not be sated, that had been buried in a canine prison for so many years. He'd been dying to get his teeth into her. To get lots of things into her. Only a thin thread of humanity had held him back.

Silver gave him a low growl of warning, having scented the raw frenzy that must have been coming off him in waves.

Sage tossed him an answering growl and a glare over his shoulder. He'd gotten past the initial shock of the moment. He wasn't going to do anything stupid. Not like Silver might have.

"Quit manhandling me," Alex demanded through gritted teeth. "If I'm a princess—"

"An empress," Sage corrected.

"If I'm an empress," she said with exaggerated patience, "then what the hell do you think you're doing hauling me around like a piece of meat?"

It was a valid question. Sage chose to ignore it. "If you had cooperated, I wouldn't have had to."

She tensed again briefly, then said lightly, calmly, "Put me down."

He didn't.

"Put me down," she said again. "I command you."

Sage stopped and slipped her off his shoulder, set her on her feet. He met her gaze solidly, though the cool defiance with which she stared up at him set him on edge. There was a long moment of staring into her grey eyes, trying so hard not to look away. The beast in him wanted to respond, either with deference or with violence. He meant to give her neither. Not yet.

Seemingly satisfied with staring him down for a while, Alex dusted off her hands, gave him a haughty look that skipped off to include the two behind him, and spun on her heel to lead the way down the stairs. "You are all very bad dogs," she said, her voice lofty with amusement.

Silver flashed Sage a grin that Alex didn't see, but the three of them fell in and followed her.

She was dragging her finger along the stone wall. "Tell me about being an empress."

Sage had the distinct impression that she had written all of this off as some kind of crazy. He didn't like that at all, the feeling of dismissal, of not being real. And while Silver and Ice seemed content to toy with it, it only made him uneasy. He wanted to grab her and shake her until she could feel how real it was. He wanted to do something to her— anything to her— to make her confess his reality. To understand the heaviness of his existence. But he knew, he remembered, how it had been last time. It had taken her a while to come to it. Of course it would. A small tenderness opened in his heart, remembering how difficult it had been for her. He hoped she would have fewer earthly attachments this time.

She looked back over her shoulder and glared at him. "Are you going to answer me?"

Sage scowled briefly at Silver for opening this can of worms. But he said, "You are the Empress of the Wyld. A reincarnation of the empress, at least. When you die, you're reborn in the human world, and you must live there for a time until the forces call you back to your destiny."

She cast him a doubtful look, but kept going. "When I die..."

"Yes."

"I've done it before?"

"Once."

"Is that all?"

Her flippancy made him grind his teeth. If she had any idea....

"So that makes me immortal," she translated, finger still dragging against the wall.

It was all Sage could do not to turn to beastform and bite off that finger. The urges within him were unfathomable, antagonistic to his true feelings, but no less real. His frustration was rising rather than fading.

"What kind of immortal am I?" Her voice dripped with curiosity and... delight? "Am I a demon like you?" Before he could answer, she added, "Can I do any neat tricks?"

Silver's hand clamped down on Sage's shoulder, his fingers digging in. Sage would have liked to take off that hand as well, but part of him realized it was there as much in support as in warning.

Behind them, Ice said, "You can conjure poodles."

Alex stopped in her tracks and turned to them, blinking up at them. Something washed across her face, but passed quickly, was dismissed along with the rest of it. She shook her head ever-so-slightly, tilted her head, and asked, "And if I'm an empress, what are you?"

Silver stepped past Sage, taking Alex by the arm and turning her to continue down the stairs. It was a gentle gesture, one that brought back a tirade of memories that Sage would rather have suppressed. Silver said to her, softly, "We're yours, Alex. Just as I told you before."

Her eyes lingered on Silver, sparkling in the torchlight of the passage, and Sage noted in them a look of gravity. She turned slowly and went with Silver on down the passage, and Sage, following behind, flowed with jealousy, wanting desperately to be the object of such a look. Wanting for her to see him.

Their footsteps echoed down the stairs.

"You've been dogs my whole lifetime," Alex finally said, and her voice had gone soft and thoughtful. She looked at Silver, her fingers on his arm. "Why is that?"

"We were bound," he explained.

She nodded. "Yes. Those collars."

"Yes."

After she thought a bit, she asked, "Who did that to you?"

"You did."

Alex stopped, looked at Silver, turned her gaze upward to Sage and Ice. She blinked, alarm flashing like lightning in her lovely grey eyes. "Why would I do that?"

Sage shrugged. "You knew you were dying."

Her eyes narrowed slightly as thoughts worked behind them. "But why?"

The three of them exchanged glances, and Sage pushed away thoughts he would rather not consider. He cleared his throat.

Silver squeezed her arm. "To spare us."

Her eyebrows puzzled downward along with a slight turn of her full lips.

Silver gave her a smile that was clearly meant to charm, and Sage couldn't believe how easily she fell for it, given that she was ready to kill him not that long ago. "Animals can mourn," he explained, "but the passage of time is obscured. Waiting for you would have been much harder, otherwise. And..."

Sage shifted, wondering if Silver was going to say it, wondering if he should step in and shut him up. He supposed Alex was going to find out soon enough.

But calculation shifted behind Silver's eyes, and he said nothing about the three of them scattering to the winds, being a pack of useless, roaming beasts, but safe in the absence of her protection. The last time she had died, it had been Sage, alone, and he had suffered through years of torment as a slave until the fates had brought them back together. He was lucky he had not been slain immediately.

Instead of saying what was going through all their minds, Silver shifted gears. "It doesn't matter," he smiled. "You've returned to us."

Something flickered in Alex's expression and was quickly hidden away. Perhaps she _could_ see through that smile. She looked from Silver to Sage to Ice, and then back to Sage. Warmth flooded him as her eyes locked on him and stayed there.

"I knew I was dying," she said, frowning. "What did I die of?"

"A blade in your back." The way Silver tossed it out made Sage want to throttle him. He watched Alex's eyes go wide, and a trace of satisfaction sink into Silver's expression. Teasing her was one thing, but Silver seemed to have no grasp or care for the delicacy of the situation. Or perhaps he was feeding off it, getting off on having the upper hand for once. Sage rumbled as he thought, _Just wait until she tames your ass_.

Silver's eyes flicked to him as if he read the thought in the rumble. The corner of his mouth quirked jauntily. Perhaps he was looking forward to being tamed.

Alex seemed to have gotten control of her reaction, possibly dismissing Silver's words as fantasy. "Who stabbed me?" she asked, sounding slightly offended. She gave them a dark look. "It wasn't one of you, was it?"

"It hurts that you could think such a thing," Ice spoke up from behind him. Sage did not miss the cold undertone in his voice, but he doubted that Alex understood Ice well enough to detect it herself.

"We're here to protect you," Sage jumped in, pushing down the stairs, getting between Alex and Silver. He put one hand lightly on her shoulders and, borrowing Silver's move, drew her onward down the stairs. She probably did not hear Silver's frustrated puff of air behind them, but Sage did, and it gave him great satisfaction.

"So who stabbed me?" she asked again.

"A rival," Sage explained. They were nearing the end of the passage, now. "Nothing to be greatly concerned about. An inconvenience, really, in the grand scheme of things."

"An inconvenience?" she echoed. "Someone stabbed me, killed me, and you say it was an inconvenience?"

He shrugged. "That part was more than inconvenience. But the rival himself... Thanios... No one will follow him when you return. Even he knows that. His victory is only for a time. His lifespan is nothing compared to ours, so perhaps the prize seemed worth it to him."

Her eyes moved over his face. "So then... it doesn't really matter that I died. It's kind of like... being out of the game for a while. Sitting in the penalty box."

"You could think of it that way," he agreed, but he still mourned for all that had been lost to him, all the memories that she was missing.

"Huh," she said. "And this Realm of mine? The Wyld?"

"One of five Realms," Sage said. "Unless you count the pale earth, which we don't."

"The earth is completely neutral," supplied Ice.

"And neutralized," added Silver.

"Think of it like bland crackers at a feast."

Alex glanced back at Ice. "So you're saying that everything else is so much better."

"So much more," corrected Sage. He gestured toward the arched opening, filled with light.

Alex's steps faltered, hesitating. She took a deep breath. "Oh, what the hell," she muttered, and she stepped forward.
Chapter 8: Alex

STEPPING INTO THE wash of light wasn't exactly like going through some sort of dream portal, but it wasn't what Alex expected, either. The light streaming through was so intense that she couldn't see a thing on the other side, so she rather expected to be blasted with sunshine. Once they'd gone through, however, she found herself in something like a cavern, though also very different. They were indoors and the place was dimly lit. The light was filtered, soothing, cool, and came from no source that she could find. It was simply there. The air smelled of rain, of life, like the world after a raging storm. Walls rounded out into some sort of naturally-shaped room, with a passageway beyond, but those walls were not made of stone or earth, or anything that Alex could identify. They were smooth as glass, alternating in soft colors like polished quartz, cool to touch, but soft, organic? She poked at the wall. It gave beneath her finger with a soft, fleshy, water-filled sensation as though she might be poking at a jellyfish. Was the light coming from within it? She didn't have time to dwell on it, because she was exploring the other wonders of the chamber, which seemed to be a bedroom, because there was a bed. It wasn't exactly round, but mostly, occupying the middle of the floorspace. Pillows and blankets in rich, red silks were tumbled atop it in disarray as though it hadn't been made— had never been made— but had always existed in easy perfection just as it was. The floor around the bed was spread in soft grey pelts of the thickest, silkiest fur. Alex stooped to touch it and wanted to take off her boots and wiggle her toes into it.

When she turned back to view the way they'd come, she found that there was no way they'd come. Whatever passageway Ice had created had disappeared after they'd stepped through. The only way out of the room was the passage that led further on, and Alex was itching to explore it. She couldn't remember a dream having ever been so detailed, so rich.

"You should rest, now," Sage said. "You've had a long night."

She shook her head, her eyes skimming down him. In this light, his golden skin was even more beautiful, wrapping around those glistening muscles, the washboard stomach, the.... Her eyes drifted downward, and he awakened at the touch of them. She yanked them back to his face. He swallowed and turned away from her.

"I, um..." She struggled for words. "Yeah, I'm tired." She looked at the bed, deciding to climb into it. She felt suddenly sure that if she closed her eyes and went to sleep, she would wake in the real world and find that this had all been some twisted sort of dream. She took two steps and Silver caught her by the shoulders.

"You're still wet," he said.

She glanced down at herself. She was really only a little damp, now. The combination of the fire and flying through the air had done a lot to dry her out. "I'm fine," she mumbled, but he didn't let go.

Instead, he turned her around to face him and went for her sweater.

Alex smacked his hand, hard. "Oh no you don't."

"So you'll let Jess feel you up, but not me," he mused.

Alex went pale, stepping back from him. Somehow the rest of the night had seemed to fade away in the presence of these three incredible beings. Before that... she didn't want to remember the before. What had happened with Jess... she'd been weak, desperate for safety and comfort. Now, her face burned, remembering.

"Alex," Silver said, reaching for her. His voice had dropped soothingly, the teasing expression on his face replaced by one of regret.

She took another step away before he could draw her back to him. "Don't touch me," she said. She glanced from him to the others. "I want to be alone."

Silver's ash-grey eyes cast down to the floor, a dent appearing in his forehead. Finally, he nodded, and he made off down the hall.

Alex looked at the others.

Ice looked weary, ready for a rest of his own. He had propped himself up quietly against a wall.

Sage was laying out a stretch of silky fabric on the bed. His eyes moved up and found her. "Don't sleep in your wet clothes," he said. "You'll have privacy."

She managed a single nod and waited until they had left the room. Even then, she watched after them down the hall, but there was not a noise to prove the existence of anyone else in the whole world. At last she moved toward the bed, feeling dead tired right down to her bones. It had come on her suddenly, and she was thankful for it, ready to be done with this strange dream. She was almost too tired to worry about damp clothes, or anything else, but Sage's words made it through to her and she stripped them off, discarding them on the floor with a good measure of relief as dry air touched her moist, irritated skin. That was as far as she got. After that, she collapsed face-first into the bed, hardly even noticing the luxurious softness, the warm, spicy scent, before she was completely gone.
Chapter 9: Alex

ALEX MOANED AND stretched her body as she woke from a long, luxurious slumber. Her bare skin brushed unimaginably smooth fabric as she moved against the bed, where she'd faceplanted the night before. Warm air caressed her exposed backside, exactly the right temperature. She felt renewed, alive, strangely invigorated. Every ounce of her flesh seemed charged for the day. She lay there for a moment, letting consciousness sink into her, remembering fractions of strange dreams. Remembering vivid dreams. Remembering intricate detail and intact timeline of dreams that should have been more fractured. Each scene followed from the next, made sense, even when it didn't make sense.

She forced her eyes open to the blood red of shadowed crimson silk. She pushed herself up on her elbows.

Footsteps were moving toward her. "Keep exactly that pose," Ice said, his deep voice rolling over her like thunder. "The curve of that back... and that ass..."

Her eyes flashed wide as she jolted toward the last part of conscious reality, jerked upright, and yanked the blanket around her. She faced him, clutching it to her chest, between her thighs.

He eased himself down on the side of the bed. "Good morning, Empress."

Her eyes narrowed, but she could not seem to drum up any words. Why had she not been ejected from this dream? Was it possible...? No. No way.

He stretched one large hand slowly toward her foot, meeting her eyes with intensity. "Did you sleep well?"

Alex swallowed, nudging her foot out of his reach, and her eyes swept down him. At least he was clothed. He wore a silver shirt with black pants. Boots. A dark cape, of all things, made of some thin fabric that seemed to move by itself, like water, and with epaulettes that emphasized the massive bulk of his shoulders. He made it look amazing. She cleared her throat, her mind spinning. "How are your ribs?" She hoped they weren't too good, as of yet.

"Much better," he said, and leaned a little further toward her, his hand still seeking to close the distance.

Silver strode in with fabric draped over one arm. When he saw Ice, his gaze hardened. He grabbed him by the back of the neck and jerked him off the bed. "What do you think you're doing?"

"What do you think you're doing?" Ice threw back at him, jerking away.

Silver displayed the fabric to him. "I brought our mistress some clothes."

Ice's eyelids sunk closed and he gave one slow shake of his head. Alex wasn't sure what that was... something like disgust or defiance... maybe disbelief.

"Sorry to have to point this out, boys," she said, finally finding her voice, "but this is not exactly the privacy that Sage promised."

Silver's lips quirked into that self-amused smile. "I made no such promise." He raised his eyebrows at Ice. "You?"

"Nope."

Alex growled at them automatically, which only brought back the previous night in full detail and made her feel like she was turning into one of them. "Get out." She pointed at the corridor.

Neither of them budged.

"Get. Out."

"Empress," Silver said soothingly, coming around to the other side of the bed, "you're going to have to get used to being royalty. We've come to prepare you for the day. It's simply what we do." He sat on the bed behind her and his hands dropped onto her shoulders, making her shrug them up to her ears in protest. His fingers started to work on her agitated muscles, pressing into her.

"I—" Alex started. She didn't get very far. "I— um—"

"You um?" Silver breathed, leaning close to her neck.

A long groan-sigh-protest of frustration came out of her as she slumped forward, her shoulders relaxing. "Oh, you... are a very... bad... dog..." she mumbled as he worked magic on her shoulder blades.

He growled his agreement, wiggling his way closer to her.

Meanwhile, Ice had gotten hold of one foot, pressing the heel of his palm into her arch, making her toes wiggle. When she met his eyes, her own half-lidded with pleasure, he raised her foot to his mouth, put his beautiful, huge lips around her toe, and sucked.

Alex squealed, twisted out of both their grasps, and managed to land more-or-less with a blanket around her, beside the bed.

Silver, closest to her, reached for her. Ice stood up to come around the bed.

"Back off," she warned, glaring at them.

There was an uncertainty to their hesitation. It was a fragile thing.

Alex noted with self-disgust that her trembling legs probably weren't exactly discouraging them.

Standing side by side, they regarded her. Silver's hands were on his hips, his face full of speculation. Ice was standing like a predator, chin tipped down, eyes on her, deadly calm and still. His dark eyelashes accented the shape of those eyes that would have been gorgeous for their color and light alone. She had to look away from him, back at Silver, but he was no less striking, no less tempting. He'd clothed himself today, too, in warm browns and greys. A charcoal colored shirt, open at the neck, that emphasized the ash-grey of his eyes. Trousers that hugged his muscular thighs and tight, high buttocks. With his tousled waves of chocolate hair, he looked refined and rugged all at once. Any trace of his battle wounds from the previous day was gone, as far as she could see. Alex closed her eyes for one heartbeat and breathed a silent prayer. _Please, god, let this dream stop_. When she opened her eyes and had one more look at the pair of them, she reconsidered that request. As dreams went, this one was plenty of fun. The only problem with it was that it was too real.

Without warning, it hit her. Her shoulders collapsed and she had to fumble to hold onto the blanket. Tears brewed behind her eyes. She found herself shaking violently.

Silver and Ice exchanged glances and moved toward her as one, but their whole manner had changed. Each of them took her by one elbow. They sat her down between them on the edge of the bed where she clutched her blanket and stared wide-eyed into space. Shock was settling in.

Ice's arm was around her shoulders, Silver's around her waist. They leaned close to her, murmuring words that didn't penetrate, but soothed nonetheless.

And Alex found herself casting back through recent events, trying to make sense of them. But quickly all that blurred out to be replaced by the concrete reality of the moment. Their touch, the warmth coming off them, their weight on the bed next to her, the warm, animal scent of them... all of that was far too real to deny. This was real. This had to be real. Alex accepted it in that moment, even though the preprogramming of her life rebelled, calling her crazy, insisting it couldn't be. This was real. And that... that shocked her to the depths of her core.

They had been sitting there for a very long time when Sage came in, had a look at them, and strode around to the other side of the bed to place himself in front of them. He went down on his knees and took Alex's hands in his own large hands. His thumbs stroked comfort into her. He said nothing.

It must have been ages, but she finally managed to raise her defeated gaze to meet his green eyes. "I don't know what to do with this," she whispered. "How... How can this all be?"

Sage nodded, his gaze dropping to her lap. "You don't need to know," he said. "That's why you have us. We will guide you."

She found herself slipping off the bed and into his arms. The blanket went under one knee and tugged downward, making her lose possession of it, but she didn't care. He gathered her into his arms, held her so tight she could hardly breathe. But she felt safe. So safe.

After Sage had held her for a very long time, he nuzzled her neck, his breath warm and tickling. "Let me draw you a hot bath," he offered. "It will relax you. Renew you."

The way his nose and lips had brushed her neck, Alex wasn't certain that he meant for her to bathe alone. Her heart raced with the thrill and danger of it, but she found herself unable to resist. Whatever way it would be, she nodded.

Sage left her in Silver and Ice's care, went to a wall, and placed both hands on it. The shiny surface opened up like liquid, creating a doorway that hadn't been there before.

"You are going to have to teach me these tricks," Alex muttered, falling against Silver's shoulder, where he had joined her on the floor.

He wrapped his arm around her and stroked up and down her shoulder. "I have lots of tricks to teach you," he whispered. When she looked up at him, he winked.

After Sage came back, proclaiming that the bath was ready, and after they'd given her privacy and she'd sunken deep into a massive tub of bubbling, honey-scented liquid, she found herself pondering Silver's tricks, wondering exactly what he might have in store for her. The unearthly bubbles massaged and stroked her body in ways that made her melt and want to be touched. By the time she'd climbed out of it, she felt that her muscles were one big unresponsive puddle. She'd scrubbed her hair and skin, and she felt fantastically clean. She smelled of honey. And she was sure she had never been so pampered in all her life.

She wrapped herself in a huge, plush towel that Sage had left beside the tub, and for a moment her thoughts drifted, showing her a vision of large hands wrapping that towel around her as she languidly stretched herself out of the liquid. Was it fantasy, she wondered, or memory? Surely if she had asked them, any one of them would have stayed to place that towel around her. A little smile slipped onto her lips. Perhaps being a demon princess wasn't half bad.
Chapter 10: Ice

ICE, SILVER, AND Sage were sitting around the table, none of them talking, all of them fidgeting nervously, despite the nonchalant way they were doing it. Ice was slumped in his chair, one leg stretched long, hands folded across his stomach, fiddling with a piece of fluff he'd found in his pocket. His ribs hurt like hell, but he was done letting that slow him down. Now was definitely not the time to be slowed down.

They all knew she was coming before she got there. They raised their faces toward the corridor like Hounds scenting the wind.

Alex appeared in the doorway, dressed in the clothes Silver had chosen for her. A modest choice, for him, Ice noted with minor disapproval. Silver playing innocent never went over well with him. Still, the red silk clung to Alex's curves in a way that would have tempted a saint. The top wrapped crisscross, cradling her full, round breasts and tying behind her back. It ended just above her belly button, which he paused for a second to eye, scanning on down her smooth stomach to the skirt that was slung on her hips. Another wrap-around, long and thin, same red silk tucked up at her hip in some sort of fastening. Ice let his eyes wander over her for a moment, imagining the fun of unwinding that silk.

She walked toward them, half confidence, half discomfort. Her shoulders were hitched a bit high, her hands clenched too close to her body. "I feel naked," she admitted, when she stopped before them.

She had their undivided attention, now. Three sets of eyes scanned her figure, considering how naked she was underneath that red wrapping.

"I've never worn anything like this," she went on, oblivious to them. "It's so light... like it's hardly there at all."

Ice cast a look at Silver, who had started to grin. Ice would not have put it past him to find the end of that silk and give her a good spin. Clearly he was already imagining it. Not that Ice hadn't imagined it, too, but in his version the unwinding was slower and dripping with tension.

Her grey eyes flicked over them. She was unsettled by their silence. Ice wasn't about to break it.

Sage did, though. He rose to his feet, crossing to her. "You'll find many things different here." His hands went to her hips, his fingers tightening. With her face tipped up to him, her lush black hair tumbled all the way to her ass. "You look perfect."

Ice wasn't sure about that. Alex looked perfectly delicious, alright, but he would have liked to see a bit more of her edge, considering the mission they had in mind. As it was, she looked soft, delicate. An easy kill.

Clearly Sage had confidence in her ability to do what she must, but Ice wondered if it wasn't a bit soon. He hadn't been around the last time that she'd had to do this, so he had to submit to Sage's judgement. It was worrisome, the whole thing. There was a feeling between his shoulder blades, a crawling sensation. He wanted to shake off the emotion and memory that all of this had made raw, but he didn't know how to.

Beside him, Silver stood up and walked to the open wall, where the Realm stretched out far below them. Alex's eyes were drawn to him and the opening. He turned back and gave her a grin. "Are you ready to do battle for your kingdom, then, Empress?" His smile jerked a little with self-amusement. "Ready to banish your foes, claim your throne, and punish your enemies? Ready to meet your people and demand they bow before you?"

Alex's eyes went wide, her pretty pink lips forming an o-shape.

Ice rolled his eyes at Silver, but Alex didn't see it.

When Silver's grin jerked wider, Alex's eyes suddenly narrowed. She tilted her chin up to Sage. "What are we actually doing today?"

He paused, then said, "We're going to do all that, but don't worry. You've done it before."

She tried to back off, but he still had her by the hips. "I'm not sure I'm up for claiming kingdoms and all," she murmured, looking a little shell-shocked. She glanced about. "Is there like... an army somewhere that will back us up?"

"Just us," Sage smiled. "We're all you need."

Ice snorted. She didn't need them.

She looked at him, now, where he still lounged in his chair. "You think it's funny that I'm supposed to do this with nothing but the three of you?"

He gave her a slow smile. "Yes." He held her gaze until she looked suitably unnerved.

"And why is that?" she demanded. "Have you no stake in this? Isn't it your Realm, too?"

Ice let his gaze drop and move sideways, eyebrows up, mouth open in a hint of a smile.

"Isn't it?" Alex turned the question to Sage, now.

"Our interest is in serving you, Empress," he soothed, pulling her a little closer, looking down into her eyes.

Ice's eyes narrowed as he studied them. Sage had taken extra care today in choosing his clothing, having donned a shirt woven of fine burska-thread. While the texture of it looked slightly rugged, the fabric itself was tantalizingly soft, and it had long been the empress's favorite thing to run her fingers over. This particular creamy white garment was styled like a poet shirt, with a tie at the neckline that had been left strategically undone. The top of Sage's pectorals fairly glowed against the fabric as it shifted with his every movement. His trousers in tan kitbuck made up for the flowy quality of his shirt by hugging his ass and thighs, showing off the powerful muscles. His boots emphasized the length of his legs. He wore a leather bracelet on his wrist, and though he wore his hair in the usual manner, pulled back from the temples into a partial topknot, he'd even added a small ornament to the leather thong.

Ice smothered a smile. It was always odd for him to see Sage, formidable warrior that he was, so completely and utterly whipped. He still found himself wondering at the transformation. True, Sage had been with her the longest of them all, but Ice did not think that time alone accounted for that.

Alex softened under Sage's touch, lowering her eyes to his chest, her expression trusting. Perhaps Sage was molding her. It raised an interesting question— how malleable would this new empress be? Had Sage had any hand in remaking her, before? Or had he only just thought of it? Then there was the question... was she remakable at all? There had to be some core of her that existed through all the incarnations.

"Best be off before someone realizes we're here," Silver said, still grinning.

"What is this place, anyway?" Alex asked, joining him at the opening. Her eyes lit at the beauty before her.

Ice climbed from his chair at last, captivated by the look on her face. He wanted to be beside her as she gazed down at the Wyld. Still, he kept his silence, standing a foot away, not looking at her. Conflict raged inside him.

"One of many strongholds hidden away," Silver said. He gestured to the expanse of vibrant color stretching away to the horizon. Rich blues and purples and greens. A peek of magenta mountains. Pockets of starlight tucked into the earth itself. "These are your lands. A few of many."

"It's..." Alex's breath caught. "I've never seen anything like it."

"It's beautiful and deadly," Ice said slowly, his eyes turning to her at last, wondering if she would catch the analogy.

"Deadly?" She'd missed it.

He nodded. "The Wyld is like no other Realm. The other Realms have purpose and order. But the Wyld is the antithesis of all other creation. Chaos."

"Huh," Alex laughed. Her eyes were still glowing. "It doesn't look disorderly at all."

Just one corner of Ice's mouth stretched into a downward smile, the rest of his face remaining relaxed as he looked at her. "Yeah," he said. "From here."

Her grey eyes lingered on him, making him want to reach out and brush away a silky lock of hair that had fallen against her cheek. Instead, he looked past her to Silver. "You're right. We should go."

"Now?" Alex was saying. "I mean... it's all a little sudden. Shouldn't we come up with a plan or something?"

"The plan is 'let's go'," said Ice. "Are you coming this time, or is it my turn to throw you over my shoulder?"

Alex looked from him to the ledge opening below her, to Silver, to Sage. She turned and walked purposely back to Sage, laced her arms around his neck. "I'll ride with him."

Sage scooped her up, already lunging toward the ledge. In an instant, they were airborne. Purple clouds drifted below them as they rode a high current that whipped them toward their destination. The three flew together this time, within shouting distance.

"I want to see the land," Alex's voice flitted to Ice, thinned out by the altitude.

"Later," Sage told her. "After."

"What exactly am I supposed to do?" she asked next. "You know I don't have a clue, right?"

"We will kill Thanios for you," Sage shouted. "Then all you have to do is claim the throne."

"Sounds simple," she shouted back. "But what if something goes wrong?"

"Things always go wrong," answered Sage. "We'll be ready."

A moment later, Alex asked, "What if Thanios kills me, instead? Does that mean you're back to Alpo for another twenty years?"

"Fifty-seven years," Silver chimed in. "That's how long it was."

"But—"

"I said 'at least.' There was a gap when you weren't born yet."

"How old are you?" Alex asked.

"Ages," Silver said. "Ages."

Truth was, they had all lost count.

"And me, too?"

Sage smiled down at her. "Yes."

"Am I going to get my own pair of wings out of this deal?" Alex asked next, and Ice couldn't help but laugh, though he turned his face away to hide it.

"No wings for you," Sage told her.

"Can I do the dog thing? I would be a cute dog. Way cuter than you three beasts."

"You're not like any of us," Sage said. "We're all different."

Her face whipped between the three of them. "You seem pretty the same to me. You can all fly, and you can all do the dog thing."

Ice was not one for witty quips— that was Silver's department— but it took everything inside him to resist making a comment now. He looked across at Silver, who had opened his mouth to make just that comment, but cut off prematurely, staring speechlessly ahead. Ice followed his gaze, just as Sage noticed it, too. A long stream of smoke billowing into the air.

"Ice." Sage swooped close and passed Alex off to him without so much as a word, then plummeted, disappearing below the clouds.

"What's going on?" Alex asked, turning her huge eyes up to Ice.

"Not sure..." He was watching where Sage had gone. That had to be....

"What the hell?" whispered Silver, coming as close as their wingspans allowed.

With unspoken agreement, the two slowed and hovered in place, their long wingstrokes holding them aloft. Ice took advantage of the more vertical alignment by taking hold of Alex's round, muscular rump and pulling her close against his body. She gave him one raised eyebrow and he smiled at her.

She was distracted by the column of smoke, though, and truth be told, so was he.

Moments later, Sage reappeared. His face was stricken with disbelief. "It's the Hold," he reported. "They've set it on fire."
Chapter 11: Alex

THEY STOOD INSIDE the huge inner cavern, its glassy jellyfish walls stained in soot. Even so, Alex was thrilled by the beauty of it, the formations like stalactites and stalagmites, swooping, sculpted walls that grew in curves that made no logical sense. The place reeked of smoke, and though, apparently, the structure itself would not readily burn, the things within it would. One of those things had been a throne, and was now a lump of smoldering embers.

Sage was standing over it, his green eyes filled with dismay. "Imagine what it took," he said, "to do this."

"They must have been about it for hours, just trying to get it to catch," Silver murmured.

"I don't understand." Sage said those words mostly to himself, his eyes closing.

Silver's voice was louder, now, full of certainty. "No one saw us come in last night."

"I would have agreed with you," Sage said. "I checked more than once. But if not... then how?"

Ice's low, slow chuckle came to them from across the room. "Jess warned them," he said, and Alex did not like the dark amusement in his tone.

Sage's jaw clamped, lip curling to show his white teeth, as he struck the air in front of him, only narrowly missing the pile that was once, supposedly, a throne. He turned and strode across the room toward the wall, breathing hard, stopped there for a moment, hands on hips, trying to control his rage.

Alex swallowed and said nothing. She did not want to insert herself into the tension of the moment, though she had masses of questions. Instead, she kept quiet, sat on the steps that led down from the throne dais, and curled her arms around her knees.

"Jess warning them?" Silver's voice held no trace of his normal taunting, teasing tone. "That's absurd. Jess would not step foot within a hundred miles of the Hold."

"It was only Thanios," Ice said, and he turned to look over his shoulder, his blue eyes finding Alex.

"Still," Silver said, "Jess is brave, but not mad."

Ice was laughing again. "It's perfect," he said. "Using chaos against chaos. Look what he's done."

Annoyance rose suddenly within Alex. She fixed Ice with a hard gaze from across the room. "What exactly has he done, Ice? And who the hell is this guy, anyway? What's the deal?"

Off to the side, Sage suddenly lifted his face and roared. His fury bounced and echoed off the cavern walls.

There was a long pause when Ice's eyes flicked nervously to Sage's back, but eventually he cleared his throat and answered. "He has castrated your power."

Alex's eyebrows climbed a notch. Whatever power she had was unbeknownst to her.

"The throne," Ice said. "You draw your power from the throne."

She glanced behind her at what now looked like the leftovers of someone's bonfire. "So that's it, then? I'm powerless?" She heaved a big sigh. "Yep. That's about my luck."

"You're not powerless," Silver said, sitting beside her on the steps. "Your power does not come from the throne. It's only a focus." He took her hand in his, squeezed her fingers. "Your power comes from your Realm. From the Wyld. You are part of it, and it is part of you. Only, without your throne, you're like..." His words drifted off, his gaze going glassy. "You're like..." he tried again.

Ice walked toward them, and the two's eyes met, Ice quirking one eyebrow and tilting his head in silent communication.

Silver shut his mouth, swallowed. "It's a problem," he said, simply.

Sage strode back to them, so suddenly and swiftly that Alex had the impression he meant to tear into all of them when he got there. Instead, he came to an abrupt stop on the step at her side, angling himself to face both Silver and Ice. His eyes pierced through both of them, his expression full of aggression.

Alex laid one hand on the toe of his boot, craning her neck to see his face. "Sage," she said calmly, '"I would really like for you to explain all of this to me." When his eyes turned down to her, she added, "This is all very new to me, remember?"

But Sage's eyes turned to Ice. Only when Ice turned his back and wandered away did Sage finally settle, sitting down beside Alex.

"Listen," Silver said softly, turning Alex's hand over in his, "we're going to figure this out." When his gaze rose past her to take in Sage, Alex had the impression that his words were not really for her, but for the other warrior.

Sage was still bristling. He said nothing in reply.

Alex pushed forward. "Just give me the lowdown," she said. "They've cut off my power." Her eyes flicked to the archway that led to the tunnel that had brought them in. "Obviously, this Thanios guy has gotten away. I'm not sure what people I'm supposed to be claiming as my own and all that, because we're clearly the only ones here.... And this Jess guy is hunting me and screwing everything up for me... why?"

"Yes," Sage mumbled, but then he cleared his throat and made a better attempt at it. "The throne will grow back," he emphasized. "It will take a long time, but it will grow back. You're not entirely powerless, but it will be difficult. Thanios... he's obviously fled and taken everyone with him. He'll have gone into hiding. Depriving you of your people also deprives you of power. If we can find them... Well, not many of them would choose Thanios over you, so it's unlikely that any of them know of your return. He's kept that from them." Briefly, Sage and Silver's eyes met, and Silver glanced back at the throne. As unreadable as some of their silent communications were, Alex could figure that one out. The people would choose her because she was powerful, because she claimed the throne, but without its power.... She could read the doubt in both their eyes.

"And this guy that's hunting me?" she managed, not wanting to think about the rest of it.

"Jess is the Prince of the Realm of Sky," Silver told her. "He has hunted you since you both came to creation. He is your mortal enemy."

"OK..." Alex said slowly. "But why? I mean, there has to be a reason."

Sage and Silver exchanged glances. Across the room, Ice's cape fluttered as he turned back to them, tilting his head, placing his hands on his hips.

"You're the Wyld, Alex," Silver told her. "The essence of it. The other Realms are solid, and the Wyld is flowing. They are male, and you female. You threaten their order, their very existence. You bring chaos."

Alex's eyes moved back and forth as she had a think about that. "So all the other Realms hate me."

Silver hesitated, but nodded.

"And Jess— he's from the Realm of Sky— and he's taken it on to get rid of me."

"Yes."

"But what does he mean to do to me? I mean, if he kills me, I'll just come back, right? Is that it? Will he just keep killing me to keep me out of the way?"

Sage answered this time, his green eyes finding hers. "It was he that killed you once before, Alex. He didn't know that you would return, then. He has since been looking for the power that would make your death permanent."

Her eyes widened on his. "And... has he found it?"

Sage's gaze lowered. "I don't know. We were beasts for a long time."

She licked her lips, which had suddenly gone dry along with her throat. "So I'm severely weakened, if not powerless, and this guy is hunting me, and he might actually be able to kill me."

"We will never let that happen," Sage growled, his green eyes meeting hers fiercely.

"W—" She stuttered, trying to force herself to be calm, her thoughts flying in all directions at once. "Can we negotiate? If my power is so limited, am I really a threat to his Realm, anyway? Is there any chance of a truce?"

"No." Sage said the word softly, but it came out with no less impact. "You and Jess will clash until one of you is defeated."

"Why?" Alex demanded, throwing her hands into the air as she thrust to her feet. "I didn't even know about any of this until last night. Why can't I just go back home and be me?" Part of her answered the question before she had even gotten it out. There was no safety for her anywhere.

Silver's arms went around her from behind, enclosing her shoulders, pulling her back against him as he tucked his chin onto her shoulder. "Don't be afraid," he murmured. "We will not abandon you."

Sage had risen to his feet, also. His large hand cupped her face, making her feel like a kitten in a gentle wolf's jaws. His eyes were such a lovely green with those flecks of gold. Looking into them was like running barefoot across open fields of grass. There was a tenderness on his face, a sincerity. "We will protect you."

Alex felt herself deflating as she sighed. Silver gathered her closer into his arms, and Sage's thumb brushed her cheekbone, then his knuckles moved a stray lock of hair away from her face. She felt herself folding, wanting to give in to their comfort, but she was jolted with a sudden, unnerving thought. She stiffened. "What about the other Realms? Are they trying to kill me, too?"

A sudden uneasy silence stretched between them, deep enough to make Alex raise her face to Sage, squint as she puzzled over it.

He blinked once, slowly, then he leveled those green eyes at her, his face relaxed to utter expressionlessness. His voice matched his face. "You have already defeated them."

Alex blinked, failing to understand. "W— I have?"

Across the room, Ice unfroze from his intense observation of them and joined the conversation. His deep voice moved toward her. "Jess does not simply hunt you, Alex. You hunt him, too." He crossed his arms on his chest and fixed her with a look that could have meant anything. "The same way you hunted us."
Chapter 12: Sage

ALEX WENT PALE, as well she should have. Sage, himself, was floundering in the uncertainty of the moment. Questioning everything.

With this massive blow to Alex's power, Sage's bond with Silver and Ice had turned to a spindly, tentative thing. The brotherhood he shared with them was threatened, yet again. That alone left a bitter taste in his mouth, but that was only the beginning. His empress was near powerless, vulnerable in this new form and entirely ignorant of anything that might save her. In this moment, he and his brothers were the embodiment of the power she had left, and that, too, was in question.

Ice was dangerous, but it was Silver, perhaps, that worried him the most. Sage had never been comfortable with the easiness with which Silver had come to her. Sage had known Silver for the lengths of centuries. As the High Prince of the UnderRealm, Silver had been self-possessed, formidable, and a touch haughty. His swift conversion had never made sense.

Ice, on the other hand, had never ceased to struggle, and had never seriously attempted to hide that fact. Where Sage had come to Alex in deep understanding, and Silver had come to her in playfulness and humor, Ice had eventually found his way through passion. But the conflict had always remained in him, simmering slowly deep inside. The question now was, would it bubble over?

This was a dangerous moment, and Sage was afraid that Alex did not even understand.

He grabbed her hand and yanked her swiftly from Silver's arms, which earned him a dirty glare from Silver that he answered with a growl. With Alex's hand fixed fast in his iron grip, he whirled and marched away, out of the throne chamber, dragging her along after him.

They made their way through winding corridors, down vaulted, open halls, through rooms, down more corridors. He wasn't sure where he was taking her. Away, simply away. Somewhere they could talk. Somewhere the others might not guess. From the way Alex stumbled along behind him, he could tell that she was paying little attention to her feet, gawking at the wonders of the Hold, the delicate natural features, the carvings and frescoes in translucent gael, the lit-from-within columns that stretched hundreds of yards to the cavern ceiling. Nothing on faded earth could compare to the wonders of the Realms, and the Wyld, in particular, was beautiful. But there was no time for that, now.

At last, he pulled her into a small room, closed and sealed the entrance behind them. The place had been ransacked, its contents thieved, burned, or otherwise destroyed, but he found one lush pillow that had escaped the slaughter with only a single gash across its tapestried front. He set it on the floor, sat her down on it, and squatted before her.

Her grey eyes were a touch wide. All of this was still leaving her with trails of shock. He knew she must feel so displaced, so unsure of everything.

"Empress," he said to her, meeting her gaze steadily, "we must act quickly. I fear that all of this could go very wrong."

She managed a small nod, swallowed hard, licked her lips, blinked. "Tell me what to do."

"You must bind us," he said. "We are not without fault, and your weakness is a temptation for Ice and Silver. Place the collars on us again. When we're bound, we cannot defy you."

"Defy me?" Alex echoed, her voice thin. "I thought you..." Her eyes widened a touch more. Yes, shock.

"You thought we were on your side," he breathed, completing the sentence for her, his head bowed in regret. "We are. But this is very complicated. It can get very complicated."

She wiped her fingers over her eyes, pushing harder than was necessary. When her gaze rose to him, she was shaking her head. Her grey eyes shimmered with unshed tears. "I don't want this," she said. "I don't want any of this. Please—"

Sage crushed her into his arms, cupping the back of her head in one palm, stroking her hair. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "You have no choice. This is who you are."

She clung to him, trembling. She was still shaking her head. "No," she said. "No no no. I can't. I won't."

Sage's eyes closed against a surge of emotion within him. Everything inside him was still in tumult. So hard to make sense of, but powerful and volatile. He managed to contain some of it, but he grasped her by the arms and jerked her away from him, just enough to look into her eyes. She was blinking alarm when he dropped her arms to grab her face, leaned close to her, feeling the force of himself bearing down on her. "You have no choice," he yelled. "You have no time. You will do this, and you will do it now."

Her lips trembled and hot tears spilled over her eyelids. At the same time, Sage wanted to yell more and to wipe her tears away. He dropped his hands from her as though he'd been burned and climbed to his feet, pacing away. A growl was growing inside him.

"OK," Alex sniffed, her voice pitched high and trembling. "OK."

When he looked back at her, she was rubbing her arm, where his fingerprints had left marks in her flesh.

"Where do I... How do I...?" she whispered.

When he started back toward her, she jumped. He stopped. He'd made her afraid of him. A wave of shame swept through him, and unexpectedly, on its heels, an ebbing thrill. He shook himself and marched past her. It was the lingering animal mind in him. It had to be. He refused to think it could be anything else. He slammed his palms onto the wall, creating an opening, and made off through the tunnels. He could hear Alex running to keep up.

"Where are we going?" Her voice brimmed with hesitation.

"To get the collars."

"Is it... far?"

"No." He said nothing more to her until they'd wound their way down into the cool, lower chambers where the light was blue and water eased itself from the walls in tiny waterfalls. There were a thousand thread-like streams in the lower caverns, joining, parting, ever winding their way to an escape. He sloshed through them until he'd found the place he was looking for, then went to his knees in the shallow, cold water. His palm pressed through the face of the water and found the bottom beneath it. With his other hand open, fingers spread, palm down, he made a circle over the area. "Shek tas," he whispered. Light shot from his wet palm, shocking through him and through the surface below him. He rolled his shoulder against the residual tingle of the magic, used both hands now to separate the water that wanted to flow into the opening he'd created. The water parted obediently, diverting around the edges.

"That's... so cool...." Alex's voice was filled with amazement. She'd forgotten her fear and dropped to her knees across from him now to peer into the hole.

Sage glanced up and his eyes stuck on her face, drinking in the wonder of her expression, the silky mane of hair that tumbled freely around her. He fought down a sudden and idiotic urge to thump his tail and lick her face. But lowering his gaze only took him downward enough to stop on the lovely display of flesh that had been exposed to him. Different instincts rose inside him rapidly, and the only thing to do was to ignore her entirely and force himself onward with willpower alone. He reached into the hole and drew out a handful of collars. Separating out three threads on one finger, he passed them to her and placed the other back inside. As he closed up the hole, he found that he'd gotten enough control of himself to begin to be civil again. "Secret stash," he explained. "For just this kind of occasion." He'd learned a lot, the first time she had died. He had not been prepared at all, then.

Alex ran the tip of her finger over the threads that stretched across her pale palm. "Will these turn you back into dogs?"

"No." He climbed to his feet and offered her his hand, pulling her up when she accepted it. "This is only a simple bind. It won't harm us at all. It won't change us. The only thing it will do is limit our actions."

Her eyes swam over his face, considering. "I don't like it," she said. "I don't like what it means."

"You will like it better than having Silver and Ice turn on you."

Alex went pale once again, and in the blue light of the lower caverns, she looked like a lovely corpse. Sage shivered, turning violently away from those memories. He took her by the arm and began pulling her again. The sooner they accomplished this, the better.
Chapter 13: Alex

IN MOMENTS, THEY made it back to the throne chamber, where Ice and Silver were hanging around waiting for them. Ice's eyes fell immediately to the handful of collars gripped in Alex's palm.

Sage took the collars from her and passed one to each of them. "Put them on."

Ice looked at him with furious defiance. "Collars? Really?"

Silver only stared at them, deadpan.

"Put them on," Sage demanded again.

"You put it on, Fido," Ice hissed back at him.

Sage stepped toward him, violence in every movement of his body. "Put it on now or I will put it on for you."

"Is this really necessary?" Alex whispered, behind him. Her heart was going so fast she felt it might explode. She wanted to sit down right where she was.

Sage and Ice were growling, now, baring long canines at each other that were not part of their human forms. They were about to shift, about to break out into battle.

"Please," Alex said, feeling the pressure of it building in her. The world seemed suddenly far away, and she thought she might pass out. She plopped herself down on the floor before she could.

"Look, it's not a big deal," said Silver, suddenly stepping forward. His tone, his mannerisms, were all relaxed and full of ease. "It's not like it clashes with my outfit or anything." He crouched down before Alex, placing the collar in her hands. He twisted sideways and brushed his hair out of the way over his shoulder. "Would you fasten this for me, sweetie?"

Alex fumbled with the cold catch of the thing, feeling the chill of it shoot through her trembling fingers, but she managed to get it on.

"See." Silver plunked himself down next to her and gave the others an expectant look.

They'd stopped growling to look at him, but they were both breathing hard.

"It's insulting," Ice finally said.

"It's a precaution," Sage corrected.

Silver threw up his hands. "It's a necklace."

Alex tackle-hugged him without knowing what she was doing until they were rolling on the floor and she had buried her face against his chest. His arms went around her, warm and comforting, and she let herself relax into him, forgetting for just a few seconds about all the rest of it. A rumble of pleasure echoed in his chest, and she was filled with all the warmth of it.

There was utter silence in the chamber. She took deep gulps of Silver's warm, animal musk, trying to drink in the feeling of reassurance that came along with it. Finally, she pried herself away from him, sat up, and turned to the other two. They were frozen like statues, regarding her.

Ice's eyes were still full of anger, but his jaw worked as he looked at her, and she could see that he was thinking about it.

Beside him, Sage fastened his own collar around his neck, dusted off his hands, and looked to Ice.

Ice's eyes narrowed on Alex. "I'll put it on," he muttered. "But I want hugs, too."

A heartbeat later, Alex opened her arms to him. "I'll give you those whether you put it on or not."

With a quiet puff of a laugh, he went to her, dropped to his knees, and scooped her into his embrace. His arms were like a vice around her, his chin tucked into the crook of her shoulder. He was trembling. When he finally let go, he sank back onto his knees, bowed his head in submission, and held out the collar on one palm.

Alex took it from him and looked at it in her hand. Then she looked at his face. His expression had gone soft, unreadable. She reached toward his neck and faltered. Her fingers closed over the collar, hard. "No."

All of them were looking at her.

"Alex," Sage said, his voice rising with impatience, "you must do this. You—"

"I don't want to do this!" she screamed at him, and flung the collar onto the floor. "I don't care if I should or not. It's not right." She turned to Silver in a fury, continuing her tantrum. "I don't like it and it doesn't go with your outfit at all." She flung herself toward him and got hold of the icy silver chain, had it off him in record time. Then she was on her feet and reaching for Sage.

He danced out of the way, holding out one hand to ward her off. "You can't—"

"I damned well can. You can't make me do this, Sage. I won't."

"Alex, you are not—"

She turned her face back to the others. "A little help, boys?"

With a brief and highly amused exchange of glances, Ice and Silver sprang to their feet and went for him. Charging, each of them bore one of his shoulders down to the ground while Alex shoved his chest. As they pinned his shoulders and she straddled his ribcage, he kicked his legs furiously, growling, snapping, struggling pointlessly. Alex slipped the chain off his neck then placed a soft kiss on his forehead. "Now I feel like an empress," she mused as she straightened up, still straddling him.

Sage quit struggling and fixed her with a deadly glare.

She touched the tip of her finger to the tip of his nose and raised one eyebrow at him. "Now. Are you going to be a good dog? Or are you going to sleep in the doghouse?"

He snapped at her finger and she only just yanked it away in time.

She turned her gaze to Silver, who said, "I'd put the collar back on him."

She laughed softly, shaking her head, and climbed off. When she'd retreated a few paces, she said, "Let him up."

The others looked dubious, but they did as she asked. However, both of them placed themselves between Alex and Sage.

Alex lifted her chin at him, eyeing him through the small gap framed by Ice and Silver. "If I'm empress, then I'm in charge around here," she said. "If any of you don't like that..." She poked Silver and Ice each in the back. "...then let's deal with that right now."

Sage was shaking, feet spread into a stance that said he was ready to fight. He growled, but turned to the side.

Alex stepped between Silver and Ice, looping one arm into each of theirs. She turned them toward her, lifted her face to them. "And you?"

Silver sniffed haughtily. "So long as you scratch my belly, I'm yours."

Biting down her amusement, Alex's eyes turned to Ice.

"I don't like any of this, Alex," he said, leveling with her for the first time. "It's hard in ways that you can't understand. But like Silver said, we're yours. I will fight for you."

She nodded and squeezed his arm, then turned her attention back to Sage, who was watching them from where he stood. She strode over to him and reached up to touch his face. He'd calmed himself, now, and his gaze was full of frustration, reservation, but not anger. "If I have no one I can trust," she told him, "then I have nothing. I want to trust you."

He blinked once slowly, turned his face away, then started to walk away. She knew he would accept her decision, now, but it had put him at a distance. She was still watching him walk away when Ice started walking slowly toward the main corridor.

"Someone is coming."
Chapter 14: Alex

SAGE HAD SPUN back before Alex could even register Ice's words, and ran to his side. Silver had joined him, too, and the three of them formed a wall of muscle that would greet anyone who came through the tunnel.

Footsteps, lots of footsteps, moved closer to them. As one, the three warriors reached phantom weapons out of the sky. Ice held the staff he had used to open the passageway, angled across from one rippling thigh to the other side of his stomach as he half-twisted in a wide-legged stance. Silver grasped two daggers at his sides, head tilted forward, feet spread apart, the veins in his arms popping. Sage had a whip, his broad shoulders rolling as he swished it slowly like a cat might swish its tail before it pounced. All of the weapons glowed with the same red outline that Alex had seen earlier. All of them bore runes that spoke to Alex, as if she was on the edge of grasping their meaning.

A crowd of beings poured into the open mouth of the room, but stopped there. There were noises, grunts, annoyed exclamations as the ones in the back ran into the ones who had stopped suddenly. For a moment, everyone was frozen. Especially Alex. She had spent the last day or so with three men who also happened to be dogs while simultaneously being some sort of dark angels. That was nothing compared to this.

The variety, for one, was overwhelming. She didn't think that any of the creatures who had come into the chamber could possibly be a matched pair. In size, they ranged from something that could step into the palm of her hand to something that had to duck to come through the vaulted, fifteen-foot high archway. Widths were as varied as heights. Colors ranged from dull slate to vibrant red. Then there was the opalescence, the translucence, and the glowing, not to mention one creature that seemed to eat the light like a black hole. Shapes were a whole other thing. Some looked like boulders that had slowly uncurled themselves, some were angular, as though they'd grown themselves out of crystal. Some resembled animals, some vaguely human, some plantlike. There was a puddle. And, of course, some of them slithered, some crawled, some walked, some hopped, and some floated. There was a great number of eyes, appendages, and unrecognizable parts that seemed to have been meshed together with no rhyme or reason. Alex was completely dumbfounded.

...And yet they spoke English.

"Lords," one creature said, untangling itself from the pack to ooze forward. It was a whitish slime that encapsulated a humanlike face that pressed out from beneath the surface, all its features obscured. It made itself low, though Alex could not have called that a bow. "None of us were aware of your return. We were called by the smoke."

"Of course you were," Silver said, and with one flick of his wrists, his daggers disappeared. "Well met, Tinal."

Sage's whip and Ice's staff followed suit, flickering back into the ether as their postures relaxed.

"They speak English?" Alex blurted, her mouth hanging open.

Silver looked at her over his shoulder. " _You're_ not speaking English." He gave no other explanation.

With the same kind of fluid coordination they'd shown drawing their weapons, the three of them parted, Sage moving to one side, and Ice and Silver moving to the other. Now Alex faced the mass of creatures. Her people? And they faced her.

They made themselves flat on the floor.

For a moment, she was struck completely mute.

It was Ice that eventually came to her rescue. "Empress," he said, stepping up to her side, "allow me to introduce you to Tinal. They are the leader of a nearby village."

Alex felt that she should be far more capable of playing this role, but she wasn't. Her eyes darted to Ice. "They?"

Tinal had risen again. The face inside rotated, still obscured but different. A heartbeat later it rotated again. Just when Alex thought she'd started to get the idea, the rotation became a whirl, the many spirits inside like a tornado of souls. They flashed in a blur of motion, and yet, somehow, Alex saw them.

"They are wise," Ice said, "and for many centuries, a friend."

"Well met, Tinal," Alex managed with as much dignity and as little disbelief as was possible. If she was parroting Silver, at least she wasn't saying something stupid. Meanwhile, the back of her brain crashed with the slew of singulars and plurals that Ice had used, knowing that she was going to get it wrong.

"We are joyful at your return, Empress," Tinal said, and now Alex realized that the voice, as well, was composed of many. "These that accompany us come from the village of Mar-Neh, on the edge of the Craw."

None of that meant anything to Alex, but she nodded, filing away as much as she could. She looked beyond Tinal at the masses of creatures who were still willingly plastered to the floor. "Please," she said, "rise." It sounded good enough.

The creatures rose. Some of them to the ceiling. Alex looked at Ice for help.

His full lips twitched in a hint of a smile.

Neither of her three hellpups offered any more help, so Alex pushed forward. Perhaps it wasn't the wisest thing to bring up, but Alex knew the villagers had been drawn by the smoke. They were going to find out one way or another. She gestured behind her. "I apologize for not receiving you in a better manner, but as you can see, things here are not exactly as expected." She turned and strode toward the heaping embers of the throne.

The mass of villagers drew inward, now, trailing in her wake, easing toward Alex and the throne. When they saw, a noise went up. Many noises. There was hissing, gasping, and a screech just on the edge of Alex's hearing abilities. She was not familiar with any of these creatures, but she easily understood their shock, their disbelief, and their despair. A ripple went through them. A murmur. And then they fell to silence. One small, furry, green creature hopped onto the 'shoulders' of a large stalk of eyeballs and started cawing loudly.

Tinal separated themselves from the others, moving forward once again. "We do not understand, Empress...."

"We think," she explained, emphasizing the word 'think', "that Jess must have come here to warn Thanios of our return." Her eyes flicked questioningly to Sage for just an instant as she wondered if the villagers knew all the people involved and if they would understand. His vague nod assured her. She continued. "We ran into Jess back on earth last night. These," she gestured to Sage, Silver, and Ice, "battled him, but he escaped. He must have come here."

"Unthinkable," a purple kangaroo with fangs— that was the only way Alex could describe it— whispered.

"Yes," she agreed. "But it is the only explanation we have. Thanios could not have otherwise known of our return. If Jess came here last night and warned him, it would have given him enough time to command the people to leave, ransack the Hold, destroy the throne, and leave me with this... mess." The anger that was rising in her as she explained it to them was almost as surreal as the three beasts that had adopted her the previous night. She was furious. Alex knew that she did not have enough stock in this world, in these people, to feel the emotion on her own. The anger was coming from somewhere else. And it was coming swiftly.

Something like a gemstone boulder shifted forward, its chiseled form changing with its movement. A mouth opened at the base of it and a voice blasted as if from the depths of hell. "What will you have us do, Empress?"

The feelings were like lava building pressure, preparing to erupt. Alex lowered her chin, breathed in, trying to tame them, to contain them, but none of it would be contained. When she raised her face to them, her grey eyes glowed in brilliant slits of gold. Fangs touched her bottom lip as she whispered fiercely, "Hunt them down."

A cry went up among the villagers, and without so much as a word, a plan, a thought, they were in motion. They erupted from the throne chamber back the way they'd come, leaving silence in their wake. In two heartbeats, Alex was standing alone with Ice and Sage. Silver was nowhere to be found. She looked at the empty room.

"Not much on planning, are they?" she said, laughing softly. The currents shifting inside her had risen and fallen with the charge of the villagers, and now were just a warm simmering in her belly.

"This is the Wyld," Sage said, coming to her side. "You will find very little in the way of planning here. We thrive in the moment."

"Interesting," she said, wondering how they accomplished anything. She supposed there was something to be said for sheer force of momentum. Absently, she touched one canine, feeling how smooth it was, how sharp. Then her hand went to her head, where it found something odd. She narrowed her eyes at the others. "Do I have horns?"

Ice stepped up to her, running one hand along the rough curl of the horns that swept back behind her tousled hair. "Yes."

She frowned and touched her face, but found it normal aside from the fangs. "What do I look like? Is it scary? Ugly?"

The wave of one hand created a long, oval mirror that hung in the air before her. Its edges were marred, waving out into the air itself.

Alex poked it and her hand went right through. She was too fascinated by her reflection to explore the mirror more, though. She still looked mostly herself, but her eyes were intense, and the horns and fangs certainly made her look... naughty. She twisted this way and that, checked for a tail and found none. "So this is me, then? The real me?"

"This is one aspect of you," Sage explained, stepping up to her other side. "The way you looked before is no less you."

"Do I have other forms?"

"Perhaps."

She gave him a questioning look.

"Your different incarnations seem to have different forms," he said. "This one is standard. Your original could turn into something like a phoenix. A firebird. Last time, it was a cat."

"A cat," Alex echoed. "With all you dogs around?"

"It was strangely appropriate," Ice rumbled, eyeing her.

She thought about it and decided that being a cat amongst a pack of dogs was probably the most chaotic thing she could have come up with. "Thank you," she said to Ice and waved away the mirror.

He made it disappear.

"Where is Silver, anyway?"

Sage and Ice both glanced toward the doorway where the villagers had disappeared.

"He went with them?"

"He felt the call of the battle," Ice said.

"...And you both stayed to protect me."

Neither of them answered that directly. Instead, Sage took her by the arm and walked her toward the hall they'd gone down earlier. Ice fell in at her other side.

"The Hold is not safe right now," Sage told her as they walked. "Without the power of your throne and without your people here to stand for you, all we have is an empty stronghold that has already been infiltrated."

"If we stay here," Ice chimed in, "all of your enemies will know exactly where to find you, and it will not take long for them to learn of our lack of defenses. Those that don't already know."

"Then what do you propose?"

"We can return to the place where we stayed last night. Or any number of other ones like it."

Alex stopped, placing her hand on her chin as she thought about it. "For a place that doesn't plan much, you sure seem to have had some backup plans, Sage."

Ice laughed and squeezed her arm. "Sage does chaos by opposing chaos with order."

"And you?" she asked, turning her eyes to him.

"I'm just all over the place."

Alex was starting to figure that out on her own.

"Alright," she said, nodding. "But if we leave here, what kind of message does that send to my enemies? That I'm running away? Hiding?"

The other two shifted uneasily as their eyes met.

"What if we stayed here?" she asked. "Is there any way to make it defensible? Make it work?"

"Without the throne...?" Sage's gaze trailed off, his eyes glazing over.

"We could grow the Nithri," Ice said after a moment's hesitation.

Alex looked from him to Sage, but the warrior was shaking his head vehemently, his multihued brown hair fanning out like a circular blade around his face. She looked at Ice again, frowning. "What's the Nithri?"

"They're like... big flowers."

"Big flowers?"

"Big, dangerous flowers," Sage corrected. "They like to kill things in various ways."

"And we're gonna grow them... where? Around the Hold?"

"Right here in the Hold," Ice corrected.

Sage was still shaking his head. "No. Last time we did that, Sarth got eaten."

"Good riddance," said Ice. "I almost ate Sarth, myself. More than once."

Sage shrugged unresisting agreement.

Ice turned his attention back to Alex, taking for granted that they would go through with his plan. "You can grow them not to eat certain people. So we just have to make sure that everyone is on the list."

"Especially Sarth," Alex said dryly, crossing her arms.
Chapter 15: Ice

NITHRI SEEDS WERE not exactly seeds, but more a sort of glowing goop that had to be flung down by the handful. Watching the stuff drip off of Alex's fingers was more than a little erotic, but then, everything Alex did seemed to be erotic. Ice had to make himself turn away repeatedly, only to find himself turning back.

She'd splattered out the latest handful and stood over it watching the floor fizzle and smoke. The sprout emerged and she took a small step back, still not used to it. But she was getting there. As the thing snaked upward, she wrapped her fist around the expanding stalk. That was erotic, too. Ice swallowed hard, nearly choking on his own saliva.

"Loa zup hesker ret," she hissed at the thing, as if the tone of voice might help the effect. That made him chuckle. And made her throw a glare in his direction.

The stalk obeyed, though, and Alex gave a little clap of delight. She'd been doing that each time, as if every time surprised her. It made him want to smash her into a hug and kiss her all over. When the infant flower head opened up to greet her, no bigger than the size of her palm, she bent over and wiggled one finger under its petals, cooing, like she might tickle a child under the chin.

"OK," she whispered to it, and she leaned in to murmur the rest into the petals, her voice dropping low, like she was telling it a secret.

She met Ice's eyes as she left that stalk and moved on to plant the next. The caress of those eyes made him shiver, made him feel like she'd reached straight into him and touched the most private part.

As Ice started to seed the next Nithri on his side, Sage came along, fingers spread wide, dripping in glowing flower cum. "Uhg," he complained, started to wipe it automatically on his pants, thought better of it, and gave his hand a shake. That was the complete opposite of erotic.

"Don't you like it?" Alex asked over her shoulder.

"The goo?" Sage's tone of voice already held the answer. "No. It's too sticky."

Alex scooped out a palmful and ran circles between her thumb and fingers. "I like the feel of it."

Ice's mouth opened and stayed that way.

"It clings," Sage said, giving his hand another fling.

Ice looked down at his handful of seed, placed it purposefully onto the floor, and worked the enchantment as the stalk grew. "I would have thought you, of all people, would have liked the Nithri, brother," he said, trying not to think of Alex.

"Huh."

So much for conversation.

But a moment later, Alex asked, "Why is that?"

Ice glanced over his shoulder at her. "He's from Green."

"Green?"

"Yes."

"Is that like... a Realm?" Alex asked. "The Realm of Green?"

"Just Green," Sage corrected. "That's all it's called. But yes, it used to be my Realm."

Alex smushed her lips together, thoughts churning behind her eyes. But rather than make assumptions, she asked, "What's it like there?"

Ice winced and had a surreptitious look at Sage, but he seemed unaffected. Still, Ice would not have liked that kind of question to be turned on himself. It was difficult enough, without remembering.

"It's green," Sage said. Maybe he _was_ having some difficulty with the question.

Ice jumped in to spare him the need to say anything, though he worried that hearing the words would be almost as bad. "Green is a growing place, full of life. Jungles, forests, swamps. It's alive, more than anywhere. Everything there is alive."

Alex nodded and threw Ice a sweet smile. "What about you, Ice? Where do you come from?"

Her question hit the core of him, like an arrow of sheer cold. His lips moved, but he couldn't answer.

"He's from the Flow," Sage said, repaying Ice's favor. "It's a place of rivers, seas, and motion."

Alex still seemed oblivious to their discomfort. She was mostly absorbed in the act of growing the Nithri. "That's appropriate," she laughed, tossing a smile at them over her shoulder, "Ice."

Sage and Ice were speechless for a few heartbeats, then Sage blurted, "Silver is from the UnderRealm."

"Yeah." Ice's words nearly stumbled over Sage's in an attempt to get out. "That place is amazing. Heat and lava and caverns and—"

"These weird underground passageways," Sage was saying. "They're like labyrinths and—"

"You could get lost in them in a heartbeat, and if you turn the wrong way, you could step into a fissure..."

Both of them trailed off together, watching her coo at a flower. She was paying them no attention. They looked at each other, their mouths tightening.

Sage shrugged.

Ice took a very deep breath, held it in his chest, and turned back to seeding Nithri.
Chapter 16: Alex

WITH EVERYTHING IN the palace destroyed or looted, there was little choice of bed for the night. Sage and Ice showed her to her chambers of previous eons, where she went to sleep on the floor. She was accustomed enough to that, so it did not bother her in the slightest. Her floor bed was actually warmer and cozier than she was used to, because in place of pillow and blanket, she had two furry hellpups snuggled around her. Sage curled his way under her head and shoulders, his rhythmic breathing against her ear lulling her to sleep. Ice stretched alongside her back, where his heat sank into her flash, warming her all the way through. When she woke in the morning, she reached absently to stroke his fur, letting her fingers work deep into the silky undercoat. He stretched his back against her, yawning with that sound that all dogs make.

Sage rumbled a growl, poking her shoulder with a wet nose. The tip of his tongue flicked her skin.

"Jealous, huh?" she asked, reaching up to scratch his ruff and under his chin.

He puffed at her, which seemed to be the canine equivalent of an eye-roll.

Alex untangled herself from them and sat up, tugging at the red silk of her dress, which had gotten all twisted around her in the wrong directions as she slept. The part that tucked up on her hip had gone considerably higher, and a little backward. She lifted her hips to twist it back into place.

Ice's hands were suddenly over hers, brushing hers away, making the adjustment for her. She felt her breath catch as his hands expertly glided over her clothing, sliding it easily back where it should be with such confidence and assurance. Part of that assurance was in one hand cupping her buttocks to lift her gently as the other hand twisted her waistband. Again, the heat of him sunk into her, but this time, instead of relaxing, her muscle tightened.

Ice gave her a soft, knowing smile, and released her.

Sage was still in beastform, and standing, stuck his nose to the back of her neck, sniffing. That nose traced a path down her back. Sage whined his agitation.

"How about being human?" Alex suggested with mild irritation.

The black canine melded quickly into his human form, silky brown hair pulled back at the temples, golden skin, but still the same green eyes fixed on her. "Being in this form will not make me any less frustrated," he told her.

"But it will make me less weirded out," she shot back at him.

He reached for her, looped his hands around her hips and pulled her back against him. His mouth pressed against her neck as he spoke. "I can still smell your arousal."

Alex made a noise in her throat, her heart picking up the pace. She was aware of the curve of his hard stomach pressed against her spine, his powerful thighs straddling her seat. And she didn't need to smell anything to be aware of his arousal, which was pressed neatly into the groove of her behind at the base of her tailbone. She felt a sudden emptiness deep within her belly. A hunger.

As if Sage's taunts weren't enough, Ice reached over and slid his palm, his long fingers, slowly up the inside of her thigh, under her dress.

Alex made another noise, and his hand stopped, rested halfway between her knee and her female parts. Her nipples had sprung up hard and suddenly, making her more aware of their existence than ever. She glanced down to see them thrusting the silk of her dress out in obvious points. Her chest was heaving, and seeing her own rounded flesh behaving so only made her feel everything more. Deeper.

Sage released her waist, only to run his palms around it, starting at the sides and wrapping toward the middle, where they dove downward, following the shape of her body. So slowly, they slid across her stomach, penetrated the waistband of her skirt, and slunk inside.

With a third noise, Alex trapped Sage's hand beneath her own, though hers was on top of the skirt, and his underneath, which seemed a precarious hold at best. Even though she'd stopped him from moving further, a shockwave of his touch rode downward, making her open her mouth in a deep gasp.

Sage's growl started low in his throat and moved upward in intensity.

Ice was shifting his weight, getting more comfortable beside her, and his blue eyes smoldered.

With a catlike twist, Alex was up and on her feet, moving away from them.

"Alex," Sage called after her, but she was through the doorway and jogging.

She didn't know where she was going, only away from them, away from the luscious intensity that was them. Her body had never felt such need, such incompleteness, such urgency, and she didn't trust herself for a heartbeat. She wanted to run to burn off the energy, and so she did. She barreled down the tunnels, the halls, the winding, thin paths. There was no rhyme or reason to the Hold. Some of it seemed beautifully and skillfully shaped by hand, and some of it was primal, raw. All of it was breathtaking. She found herself eventually in a dripping, blue lit tunnel, and she dropped to her knees to scoop up handfuls of the sweet, cold water that flowed over the ground. It took a long time to quench her thirst. After that, she felt herself starting to calm, a little, though every fiber of her being was still charged. Even brushing her fingers along the wall sent a sensual chill running down her legs.

She walked for a while until she found herself among some of the Nithri they had planted... only these were huge. She gaped at them in disbelief, wondering how anything could grow so quickly. The flowers were bigger than she was, now, and there were multiple ones on each stalk. They bloomed in deep, velvet red, their stems a translucent blue. When she looked closely, she could see the water flowing up their stems, like blood pulsing through veins. She reached up and touched a petal that hung above her. The flower turned its face down to her, leaning in, closed its petals around her head.

"Don't eat me," Alex whispered to it. "It's me. I made you."

The flower petals remained around her for just a moment, enveloping her with an intoxicating smell of rain and earth, then slipped off, bending again to their previous position.

She laughed and continued winding her way upward in the passage, saying hello to some of the Nithri along the way. Her head was buzzing, swirling with the vibrancy of the morning, with the feeling in her flesh, and she felt more at ease than she could remember. Like she was on fire and melting at the same time.

A dark shape ahead turned toward her, resolving into something that made sense as the black-feathered wings folded behind the large shoulders. Silver.

"What are you doing?" she laughed. "You can't fly in here. Put those away."

"I was stretching," Silver explained, letting his wings ungrow as he moved toward her. His shirt was ripped half-off him, exposing one sculpted shoulder and a stretch of chiseled pectorals. His hair was a mess. There was another long gash down his thigh, laying waste to his trousers and soaking them in red.

"Oh my god." Alex tilted her face up to him, palm on his chest, laughing, her shoulders slumping of their own accord. "What on earth have you been doing?"

"What on earth have _you_ been doing?" he asked, turning the question back on her. "I came down here to wash."

Her eyes moved down him, taking in the dirt and blood, her palm slipping on his chest. "Hm," she observed. "I think you need to do a better job."

He gave her a smile and turned away, squatting down. "I've only just started." He cupped a handful of water from one of the places where it collected, and splashed it onto his face.

Alex watched the rivulets run down his chin, his neck, onto his chest, wetting his shirt. He took another handful, splashed it over his forearm, where a streak of black covered the course hairs of his arm. The dirt dissolved and ran away, dripping off him. A third handful was aimed awkwardly at one of the gashes on his chest.

"Here," Alex said, finding her breath coming faster again. She knelt behind him, reached around him and tore the shirt the rest of the way open. She peeled it back over his shoulders.

Silver gave her a grunt of thanks, scooping up more water.

She watched the play of the muscles in his shoulder blades as he moved. Her fingertips touched his upper back and ran lightly, slowly downward.

Silver sucked in his breath and held it. He swallowed and went for another scoop of water, but this time, instead of getting it anywhere near its target, he ended up throwing it right into the middle of his stomach where it splashed down and soaked his pants as he jerked in reaction to Alex's hands snaking around to his abs. "Mother of madness," he croaked out, sounding like she had plunged a dagger into his gut.

Alex's lips had found his spine. Pressed against it, they curled into a slow smile. "Is that your nickname for me?" When he didn't answer her, she gave his back one little flick with her tongue as she pulled back. He tasted of salt. "Let me help you," she said, grasping his shoulder, turning him and sitting him down at once. His backside splashed into the inch-deep water, his knees bent. He was sideways to her, now. Alex sunk further onto her knees, not minding the cold at all. She reached across him to scoop water onto the gash on his chest, her fingers gently working away dried blood. Panting, he watched her as she worked on him.

"Am I hurting you?" She quirked one eyebrow at him.

"Oh, it hurts," he breathed.

"I'll try to be gentle." Her voice floated away from her through the cavern, light with laughter.

Silver's hand raised to her cheek, his thumb brushing her cheekbone slowly as he watched her bend over him, tending to his wounds.

When Alex had gotten his chest clean, she considered the rest of him. The gash on his thigh looked deep and painful. She tugged off his boots then, without hesitation, her hands went to his fly.

Silver made a noise that was so similar to the ones she had been making earlier, that it filled her with mirth. She giggled as she unbuttoned and unzipped him, separating the flaps. "Hips up," she said, and when he obeyed, she hooked her fingers into the waistband of his underwear and stripped them right off with the pants. That was only a little challenging, as the waistband got hooked on his erection.

Tossing the garments aside, she raised her eyebrow at him again. "Seems you enjoy being washed."

"Most definitely," he agreed, his lips quirking.

She pulled his far leg straight, scooped one handful of water across it, and ran her hand lightly along the length of his thigh over the wound.

Silver was shivering, watching her with a very serious look, now.

Another handful of water, another stroke. "How is that?" she breathed, lifting her eyes to him for one teasing second.

"That's..." His throat bobbed as he swallowed hard, and then his tongue flicked to his lips. His eyes fluttered closed as she stroked his thigh again.

"Yes?"

As he opened his ash-grey eyes, he leveled them at her, a growl rising in his throat.

Alex met his gaze, her lips pulling into a wider, self-satisfied smile. She splashed water over the wound and ran her hand along his thigh one more time, this time allowing her fingers to dig in just a little. "Do you think I'm getting you clean?"

"I think you're getting me dirty," he said, still fixing her with a dangerous gaze.

Her eyes flicked from his ash-grey gaze and down to his cock, which stood erect, pointing at her accusingly. "I'm not even sure it has anything to do with me," she teased. "That seems to be the permanent state of that thing."

Silver's growl turned to a snarl as he sprang at her. He had her by the shoulders, twisted, and brought her down flat on her back, leaning over her from the side.

Alex was laughing merrily.

"This is not fair at all." Silver's voice was dark with annoyance. "I'm the one who's supposed to be teasing you, for once. You couldn't even let me enjoy having the upper hand for a couple of days or so, could you?"

Still giggling, feeling her face flushed and red with joy, Alex reached up and stroked the side of his face. "Oh, Silver," she laughed. "Tease away. If it makes you happy, I'll—"

He was kissing her. Kissing her urgently, and hard, and slow. Alex forgot how to breathe, forgot having ever known how to breathe. There was only his tongue inside her mouth and his lips working against hers. There was only that, until there was also his body, climbing on top of her, his hands, stroking down the small of her back, lifting her spine to align her hips perfectly with his. She let her legs part, drew them up to push off the wet ground, thrusting her pelvis against his. He thrust back, his wet body damping her dress, which was soaked at the back where she lay flat in the tiny streams of water.

His hands moved suddenly over her, desperate to touch her, grazing her waist, her back, her thighs, her breasts. Her hands were running down his naked back, her fingernails digging into the tight swell of his backside, making him gasp. Then they were clinging to each other, rolling, tumbling, a mess of hands and legs trying to touch each other, splashing, thoroughly soaked. At last they rolled to a stop with him on top once again. The weight of him thrilled every inch of her. He pushed himself away, up onto his hands and knees, and sat back, reaching for the soaked remnants of her dress and pulling them off of her like someone might tear open a gift. He'd gotten most of the yards of silk off her, with only one dripping red strand plastered around her upper thigh, and he bent to kiss her stomach. As his tongue slid into her belly button, his hands slipped up over her breasts, caressing the soft mounds of flesh.

Alex was still laughing, softly, lustily, as Silver kissed his way lower. She squirmed under him, wriggling her hips, her feet sliding up and down in the slippery stream.

He paused with his nose just touching her mound, breathed deep of her scent, then cupped his mouth over her and blew one hot, slow breath onto her most delicate parts.

Alex moaned. "Oh god yes. Oh god—"

His tongue slipped into her wetness, drew one teasing stroke slowly up to the center of her pleasure. He flicked once, twice, at the hard knot, then closed his tongue and lips over it, suckling gently. When Alex bucked her hips at him in reaction, he abandoned her breasts, which his hands had been kneading, and fastened his grip on her pelvis, forcing her down. He shoved his elbows out to part her bent knees further and put his weight on her so that she couldn't more than wiggle.

"Silver," she gasped, lifting her head to see him. All she could see was the tousled mop of his dark hair moving rhythmically against her. She reached down and twisted her fingers into that hair, pushing his face against her, wiggling her hips against his mouth. He stopped suckling by pulling away slowly until she popped out of his mouth, which sent electricity flying through her. Then he was lapping, flicking, licking her in long, deep, slow strokes that kindled an eruption inside her. She jerked against him, feet planted flat, hips thrusting upward, but he held her like iron. "I can't," she gasped, her body overloaded, every nerve laid bare. "I can't. Oh please. Pleeeeaas— s— s..." She convulsed, pummeled by a rush of raw feeling, her body and toes curling, her breath leaving, her insides clenching. He kept at her, straight through the wave, beyond it, when she arched back the opposite way and twitched against his mouth as though she'd been electrocuted.

He pulled away just enough to nuzzle her fur with his nose, breathing hard.

Alex uncurled a long moan as he ran his hand up her side, moving over her.

He eased his weight onto her once again, skin against skin, took her lips, which were too relaxed to answer him. His own were swollen and tasted of her. His teeth lightly grazed her exposed throat, producing a low laugh from deep inside her. That made his lips curl into a smile even as he was tasting her jaw, her collarbone, her cleavage. "You're full of giggles today," he mused absently, flicking his tongue over one tight, pink nipple.

She jerked in reaction, her body forcing hard against his. He slipped one finger between her legs, into her wetness, as she said, "It is a very amusing day."

"Mmm." He slid his finger up from her opening, over her knot, and brought his hand up to his face where he breathed in her scent. "I'm not sure 'amusing' does this justice, but I suppose I could see it." He wrapped his fingers around his cock and stroked it once in anticipation.

Alex's eyes were closed, her face painted in pure bliss, and her voice matched. "I was more talking about being French kissed by a giant flower."

With his tip positioned at her entrance, Silver stopped. He breathed in and out once. "...What?"

"The Nithri ate my head." She started giggling again, her breasts bouncing against him.

Silver froze, the rest of his body going as stiff as his cock. A few heartbeats passed while Alex was still laughing. Then all at once Silver collapsed on her, deflating. His forehead bowed on her shoulder, eyes closing. He let his erection slip from his hand, sliding down to rest heavily on her thigh.

And still Alex laughed. A moment later she seemed to realize that she'd lost him, and she opened one eye. She reached up and grabbed him by the hair, pulling his face toward hers where she was stretching her neck up to kiss him. She plunged her mouth against his, forgetting what she had been laughing about and writhing beneath him. He only kissed back a little before pulling away.

She growled her displeasure as he pried himself out of her grasp and sat back on his knees. She sat up and reached for him, but he pushed her hand away.

"You _are_ a tease," she accused, rolling herself up quickly and dropping onto his lap. She circled his waist with her legs, reaching down between their bodies.

"And you are a very bad dog," he chided, picking her up by the waist and flinging her onto her back. She hit with a surprised splash that knocked the wind from her. He moved over her again, but this time he held his body away from hers while somehow still managing to pin her. She growled and tried to wrestle away, but he had one knee on each of her thighs and one forearm braced across each of her arms. She tried to jerk away and went nowhere. Silver smiled down at her. "Let me tell you, this really brings back some memories."

"You jerk," she accused. "You can't just do what you did to me and then not give me the rest of it."

His eyes narrowed in speculation. "Listen to you. I don't think you've ever even had a man, from the smell of you."

Alex did not care if it was true or not. She wanted him fiercely. If she couldn't have him inside her....

"So the flower ate your head," he said, changing the subject back to something that clearly did not matter at the moment.

"Goddamn you, Silver. Won't you f—"

He cut her off with a kiss. When he drew away, he said, "I would love to. Tell you what. You answer my questions, and we'll see where we get."

She grunted displeasure, still glaring.

"Is it true, about the Nithri?"

Now her face broke into disbelief. "Do you really think I could make this stuff up?"

"Good point." He turned his face away. "Fuck."

"Yes," she insisted. "Now."

"Unfortunately not," he said. "You see, Nithri pollen is highly intoxicating. If you breathed it in... well, that would explain a lot." He winced as he moved off her yet again, mumbling to himself. "You're going to have my hide."

"I would really like your hide," Alex said, sitting up. Her shoulders slumped, now, as a sudden tiredness took her over. She didn't feel great, and it was starting to sink in that she would really not get what she desperately wanted. Her lips trembled. "I would have really liked..." Her words were strangled by emotion. She tried again. "I really wanted... you..." Her shoulders started shaking.

Silver moved toward her and touched her arm, stroked down it tenderly. "You're only confused," he whispered. "If you knew what you wanted, I would give you anything you asked me for."

That thought only seemed to make the deep well of longing even worse. Tears jumped one by one off the ledge of Alex's lower eyelids.

"God, you're shaking," he murmured, slipping his arm around her. "Are you cold?"

Alex shook her head. She wasn't cold at all. She felt flushed, overheated, breathless. And desperately thirsty. She reached down to cup some water in her hands and draw it to her lips.

Silver smacked her hands away. "You can't drink that."

Alex turned her face up to his, blinking. "But... I did before."
Chapter 17: Silver

WITHOUT THE SLIGHTEST hesitation, Silver scooped Alex up into his arms, unfurled his wings, and shot down the tunnel. This part, at least, was wide enough to allow for his wingspan. When it narrowed, he hit his feet, running, the wings folding into his shoulders. "Sage," he bellowed as he ran. "Ice." His voice boomed through the halls of the Hold. He kept running, kept calling to them.

They came barreling at him in beastform, claws scraping the floor as they ran. He skidded to a halt, lowering Alex to the floor, and they slammed on the brakes from the other direction, morphing to human form, and the three of them were bent over her.

Alex was limp where he had lain her. "Uhg," she mumbled. "I don't..." She made a deep swallow, her throat moving with the effort of it. Then she closed her eyes and did not open them again.

"What?" demanded Sage, no time for the full question.

"She drank from the tunnels."

Blue eyes and green eyes widened in alarm.

"The throne," Ice whispered. There was no throne from which to draw power. No throne to save her.

The three of them were the next best thing, the only thing. They locked arms in a triangle around her, heads bowed over her, faces tense with concentration. Together, they called to the Wyld, imploring the chaos to hear them, to grant them the power they needed to save her. Even now, as mingled within them as the chaos was, it sensed their innate difference, knew they had no birthright to lay claim to its magic in such a way. There was a great risk of being rejected, as a host might reject a transplanted organ, turning against it, destroying it. All of their lives were at great risk, simply from the act of opening that gateway.

The magic pulsed up inside them, overcharged, burning, and they struggled not to be consumed by it. The potent chaos refused to be wielded by them, and clearly intended to feast upon them, instead. It was the underlying web of currents that saved them. A thin, diluted wash of something that connected to their inner beings and recognized their authority. A trace of what was left of their own magic before it had been assimilated into the chaotic stream.

Silver gasped at the touch of the UnderRealm, so familiar, so foreign. His mind seized it, determination breaking through him, his hands clenching down on his brothers' arms. Their own fingers curled on his arms like iron, and he knew they had found the threads of their own magic within the overwhelming mix. Clinging to the familiar with all his might, he urged the magic forth, kindling it with his will, tapping into the main power stream. The pummeling force around him hummed into a fierce, vibrating column, everything coming into focus as the three of them aligned. Now it was just a matter of holding on in the face of all that power. Silver settled his will into the mind of his beastform, envisioning his teeth sunk into the throat of the thing. No matter what came at him, he would not let go.

They pushed the power into their empress, channeling the Wyld into themselves then into her, as though they were drawing breath. For hours, a faint red light traced the lines of their shoulders, their backs. They siphoned the power in until none of them could handle it anymore, and then they collapsed on the floor around her, lying in the triangle they had formed, and their souls called out, seeking the heart of the place, asking it to hold her. She had only come back to them. They could not lose her again so soon.

Silver did not know how long any of them had lain there when he was able to open his eyes once again. That was all he seemed capable of, opening his eyes. One stretch of her leg was in front of him. He tried to reach out and couldn't. All he could do was blink. He closed his eyes.

He must have dozed, because he had the feeling of time having passed. He opened his eyes again. This time he was able to urge his hand all the way to her foot. It was warm to the touch. She lived.

He closed his eyes in gratefulness and again fell into slumber.

This time, he must have slept even longer. When he woke, he was able to struggle upright, bracing himself on one hand. Sage and Ice were both sitting there, looking at her. Neither of them seemed to have moved from where they had originally been. He wondered if they felt as weak as he did.

"How much did she drink?" Ice asked softly.

"I don't know."

It didn't matter, now. Silver felt instinctively that she would survive. The Wyld had answered them, feeding its strength to her. Now was just a matter of watching over her until she awakened.

When Ice seemed able to move, he removed his cape and covered her with it, tucking the edges around her. His blue eyes turned to Silver then. Both he and Sage had observed their dual nakedness, smelled their scents intertwined. There were questions in their eyes, but for now they held off.

In the long hours that they sat watching over her, Silver's mind wandered back to their encounter, his heart clenching at being cheated out of it. It was not the physical contact that he mourned, but the way that she had given herself to him. It had not been real. He wanted so desperately for it to be real, to be as it once was. Unlike Sage, he and Ice had no experience in this department. They had never lost Alex before. Never bore the pain of her resurrection, and all the multitude of losses that came with it. He did not know, did not even presume to hypothesize, how long it would take to recreate the life they had once shared. Perhaps, he thought now, for the first time, it would never be recreated. Perhaps this was something different. Perhaps the loss was more real than he knew. His gaze skipped across to Sage, trying to read answers in his brother's face. He found none.

With the present becoming so painful, Silver's mind spiraled away into the past. A thousand glimpses of memories. Moments when they had laughed together. Cried together. Moments of peace and moments of raging, utterly thrill-filled chaos. He'd come to love the Wyld as much as he'd loved her. And he was deeply thankful that she'd brought him to his knees and made him look into the chaos of the universe. He could not imagine his soul complete without it, now.

Across from him, Ice's face was stricken. Silver could read the loss, the fear in his expression, the emotion that he so often hid, even from himself. After so many years, Ice was still coming to terms with it all. Perhaps entropy had manifested itself inside him, keeping his insides always clashing. His experience had been so different from Silver's that Silver had a difficult time understanding.

Silver had had it the easiest of all of them, and he knew it. Even in the long span of years that he and Alex had hunted each other, they'd met each other teasingly, laughingly. With taunts and quips and plenty of temptation. And one eve, before she'd caught any of them, clashing in the forests of Dunaire, their wrestling had turned to lovemaking.

He'd managed to get on top of her, with the intent to dominate her, if not choke her to death. But rather than pry his hands from her throat, she'd slid her fingers inside his pants and taken possession of his cock, which had immediately hardened in her grip.

Panting, he'd hesitated for only a second.

The rest of their wrestling had been with clothes, a mad attempt to sate their sudden lust, to connect in a way that would bridge the gap between them. He'd fallen asleep in her arms, and when he'd woken, she was gone.

Every time he'd hunted her or was hunted by her after that, he'd remembered it. For years upon years, that one event had brought the joy of their game to new heights. He'd delighted in the sport of it, though he'd hid his obvious pleasure from the others.

When she'd finally caught him, he could not have been certain that he had not let her.

And then... she'd been gentle with him.

When she'd shown him the Wyld, opened his eyes, and he'd taken his first beastform, she'd crouched before him and rubbed his ears, scratched his ruff, though he could have taken a bite out of her. He'd collapsed and rolled over in canine pleasure, exposing every part of himself to her, giving her everything.

Sage had given a little snort of disbelief, eyeing Silver, when Alex had removed the chains from him hardly a blink after they'd been put on.

That seemed the beginning of his life, now. The UnderRealm felt faded to him, like earth. But stretching out from his first moment in this unbelievable Realm was a string of joy. His life with his empress had been one great frolic, one great tumble, through all the pleasures that time had to offer.

Until this.
Chapter 18: Ice

ICE FELT HIMSELF close to collapsing inside. All the tumult of the past days was catching up to him, eating him from the inside out. He thought he had been starting to come to terms with it all, but this... this had leveled him. Aside from the physical shock and strain of combining efforts to draw power from the Wyld— power that questioned them, asking what right they had to touch it— there was a single memory that kept coming back to him, no matter how hard he tried to bury it. The past seemed to be connecting that moment with this one in a direct bridge that Ice did not want to walk.

But Alex, lying pale and still before him, was a catalyst that brought this chain reaction crashing through.

It happened in the Realm of Sky. On a silver platform that stretched out over blue nothingness. Jess, his brother, his friend, was with him. And she— she was hunting them. But they were hunting her, too.

In a twist of fate, somehow, she did not know that Ice was there. When she went after Jess, Ice dropped in behind her. In only a heartbeat, he had his arms around her, pinning hers at her side. She kicked and struggled and clawed and fought, but he held her tight.

Jess had a dagger, a wicked, wavy thing that caught the light of the thousand suns along its blade as he moved toward her. Toward them.

She hissed and twisted, trying to free herself from Ice's arms. He refused to let go.

"Hold her," Jess said. He touched the dagger to her breast, dragging its tip along as he located the beating heart beneath.

She bucked wildly, pushed with her feet. It was too late.

Red blood welled at the tip of the blade and rolled down her pale skin. The blade sunk deeper, all of it in slow motion. Ice could feel the give as it passed the resistance of muscle and bone, sinking into her chest cavity. She gasped, jerked. Her blood was soaking her shirt, running down over Ice's arms that were locked around her. One of her feet scuffed uselessly across the ground. Her knees caved. She convulsed and went limp in his arms. He waited then lowered her to the ground.

Ice and Jess stood over her, watching the blood drain out of her. Her body was pale and still, devoid of the lush life it had possessed only moments before.

"It's done," Jess said.

Ice looked at her, relief washing over him. It lasted two seconds. Then there was cold. Cold like he had never felt before. Cold he could make no sense of. He shivered, feeling his own heart give a shudder, as though it was him who had been stabbed. And there was the bridge connecting that moment to this one. A tangible, physical connection, as if there were not eons between the two moments. As if they were touching back to back.

On the floor of the Hold, with his brothers nearby, with Alex lying before him, tucked under his cloak, but pale and still, nonetheless, Ice felt his heart breaking. He rocked forward, a silent sob wracking his body. And another.

Silver's and Sage's eyes turned to him, took in his pain, and then their heads bowed, giving him what privacy they could.
Chapter 19: Alex

CALLED UP FROM darkness, Alex had the distinct sensation of pushing against a heavy weight. _This is it_ , a tiny part of her thought with great alarm. _This is when I wake up_.

She opened her eyes to a span of jellyfish cavern ceiling, glowing faintly above her. For a long time, she blinked at it, failing to process. Eventually, when she did, she found herself feeling thankful. She tried to move, but every part of her felt like it was full of lead. Stuck to the floor.

"Give it a little while," Sage murmured, near her.

She managed as much as a groan.

He leaned over her, stroked her hair back from her face. "You're going to be fine," he assured.

She twitched a finger, surprised that it obeyed her considering the way she was feeling. The movement brushed something soft that was laid over her. She breathed in. Ice. Strange, how she knew his specific scent. All three of them smelled of some oddly appealing combination of man and beast, musky and primal. She could not have described it beyond that. But each of them had their own distinct variation of the scent. She closed her eyes, breathing in the smell of Ice, now, and felt comfort flowing through her aching body.

It seemed that she drifted for a while, but when she woke later, she wanted all three of them at her side. Immediately. She attempted to open her mouth to state this wish, and came out with nothing more than a mumble. Three faces immediately poked into view above her, blinking down at her in concern. She smiled. They snuggled up to her, warming her through and through. Alex drifted into a delicious sleep.

Later, she'd woken feeling incredibly improved, but famished. Having anticipated this need, Sage passed her some kind of roasted meat— completely unidentifiable, but decidedly delicious— that he had scared up somewhere. In between bites, Ice helped her with a mug of hot liquid that was also unidentifiable and delicious. Spicy, she would say, and... was it sweet or salty? It was neither. It was something new. Meanwhile, Silver sat back silently and watched her. At first, she found it a little unnerving. She had the feeling he was looking at her with a kind of expectancy, awaiting some judgement, but she couldn't figure out why. Then she remembered. Her cheeks flushed red and her gaze dropped away from him. Rich, sensual memory flooded over her, bringing heat to her skin. Ice gave her an inquisitive look, then glanced at Silver, looking annoyed.

She cleared her throat, and with as much dignity as she could muster, she said, "I'm sorry, Silver. I will not go sticking my head in giant flowers anymore."

In unison, Ice and Sage made sudden noises of understanding.

Silver fished an embarrassed yet graceful smile out of somewhere. "It's OK," he said. "But don't expect me to let you tend my wounds anymore."

Alex faltered for a split second before she realized he was playing with her, then she beamed a grin at him. "Try not to get so beat up then, huh?" Her eyes went to the gash in his leg. He was still sitting there buck naked. Alex huffed. "Don't you guys have any sense of decency?"

"No," they all said at once.

As food started to strengthen her and her thoughts became clearer, Alex turned her eyes once more to Silver. "What happened?"

"It was pretty fun," Silver told them, smiling. "We found Thanios eventually, and rushed him. Unfortunately, he and his men managed to slip into a shell crack, so it's slow rooting him out. I figured I'd better come back for now."

Sage made a noise of disgust. "Cowards. And what about the people?"

"Scattered." Silver rolled his eyes at the ceiling. "That guy is a major pain in my ass, you know. I suppose he must have known we'd come after him, too. So rather than try to hide the people en masse, he sent them all in different directions in small groups. Rounding everyone up will take some time. Of course, when word starts to spread that their empress has returned, they'll all come, anyway." Alex had the feeling that he was saying this part just for her. "It's only that I would have liked to have them here from the start."

Ice made a noise. "At least it will give us a little time to program the Nithri."

Silver gave a funny little sigh and said, "Poor Sarth."

Alex started giggling.

And Silver's eyebrow went up. "Maybe not all of the Nithri pollen is out of your system yet."

She shook her head, hiding her mouth behind one fist as she tried to stop laughing. Poor Sarth.

Silver squinted, then ignored her. "I don't know what it is with you and the Nithri, Ice. It must be your chaos poking through."

Sage was nodding his agreement.

Ice shrugged. "I just think that giant, man-eating flowers are kind of cool."

Alex started giggling even more. When she had finally finished, she took stock of herself and said, "I'd like some clothes." Her eyes flicked to Silver. "And so would he."

Over the course of the next few days, the four of them rested as much as possible, still trying to recover. But Silver had been correct, and soon the people— if you could call them that— had started showing up. Small groups wandered in at first, and then larger ones. Silver had stationed himself at the massive entrance that opened high on a cliff where carved steps curved downward toward the open water below. There was also a waterfall that Silver told Alex could be used like a slide, which he highly recommended, but considering the thousands of feet that it dropped, she thought she would wait until she was feeling a bit stronger to try it. For the time being, creatures were mostly working their way up the stairs, though a few did float or fly in, and some suctioned themselves to the cliffs and oozed their way up. Silver was there to greet them and make sure that their names, or essences, were passed on to the Nithri. No one wanted anyone to be accidentally eaten by a flower.

Before long, the Hold was thriving with life, filled with fantastic creatures, and ebbing with energy. Many of them had brought supplies to replace what had been destroyed, and the palace had become imminently more livable. They arrived with gifts for her, luxuries of all sorts. Exotic foods and nectars, clothing ranging from lush dresses to primitive, bra-topped outfits that made her feel like she ruled the jungle. Furniture and furnishings to replace all that had been looted. Scented soaps and lotions. Alex held court, feeling like a fairytale princess in her beautiful red gown and cloak of white fur. Her long hair was caught up at the back of her head, wound and twisted intricately by Silver, who quite surprisingly, was skilled at the task. Other than the wardrobe and the temporary throne they had erected for her, the similarities flew out the window. Yes, the creatures prostrated themselves before her, and yes, they submitted to her rule with a kind of deference. But there was energy and madness, here. A thriving, raging fluency that wound itself like whitewater through every interaction. Her people roared their fury at the destruction of her throne. They snapped dripping, razored jaws in eagerness for revenge. They wept, sometimes, at the loss. But underneath it all, her power was in question, as fragile as a thread of a dream. Alex could feel it, understand it at the depths of her core. And everything in her resisted.

Thanios head was now being passed around the Hold. It had been dipped in some sort of purple, glowing jelly that acted like a preservative, and whatever creature was in possession of it at any given time also got to lead war parties— a regular occurrence, though Alex was not sure against who— and received assorted other privileges. Alex did not want her head to give privileges to anyone.

These thoughts were prominent in her mind as the throne chamber cleared and she found herself facing Sage. Ice and Silver were nowhere to be seen. Sighing, she unfastened her fur cloak and tossed it over the arm of the throne. Her eyes wandered over Sage's face, found his green eyes. She opened her mouth to tell him what she was feeling.

He stepped forward, the look on his face taking away whatever words she had been brewing. She closed her mouth and gave him a curious look as he smiled down at her.

His warm fingers laced into hers. "Come with me, Empress."

Alex found herself following along without question.

He led her to the cliff face entrance, put his arms around her, and took off flying. Finding her breath stolen away, Alex gave a little gasp as the brilliant colors of the Wyld spun away beneath them. But flying with Sage was incredibly different than Silver's mad and perilous aeronautics. Sage held her firmly in his sure grip, and she felt certain that he would never allow her to drop. His wingstrokes carried them steadily upward, where they soared along with the dreamy, drifting constancy of a hawk.

"I'm going to turn you," Sage warned. His arms loosened, his hands finding her ribcage. He carefully shifted her around so that she was facing the same direction as him, flying below him suspended only by his hands.

Alex's feet lifted behind her with the speed of her momentum. She laughed. In her fishtail gown she felt like a mermaid swimming the waters of the sky. She let her arms go out and back, and she wiggled her legs, pretending she had a tail.

Sage was laughing softly, too. "What are you doing?"

"I'm a mermaid," she beamed back at him. "When I was a little girl, I would have given anything to be a mermaid."

"There are a few mermaids here in the Wyld," he said.

"Really?"

"Yes. And I would suspect that, as girls, most of them would have given anything to be you."

Alex was struck silent for a moment. But the feeling of the wind flying in her hair and bouncing pressure off her fingers made her laugh again. "Can we go closer to the land?"

Sage took them downward in a lazy spiral that straightened into flight directly over a canopy of treetops. The land whirred by just below them, filled with amazing bursts of color and life.

"What's that?" Alex pointed at a field full of large, glowing circles.

"A kind of mushroom," he answered, swinging closer so she could get a better look.

Though the mushrooms were growing in clusters, and the field was irregular in shape, there were clear furrows in the dirt in between the fungi.

"Are they cultivated?"

"Yes."

"For what?"

"Food," he said.

Alex frowned as they passed over the far edge, swooping further away. "Even though they glow?"

"Yes. They're delicious, but they do make your tongue glow for a day or two. Some creatures consider it fashionable."

She was giggling again. "I'll have to try those." As she craned her neck to look back at the field, an enormous, reptilian, armored head erupted from the soil and swallowed a building-sized patch of mushrooms, sinking back into the earth as quickly as it had appeared. "Uh..." Alex said, and then decided not to ask. She cleared her throat. "Where are we going, anyway?"

"You said you wanted to see the Realm."

"Is this the grand tour, then?"

"Not so much," he admitted. "But I wanted to show you one place."

"What place is that?"

"A special place."

That was all that Sage would say, so Alex attempted to be patient. It wasn't difficult, because she was distracted by all the wonders below. Swooping hills, grasslands with odd, whirling, blue clumps, vines that looked like they were gilded in gold, birds— or at least something with wings— that darted so quickly in and out of the trees that all that could be seen were blurs of bright color where they had been. A herd of some animal thrashed spiked tails at each other, shaking the ground and making trees shed leaves for a mile around. Rivers raged and dropped from soaring heights. The Realm smelled of ozone and fresh grass, of earth and untamed flowers, of life itself. Alex found herself gulping lungfuls of that air, wanting to fix the place deep inside her so that she could never lose it.

A sea of rose-tinted canopy loomed ahead of them, and Sage took them down into the trees to alight on a ground scattered in what looked like flower petals but was actually leaves. As Alex gained her feet, he released her, his hands sliding reluctantly from her waist.

She whirled to face him, her eyes brightened with delight. "Have you ever seen anything like it?" She laughed at her own question, because obviously, he had seen this place before. She whirled again, her eyes skimming over everything. They stood in a forest. Leaves in blush and rose and plum clung to delicate silver branches and were strewn thickly on the ground. They were like velvet under her feet. Where light pierced the canopy, rays broke down on them, sun-dappling the carpet and warming all the many shades of pink. The sight of it all left Alex speechless for a long time. Her fingers sought Sage's arm and drew him along with her. Finally, moments later, she managed to say, "It's absolutely beautiful." Those words did nothing to describe the feeling of being in that forest. There was a connection to this place that seemed to be vibrating up her legs as she walked.

Sage glanced down at her and said nothing.

She had a sense that he'd brought her there for a reason. Perhaps simply to show her this place that he knew would be meaningful to her. Perhaps to talk away from the others. Alex considered questioning him and thought better of it. There was something about the silence between them that spoke to her, too. For the first time, alone with him, she felt an unexpected something— an easiness, a peace. She felt like the forest and the silence and herself and Sage formed a sacred circle, uninterruptible and unbreakable. The feeling moved over her, passing from ephemeral to tangible. She stopped walking to allow herself to feel it.

Sage stopped and turned back to her, but still said nothing.

Her eyes swept slowly up to his face.

When he read the look in her eyes, a small smile played on his lips. He reached one hand out to her.

She took it.

The smile broke across his face, as beautiful as the rays of light that cascaded through the canopy. Alex could not remember him smiling like that, and now she was stunned by his beauty so that the rest of the place fell away. There was only her, and him. She stepped into his arms.

Together, they closed their eyes. Her nose and lips were just touching his chest. His chin bowed and rested on the top of her head. They breathed through the silence, the thick, poignant silence that dripped with intimacy. Time fell away, insignificant. Later, Alex did not know how long they had stood there. She only looked up when she felt something warm touch her forehead. She raised her face, curious, not understanding yet. Her slender finger reached to wipe tears from Sage's cheek, her forehead steepling in concern.

He laughed softly and smiled at her, shaking his head. "I've missed you," he whispered, and pulled her into a fierce hug.

Alex could not have replied if she wanted to, crushed as she was. Her reply was to crush him back, gripping him until she was forced to let go or pass out.

Sage released her reluctantly, and his tears had all gone now to be replaced by a tender smile that lit Alex's heart. "There is a reason I brought you here," he said. "Aside from wanting you to see this... to feel it."

She could not think of anything that could be more important than what he had already given her. All along, Alex had been experiencing this new reality at a sort of distance. At first, she had believed that it was a delusion, and she hadn't taken it seriously at all. Once she'd been convinced, there had still been a sort of detachment. This world was too rich, too intense, too different from everything she knew. Part of her had still stood aside, watching as she playacted through it, brave face and all. But now... here... with him... this world felt more real than anything she could remember. It felt suddenly deeper, like all her life she had been living the dream, and she had only just awaken.

"How long have we..." Her words trailed off as she only just realized she was speaking. She shook herself, looked into his eyes, and found that she was smiling. The rest of the question seemed to have evaporated.

He brushed back a lock of hair that had tumbled out of the clasp that held the rest. "Forever," he said, and his sincere gaze held hers in a way that brought the word to its true light. Not 'forever' like 'a long time'. 'Forever' like endless time.

"Is it possible?" she asked softly. "I mean... we're kind of immortal. But... there was a time when we didn't know each other. Or when I hadn't—" She bit her bottom lip, trying not to smile, but failed miserably. She looked up at him, blushing, and boldly cocked one eyebrow. "When I hadn't got hold of you, yet."

Laughing, Sage's strong hands squeezed her upper arms. "That is true. But it was so long ago that none of us know how long ago it was. And aside from that, time is... not as concrete as you would think."

Alex was scrunching one eye at him, trying to figure out what he meant. She decided not to ask. Instead, her mind turned back to the idea that her life and Sage's life had been linked together... forever. The immensity of that concept washed over her, and in its wake another dose of the connectedness she felt walking with him. "Forever," she whispered.

His hands gave another squeeze on her arms. Letting go, he allowed his fingers to adjust the draped cap sleeve of her gown then turned away. "I have a secret stash here."

That was intriguing. "Oh?"

He walked about ten paces to a lovely, twisting tree, his green eyes surveying the branches and trunk. "I need your help. The ward I placed on it is so powerful that I can't lift it on my own."

"How did you manage that?"

"You gifted me the power." He turned to consider her as she approached his side.

Alex's eyes were roaming over the tree, but she could find nothing out of the ordinary save for the startling beauty of it.

"It can't be seen," Sage explained. "If I didn't know it was here, I would never be able to find it, nor would anyone else."

She tipped her head in curiosity.

Sage ducked under a low-hanging branch to move to the trunk of the tree. He placed his palm in the crook where the trunk split into two and extended his other hand to her.

His hand was warm in her own. The way his fingers clasped around hers with such assurance sent silent thrills through her. She was beginning to imagine their hands clasped together through all time. When she looked at their fingers together, she felt that she could see that vision skipping through eternity, solid in a flowing universe.

"Come closer," Sage murmured, gently urging her toward the trunk. "Right here."

Alex let him place her in front of him, both of them beside the trunk. She rested her free hand over the hand he pressed to the trunk, glancing up at him.

"You'll feel me," he said. "When you do... follow."

She nodded her understanding, her heartbeat rising like a gust of wind.

Sage leaned closer to her, his fingers tightening around hers. He closed his eyes, and for a few seconds, Alex stared up at his handsome, peaceful face, so enrapt that she had forgotten what they were doing. Finally, she remembered, and when she did, she let her eyes flutter closed as well.

Warmth was the first thing she noticed, but that was not exactly the word for it. There was no word for it that she knew. She sensed the presence of the magic in the same way she had felt the thing that had connected her with Sage. It welled up. It ebbed. It felt, not in a physical sense, but closer to that of emotion. Whatever it was, her soul felt a kinship to it, and she didn't need to make herself follow because she was already following. It was like she'd been swept into a river and it would take her where it wanted to. She released herself to it, feeling as free as the sky.

Physical awareness made her open her eyes to see the process that was unfolding before her. The tree itself had opened up, the silver bark blooming out like a flower to reveal the treasure it held within. A treasure fit for a queen... or an empress.

The crown was a perfect circlet, made of silver encrusted in diamonds. Peaks rose evenly around the entire circle, creating a masterpiece of symmetry that did not seem like it belonged in a place that openly bragged about its chaotic ways.

Sage seemed to read this in her eyes as he lifted the circlet and placed it on her head. When he spoke, his voice had gone hoarse. "You took this crown when you took me."

Her eyes searched his.

"When... we finally came to understand each other..." There was a long pause as he searched for words. "I had it made for you. A gift." The gold flecks in his irises caught the light as his eyes moved back and forth on her face. "You've worn it ever since." She had the feeling he wanted to say more, but didn't.

Alex explored the crown with her fingers. "You have very nice taste in crowns," she said. "Do I look like a princess?"

With a brush of his knuckles, he lifted her chin and placed a soft, lingering kiss on her lips.

As he drew away, she melted into a hint of a swoon, a giddy smile stretching across her lips. She felt like a princess.

Sage laughed then brushed one palm over the open tree, its bark petals curling themselves closed at his touch. They walked together, hand in hand, neither of them ready to leave that place. And so they lingered, until the light that spilled through the canopy faded into a blend of indistinct color, and then, finally, they winged their way back to the Hold.

Returning to the Hold brought back a rush of other feelings that had placed themselves safely in a box during the interlude that Sage had provided. Alex's mind turned straight back to her worries.

"The tension is palpable," she told Sage, Silver, and Ice as they ate together. Across from her, Silver was crunching happily through bone, and she wondered if he would always do that. Maybe it had nothing to do with being in beastform for so long. "I feel like violence is about to break out."

"Yes," Silver agreed with slight concern and a good dose of anticipation. It seemed to take him a moment to temper the rush of heat that obviously rose in him at the thought of battle. After a moment he added, "I'd like to resurrect Thanios and kill him a thousand times more. He has left us in a precarious position."

"It is dangerous," Sage agreed softly.

Anger flushed through Alex. "I won't have it," she said, slamming down the goblet she drank from. Winedew sloshed onto the table. "The Wyld is mine, and I won't have anyone take it from me."

The other three exchanged a variety of looks, most of which were colored in darkness.

"How do I rise through this?" Alex asked them. "What do I do to regain control?"

"...You fight," said Sage.

"I will." She had never heard her own voice sound so certain. But her insides twisted at the idea of waiting for the battle to come to her. She wanted to roar her claim to the Realm, defying anyone who might challenge it.

There was a long silence, and then Silver said quietly, "It is unlikely that we will win, if it comes to that."

She glared at him across the table.

"He speaks truth," Sage admitted. "I hate it as much as you, but I can't deny it." He sighed, reached to squeeze her hand. "Empress, this may be a time for retreat. When the throne regrows—"

"No!" Alex stood up, both hands gripping the edge of the table.

Again, their gazes flickered.

"I don't want to hear about retreat," she said. "Give me options. How do I keep what's mine?"

Silver and Sage's eyes held each other, full of dismay. A long silence followed.

Ice cleared his throat. "There is a way."

The other two looked surprised, turning questioning looks to him.

"We hunt," Ice said. "With Jess, Alex can reclaim her power."

The other two stared at him, blinking.

Alex moved around the table to place her hand on Ice's shoulder. "What do you mean?"

He twisted in his seat to look up at her, his clear blue gaze deadly serious. "Just as you draw power from the Wyld, each of us was connected to our own Realm. In conquering each of us, you called that power to yourself. Because the nature of the Wyld is chaos, you could do that. You could mix and conglomerate and churn together all of it and make it your own. This is why you have us."

Alex found herself speechless. She had thought of the three of them as protectors, but they were so much more. She had a thousand questions to ask him, but she settled on one for the time being. "How will that help me? If I have three of you right now, then how much could the addition of one more possibly change things?"

"Our power is linked to you," Ice explained. "Linked into the Wyld. Intermixed. When we use our power now, we have to call upon the chaos to access it. You can access it, too. You have. Without the throne as a focus... you would not have been able to shift without us. Without what we bring to you."

Alex's eyes flicked to Sage, remembering how she had tumbled into the stream of his power, joining with him. She was fascinated by all of it, but she still couldn't see how it helped. She pulled up a chair next to Ice, leaning in to listen. "That still doesn't answer my question."

"Getting there," he said, flashing her a small smile. He moved on. "We..." He made a circle with his finger that included himself, Sage, and Silver, "...and Jess... are also linked. As princes of our Realms, we were as brothers before you conquered us. Many ages past, before you first tamed Sage..." Now, he threw Sage a narrow-eyed little glance that mocked him for being the first to fall, "...our combined power was many times greater than the power of any of us alone. When Sage fell, that came to ruin. Though three of us were left, we were no more together than the sum of our individual power. Three is not enough."

Alex's eyes had gone sharp with understanding. "...You think that the four of you together again would multiply the effect." She paused, frowning. "Even as mine?"

Ice was nodding.

Sage and Silver exchanged uneasy glances.

"That is not necessarily the case," Silver cautioned.

Sage was agreeing with him. "It's possible that you simply destroyed that ability when you converted us."

Alex felt the weight of their words, the wisdom of their caution. "It seems a long shot," she said. "I've been hunting Jess for centuries. Is there any reason to think I would be able to conquer him in time? I mean, the top feels like it's about to blow off this place. I'm thinking days at best."

Silver was shaking his head. "Alex is weakened right now. She knows little to nothing about how things work. And we don't know how dangerous Jess might be. He may have found what he was seeking— the way to kill her. It would be foolish for her to place herself anywhere near him."

"I will not agree to it," Sage growled. "Silver is right. Alex cannot hunt him, now."

Ice met both their gazes. "I said 'we'."

And there was utter silence.
Chapter 20: Sage

THE MERE SUGGESTION of them hunting with Alex was enough for Sage to feel like his ruff was up. His upper lip curled into a snarl. He almost had to do a doubletake to make sure he was not in beastform.

The empress had always, always, hunted without them, and for good reason. Hunting was not like the battle they readily participated in within the Wyld. She knew the other princes were once brothers, and she didn't ask it of them. Probably did not trust it of them. There was an onslaught of mercy and caution in the way she had always kept them carefully apart. No, the empress always hunted alone.

When Sage had first fallen to her, he'd spent a span of centuries mourning the brotherhood of his fellow princes. In time, Alex's company had filled much of the void, but it had not been a replacement. When she'd captured Silver, Sage had been thrilled to find that he had a brother once again, and frenzied with jealousy when he realized it meant having to share. Much later, Ice had joined them, again taking a portion of the empress that he felt was rightfully his, but also bringing union, balance, and joy. Some days, Sage thought he could happily be rid of the other two, and some days he was grateful that he had them.

After all the ages that had passed, Jess's existence felt a vague memory... at least it had until they'd run into him on earth. A deep part of Sage recognized that Jess was the last of them, the last hope of defying her. That part of him cried out that he could not help her to hunt Jess down. Could not be the undoing of something he had once believed in.

But other parts of him, more parts of him, wanted to protect his empress. Help her hold onto what was hers... and what was his, now. His mind flashed back to their hands together, their power flowing together. Whatever else lingered in him, this was the substance of Sage's soul. To love her, to protect her, to be hers. Along with that, there was an eagerness to bring Jess into his world. And a dread, a deep dread, remembering the pain of the fall.

Beyond all this, Sage recognized that his own conflicted emotions were but a shadow to those of the others. He still distrusted Silver with her. And Ice... how was it even possible that this was Ice's suggestion? Of all of them, Ice had been the closest to Jess. Had loved him deeply. Did he really mean to hunt him down? Or was this something else?

Silver cracked a wicked grin, though. "I'm game. Let's hunt." It was true that this scenario was the ultimate chaos, and maybe Silver was embracing that. Silver had a natural affinity for chaos that went beyond what the other two were capable of.

Ice's eyes turned to Sage, asking.

"Not without collars," Sage said.

Ice groaned.

"And even then... Not." Sage shook his head. "This is m—"

"Alright then," Ice said easily. "You can stay here."

They were in beastform, and they were tangling on the floor, teeth ripping at each other's throats. Sage was aware of nothing but his rage. His fangs sunk into Ice's ear, ripping through it. Ice had hold of his ruff, tearing chunks of his fur and splattering his blood on the floor.

A ferocious roar blasted them, making them both yelp. In between them stood a she-wolf, sleek grey fur and silver eyes, finely formed and... the scent of her... Sage and Ice growled at each other one more time, new instincts kicking in, then they both went for her, each of them trying to mount her.

But the she-wolf was gone and Alex was trampled underneath their paws, kicking at them. "Get off me, you filthy mutts," she yelled, shoving them away.

It was enough to shock both of them back to human form. The three of them sat in a tumble on the floor, Sage and Ice both shivering with need.

Still at the table, Silver was laughing at them, but Sage noticed that he had leaned forward, tasting the air.

"I don't even know how I did that," Alex mumbled, climbing to her feet. She glared at Sage and Ice. "And I doubt I will be doing it again." When she had seated herself beside Silver, she said, "Do you think you two can possibly stop trying to kill each other and finish this conversation?"

"The mistake you're making," Silver said to her, "is that you're giving us a choice. We do what you tell us."

"Oh really," she mused, her voice dripping with disbelief.

He shrugged. "Mostly."

Alex's eyes turned to Sage, considering. "I think we should do it," she said. "If we bring Jess down, there is a chance it will solve a lot of my problems. If not... well, I don't like the 'if not'."

Sage sighed, deflating, and tried to imagine what it would be like to hunt one of his own kind.
Chapter 21: Alex

IIN THE SPIRIT of the Wyld, Alex had decided to forgo planning in favor of momentum. She knew nothing about what she was about to do. Her power was severely weakened. It had occurred to her that bringing along her hellpups might be a dangerous move, considering Sage's worry that Silver and Ice might turn on her. And then there was the whole idea that Jess might have devised her complete undoing. All of that sent a thrill through her like nothing she could remember. She couldn't wait for the games to begin.

"Ten minutes," she told them, "to do whatever you need to do. Then we're off."

She'd marched back to her chambers, feeling the need to make some small preparation, though she was unsure what. Weapons? Armor? Magic? She knew nothing about any of these.

She removed her crown and placed it on a stand that seemed fit for the job. After that, she was unsure. She was standing, trying to figure out what she was doing, when Ice came in. He was wearing armor— amazing armor that seemed made for his exact form, each piece fitted perfectly for each curve of his muscle. It was carved in runes that glowed faintly with traces of the red magic she'd come to recognize. The feel of it was vaguely ancient, and vaguely futuristic. In that armor, Ice looked like he could conquer worlds.

"Do you have some of that for me?" she asked, planting one hand on her cocked hip.

His full lips curved into a smile. "That's why I'm here."

Alex glanced around, noting that he'd brought nothing along with him.

Instead, he reached for her, unfastening the cloak she was once again wearing and tossing it to the side. Standing close to her, his cool blue gaze was filled with warmth. Alex felt swept up in that warmth immediately. When he unzipped the back of her dress, she lifted her arms out of the way, letting him slide it down over her hips. He stooped to push the last of it down her calves, tossing it to the side when she stepped out of it. When he rose, he took a moment to appreciate her, and she let her fingers play on his torn ear. When she did, he gave a barely noticeable flinch, making Alex realize quite suddenly that he was more comfortable touching her than he was with her touching him.

"It's not as bad as I thought," she observed, pushing a slew of questions to the back of her mind.

"We heal quickly." His words were an absent afterthought. His large hands ran up her sides and twisted around to her back before reversing to return in one smooth stroke to her hips. With just his fingertips, he touched her shoulder, his fingers tickling as they stroked slowly downward toward the swell of her breasts. Alex shivered under his touch, feeling the contraction of her pink flesh at the place in the path of his fingers. But they stopped before they got that far, caressing a small mark on her chest.

"Did you know you always have this mark?" he asked softly, his gaze sweeping up to take in her eyes. "No matter what else you look like?"

"Hunh," she said, because she was out of words.

He ran his finger over the shape that looked like a star— not geometric, but like one shining in the night sky. Alex shivered, sliding her palms up his chest. She tiptoed, reaching her mouth toward his.

Ice gave her what she wanted, kissing her softly. The feel of his lips was like nothing she could imagine, full of need and giving at the same time. She wanted to savor those lips for hours on end, but they only had moments.

They pulled away from each other and stood breathing.

Ice made a reluctant noise, tipping his chin down and moving his hands, clearly meaning to get on with things. He took a deep, shuddering breath then straightened and spread his fingers, running the tips of them firmly down her arms. There were words that she missed— words like the ones she had whispered to the Nithri. The armor settled on her out of the ether, chill against her skin. She blinked down at herself, in awe.

She twisted, trying to see herself. "Mirror?"

Ice obliged her with one that shimmered out of nowhere.

Alex had a good look at herself. Her own armor was similar to his, and yet decidedly skimpier. It angled at the bottom of her ribcage, leaving her midriff exposed. Likewise her thighs were bare except for oval plates along their fronts. There was fabric attached at the waist, but not enough to call a skirt. The part that protected her chest and shoulders was more substantial, but definitely contoured to her body.

"That is some sexy armor," she said, admiring herself.

Ice made a low rumble of agreement, his hand cupping her waist from behind as he lowered his nose to her neck.

His touch was enough to make Alex want to call the whole hunt off, or at least postpone it for another day, but she managed to get hold of herself and remember what she was about. "How about a weapon?" she asked.

"Reach into the chaos and take it," he told her.

"How?"

"Just... reach."

Alex drew a deep breath, felt for the energy that she seemed to connect with whenever she shifted. The warm, flowing power that she had felt with Sage. She reached out and closed her hand. Her fingers felt something solid. She pulled.

Breathlessly, she stood blinking, feeling the magic run up her arm. "What the hell am I?" she whispered. "The Grim Reaper?"

He gave a low appreciative chuckle, looking at their reflection together. "There was a time when I might have wondered."

"That scary, huh?" she cocked one eyebrow at him in the mirror, smiling.

"Mmm."

Alex was not sure what that meant, but she was moving on, examining the wicked-looking scythe. The staff was elaborate, crooked in one place, and carved in runes, but the blade was the most impressive part. It gleamed in dark silver, viciously curved, and almost as long as she was. The lithe blade was notched and spiked at the back, barbed underneath, and the whole of it looked sharp enough to sever a tree trunk in one blow. "It occurs to me that I have no idea how to use this," she murmured.

Ice's arms reached around her, adjusting hers on the staff. "Like this." He moved her into the sweep of it, his body against hers showing her where to bend, to twist, to extend. She flowed with him like water. Everything about it felt right. "Good," he said. "You remember."

"Temptingly familiar," she said, throwing him a look. She sighed. "Shall we?"

"After you, Empress."

Alex stuck her scythe back into the chaos and led the way out of the room. She almost ran into Sage as she rounded into the hallway.

Her eyes ran up and down him, looking spectacular in his armor. He had clearly not trusted Ice to be alone with her, and so he had stationed himself at the door. Alex did not intend to comment on that, but there was something else she was dying to point out. She waited until they had met up with Silver at the cliff entrance of the Hold. Then, she let herself have a good look at Silver, who was also fantastically arrayed in armor that took his normal, otherworldly sexy appearance into the realm of godhood.

His lips curled with slow satisfaction when he noticed her eyes on him.

"Don't think I didn't notice that you pulled that out of the chaos," she said. "And yet you all chose to remain naked for the entire first day I knew you."

Silver bit off a smile, tucking his chin, lowering his eyes. He was ridiculously adorable with that shy yet mischievous smile. Alex did not buy the shy part for five seconds.

"It honestly did not occur to me," Sage soothed, behind her. "You have to remember, we were naked for fifty-seven years."

Her eyes swept to him, accepting his sincerity. "What now?" she asked, turning her thoughts back to the task at hand.

Sage pulled his whip out of nowhere and circled it until it spun like a fan. He cracked it suddenly away and a round gateway remained before them. Steps wound away, around a curve.

Alex stepped through and headed down the steps. No one was going to have to throw her over their shoulder this time.

"Where will this take us?" she asked after they'd been walking down for a while.

"To the Realm of Sky," Silver answered. "Jess will be in his own Realm. And he certainly won't expect us, given all the trouble he's caused."

"And he definitely won't expect us to be waltzing right into his palace," Ice muttered, looking at Sage.

"We'll use that surprise to our favor," Sage said.

"Entering the palace is a bold move," Silver said. "We must be quick. Find him and bring him down. The longer we linger, the more dangerous it becomes. We're walking right into the hands of his armies."

Alex glanced at Sage nervously. "Are you sure this is a good idea, going straight to the palace?"

"I'm sure this is a bad idea," Sage said. "All of it. Every bit of it."

When Alex glanced at Silver, he cracked a smile. "Sounds like fun."

She turned and continued onward. "Is there anything else I need to know before we do this?"

None of them answered, and she didn't think they were going to. But Silver said, "Don't stick your head in any flowers."

"Don't fall," Sage added.

"Don't underestimate Jess," said Ice.

She waited and they said nothing else. "Got it." They'd come to the brilliant light that signaled the passage's end. "Ready, boys?"

"Move quietly," Silver said, and then he and the others had taken their beastforms and walked into the light.

Alex took a deep breath and followed.

The Realm of Sky was not the baby blue daydream that Alex expected, at least not currently. Lightning crashed so near them that it seemed to have fractured the sky itself. Rain was sweeping in sideways torrents, stinging their faces and eyes. Still, light blasted at them through the heaviness of the weather, a mass of huge stars hanging in stormclad daylight overhead. Around them, a building swooped upward in smooth, metallic curves. They were in some sort of courtyard. The Hounds ran for an archway at the side. Alex followed.

Inside, they took a winding staircase upward. There must have been a million shallow stairs on that staircase. Up they went. They twisted up to a bridge, back out into the rain, across into another archway on the other side. Ice, Sage, and Silver stopped there, lifting their noses, scenting the air. Then off they went, and all Alex could do was follow them.

They burst through a massive hall, and Alex nearly fell as she realized she was running with nothing underneath her. No ground. She was looking a million miles below her through a tumble of clouds. And yet there was clearly something beneath her feet. She fixed her gaze on the others and kept running.

Out of a doorway and into the next room. The attack came from above. Winged warriors that looked like angels dropped down from above, wielding swords of golden light. Alex rolled under the first blow, got to her feet. Pulling her scythe from the chaos was harder here, but she did it and swung it to block the next blow. A surge of magical energy crashed through her as the two weapons met. Around her, Sage, Ice, and Silver were tearing into the Sky warriors, ripping flesh and spilling hot blood. Alex gave herself over to her own body, trusting it to know its own business. She ducked, swung, spun, flowed with the motion of the scythe, as though the weapon itself had transformed her, pushing its knowledge into her flesh. A red gash opened across her opponent's chest and he fell. Making quick work of their attackers, the Hounds backed off, sniffed the air, and started running again. Alex knew that they had to move quickly, now. Their presence was known.

Only a moment later, a second round of warriors came at them, and then, in the midst of the battle, a third. Alex and the Hounds were badly outnumbered, but they were making up for their lack of numbers with sheer ferocity. The scythe wielded itself in Alex's hands as though it had always been part of her body. She slashed and swished, her feet placing themselves to perfection, her muscles aching with the ceaseless, invigorating dance. She sliced through the last warrior to challenge her, just as Sage, fighting at her back, tore out the throat of his last foe. Silver and Ice gave chase to another group, disappearing entirely, leaving Alex and Sage alone.

Sage raised his nose to sniff the air. They needed to find Jess. Except they didn't, because he had already found them.

"It was foolish of you to come here, Calixa," he said, landing perhaps twenty feet away. Like Sage, Ice, and Silver, he had large, feathered wings, but his were angelic white, outlined in gold. Alex was slightly baffled by the name, but part of her recognized it.

"Yeah?" she said, giving him a cocky smile. "You want to come see how foolish it was?"

He flew at her. Midair, Sage intercepted, just a blur of black fur crashing into white feathers. They rolled and tumbled, snarls erupting, feathers tossing into the air. There was a spray of blood.

Alex ran toward them, scythe at the ready. They were twisting so fast that she had no opening. Jess was swifter than the wind itself. He was on his feet, facing off with the Hound, and Sage was limping. It was Sage's blood.

She charged past him, swiping her scythe at Jess's legs. He leapt into the air, easily avoiding the blow, and hammered her from above, coming down with his fists. As they struck the back of her neck, the blow went through her, pounding with a magical concussion that shook the very ground. Alex staggered, senseless. She shook her head, trying to see straight. He came at her a second time from above. Instinct kicked in. She ditched sideways, barrel-rolling, landed back on her feet and slammed the base of her staff into the ground. Something shrieked out of it— an arrow, a snake, a... something hissing and curving and aimed for Jess. He tried to spin sideways in the air, but her projectile followed his curve, his dodge, and met its target. Blood exploded from his shoulder and he shrieked in agony, falling.

Sage was on him when he hit the ground, and again the two grappled in battle. Sage got hold of Jess's foot and tore a long strip of flesh from it. Jess spun, a sword in his hand, his whole body flinging the momentum of it toward the Hound. It thunked into Sage's shoulder, nearly severing the front leg. Sage yelped and collapsed onto his face.

Alex shrieked her rage and ran toward Jess, wanting to kill him, to tear him apart. Capturing him was forgotten completely. He met her scythe with his sword and they clashed, desperately trying to hack each other to pieces.

"This day is your end, Calixa," Jess cried as he managed to strike her shoulder, just below the armor. "I will avenge my brothers' deaths."

She spun away, ducked, came under his next blow and made a sweep with the scythe. It only just nicked him behind the knee. "Not if I kill you first," she grunted. She saw a weakness and went for it, trying to slide in where he had dropped his defenses, but Jess had feigned, and now he brought his sword down on her staff right by her fingers. The scythe jarred and rattled out of her hands, skittering across the ground.

Alex's eyes went wide, even as she watched it spinning away from her. She ducked under another swing of Jess's sword and fell back, landing on her backside. She scrambled back on her hands as he advanced. Sage was growling, trying to get up, but couldn't.

Alex twisted, spinning onto her feet and into a run. Jess was between her and her weapon, so she bolted through the nearest door. That took her out into the rain and lightning again. She didn't care. She ran. Her eyes searched for a weapon, for anything she could use, but there was nothing. And suddenly, in front of her, there was nothing. Nothing but sky.

Alex skidded to a halt on the slick, wet platform that stretched over endless thundering clouds. She looked to her right and left, but there was no route of escape. Jess was right behind her.

He was walking toward her now, calm and steady. His sword was gone and he had a dagger in his hand. The blade was long and wavy, and sent terror through her.

"Do you recognize this?" he asked as he approached. He smiled. "Yes, I did plunge this into your heart once before. A shame that death didn't stick."

Alex backed away from him, as much as she could. She was right on the edge, now, with nowhere to go. She braced herself, thinking that when he came at her, she could lunge to the side, run back the way she came, retrieve her scythe. It was the only thing that might work.

He was getting closer now. His blue eyes were filled with deadly intent. "I've spent centuries trying to figure out how to fix that problem," he told her quietly. He regarded the blade. "When I found it, it seemed appropriate to attach the magic to this... symbol."

Alex's heart went into overdrive. She considered simply stepping off the ledge, wondering if there was a ground to meet her somewhere far below. If she died that way, would he have time to find her corpse, to make the death permanent? Or would it be too late for him? She swallowed hard. She did not want to die, permanent or not.

"Come meet your death with dignity, Calixa," Jess said. "I have no brother to hold you this time and I care little for this game. Come kneel before me, and I will make it swift."

"Are you sure you don't want some help with that?"

Alex's eyes darted to Ice, walking toward them. Jess's eyes went round as moons, his face draining of blood.

"Don't you think _this_ will be appropriate as well, brother?" Ice asked, smiling grimly. "Let's do it right this time."

Jess was frozen, absolutely frozen.

Ice strode past him, moved behind Alex, who was starting to put all the words together and shaking violently. The dagger in Jess's grip menaced her, sending waves of fear through her. Ice slipped his arms around her. He stepped back, dragging her over the edge. They plunged. Ice's wings caught the air, whipped them into a different angle of descent, and they shot away through the clashing sky.

Alex managed to look behind them and her eyes found Jess, a silver point in the distant sky. Something crashed into him as he flew to catch them up. Silver.

"Go back," Alex yelled. "Go back. We have to help Silver."

"I don't want you anywhere near that dagger," Ice yelled above the wind and rain.

"I don't care," Alex argued. "I said go back."

Ice turned and obeyed her command, streaking back to meet the others in battle. Silver and Jess were tumbling through the sky, wings flapping every direction, fists flying. A platform jutted out of nowhere and they smacked into it as they battled. Bones crunched with the impact. It was Silver, who had broken a wing, and now struggled to get up.

"Let me go," Alex yelled as she and Ice swooped overhead. The dagger had fallen from Jess's grasp, and now he looked between it and Silver, deciding which one to go for.

But Ice did not let her go.

Alex shrieked, trying to push away from him, but he held onto her, hesitating.

Jess sprinted for the dagger, caught it up, turned on a dime and ran for Silver, raising the weapon above his head, ready to strike. His blond hair whipped behind him in wet streaks as he ran.

Alex shifted, twisted, and sprang out of Ice's grasp. She landed in one great bound on the platform between Silver and Jess, lowering her head, growling. She sprang.

Jess slammed into the ground, sliding as the weight of her paws crushed his chest. The air went out of him. The dagger flew from his fingers and slid away. Ice landed near them and picked it up. Jess tried to twist away, thrashing, but Alex had her jaws around his throat. She pinned him to the ground, growling a warning. _Don't move_. It was all she could do not to eat him.

Silver managed to climb to his feet, limping, favoring his shoulder and wing on the left. He and Ice came to her, stood over Jess. Ice drew out a thin silver thread from a pocket in his armor. "I'm sorry, brother," he said softly as he stooped down and reached around Alex's jaws to place the collar around Jess's neck. "But it's time."
Chapter 22: Alex

THE PEOPLE OF the Wyld seemed sated, at least for the time being, by Alex's victory. How could her power be in question when, barely drawn back to their Realm, she had already defeated her age-old enemy? Clearly she had power that they did not know about, did not understand. It was fitting for the Empress of the Wyld.

"You will claim Jess's power when you make him look into the chaos," Silver told her. "He will not be able to resist the pull. The chaos will meld into his soul."

"Change him?" she'd asked.

"Yes."

Alex had a number of qualms about the whole thing. She didn't understand it at all, and the parts she did understand seemed dubious. She wasn't comfortable with the idea of forcing anyone into anything. And if she didn't have to do it right away... she would put it off.

She was busy with other things, anyway.

Sage had been near death when they'd scraped him off the pavement where he'd fallen. His leg had been dangling by only a thread of flesh, and the puddle of blood around him had been more like a lake. They'd brought him back to the Hold, and Silver and Ice had shown her how to draw the magic to him to help him heal. Still, he lay in bed resting, his body working through the process of healing itself beyond what the Wyld could do for him. Alex kept him company. At first, she'd sat beside the bed, gripping his unconscious hand, murmuring to him. Then, when he'd awoken, she'd lain in his arms as he'd requested, soothing him with her nearness. As his consciousness became steadier, they'd talked softly, which had kept him from utter boredom.

With her mind weighing on Jess, who was collared and chained in a cell, Alex had some questions for Sage. "Do you remember when I caught you?" she asked, lying with her head in the crook of his shoulder on his non-wounded side, her arm across his hard stomach.

"...Yes."

"Will you tell me about it?"

There was a long hesitation.

"Was it... bad?" she asked, turning her face up to see his.

He tipped his chin down to look at her. "It was... lonely," he said.

She adjusted herself to look at him better, sliding her hand up his chest.

Sage seemed to be thinking about it for a long time, perhaps lost in that memory. "Well," he finally said, "we were both young, in the way of things. Neither of us knew what we were about. And there was a great distance between us that neither of us knew how to bridge."

"It wasn't the conversion then," she asked, "that was awful?"

He shrugged uneasily, a move that clearly brought him pain. He made a noise and pushed through it. "The conversion was terrifying," he said. "And overwhelming. But no, it was being captive that was the hardest. One day a prince, and the next a pup." He gave her a grim smile.

"Would you go back?" She blinked up at him. "Would you be a prince again?"

"There is no return from what you've shown us," he said. "Imagine pouring together two glasses of water, and then trying to separate them out again."

"But you worried that the others would betray me."

"I still worry," he said. "You mean to bind Jess's power to ours, and I suppose you will refuse to collar us to do so. Do you know what that could mean?"

Alex shrugged it off. "I don't believe that Ice or Silver would betray me."

Sage met her eyes very seriously. "Alex, even within myself I find stray threads of rebellion. It is ingrained in us, whether we care for it or not."

She reached up to stroke his face, her fingers prickling on the stubble of his cheek. "You almost died for me."

"I would willingly die for you," he told her hoarsely, "and I still don't trust myself."

Alex sighed, closing her eyes and pressing her face against him. His animal smell seemed more intoxicating than ever, and more complex. Perhaps being part canine herself was changing her senses.

His hand reached up and stroked her hair and he turned his face to press his lips to the top of her head. She wiggled, wanting to be closer to him, though she was already pressed up against the length of him. She found herself suddenly overcome by his closeness, wanting to absorb him, to touch him, to be one with him. But he was hardly in any shape for physicality.

She raised herself on one elbow and leaned over him, brought her lips softly to his, letting her mouth move over his slowly. He groaned, his one good arm constricting around her, drawing her to him as he kissed her back with need that had him wiggling. Alex laughed softly, drawing away. She touched his nose, looking into his eyes from inches away. "Don't get too worked up," she teased. "You're on bedrest."

"I will happily stay in this bed," he said. "As a matter of fact, I bet you can get me to stay in this bed much longer than otherwise if you just—"

"Hush." She smushed her finger against his lips. "'Rest' is the keyword in 'bedrest'."

He grunted his discontentment.

She brushed his lips one more time, then placed small kisses on his throat, his chest. She laid her head against him and, sighing, closed her eyes.

Alex was beginning to learn the tricks of the Wyld. Conjuring mirrors, opening doors, that sort of thing. She was also beginning to know her way around the many winding tunnels and paths of the Hold, despite its mazelike structure. So, though Silver and Ice had cautioned her to take them with her when she was ready to deal with Jess, she found herself making her way to his cell without them.

It was in a quiet corner of the Hold where the halls echoed their emptiness, making her feel utterly alone. She shivered, pausing outside the room, wondering if he was feeling the depths of that loneliness, too. Perhaps, she thought, she could reason with him. Perhaps, even after his defeat, she could find a way to meet him partway.

Alex sunk her fingers into the smooth, cool wall and pushed magic toward it. She could feel the energy leave her own body and echo through the organic structure as it contracted away to form an opening. She stepped through and reclosed the wall behind her.

The cell was utterly dark, so she whirled a little circle with one finger which created a trail of sparks that spiraled together, turning to solid light. It hovered in the air by her shoulder. Jess squinted up at her, blinking hard against the sudden light.

He was on his knees, shirtless, chained by both arms spread wide with the chains leading to opposite walls. There was another thick manacle around his throat with two chains extending from it, one attached to the floor below him and one running to the ceiling, both pulled taught. Beneath that was the silver thread of the collar, this variety of which, Ice had informed her, kept him from using magic. She'd known about that. But she hadn't visited the room before, hadn't seen him chained. The viciousness of it plunged into her. She blinked at him while he blinked at her.

"This is... not what I expected," she said, when she finally found her voice.

His answer mocked her. "Did you think I'd be on my knees before you without being physically forced into the position?"

"No, I..." She had utterly lost her words.

Alex's feet moved forward. She knelt in front of him, her hand reaching to touch his face. But her fingers stopped only an inch away as he met her eyes with a glare that ate through her, ripping shreds from her heart with the iciness of its touch. Jess was breathing hard through his nose, his chest heaving, his gaze daring her to touch him.

Alex's fingers dropped away as she sat back on her knees.

"Afraid... Empress?" His voice said she should be.

"A little," she admitted breathlessly, awed by the raw power of him, the potency that rolled off of him even chained and collared on his knees.

His gaze flickered with unknown emotion. Clearly he had not expected that answer. But only half a second later it was back to the fierce, raw, I'll-eat-you glare.

Alex's heart raced, her chest heaving, perhaps in response to the way his was. A wave of giddy dizziness rolled up into her head and made her suddenly aware of the feelings piercing the rest of her body. She had definitely... not... expected that. Her fingers ached suddenly to touch him. She raised her hand one more time, but did not dare to let it connect. She lowered it. Raised it again.

Jess tracked her movements with his eyes, like a dog about to snap. His blonde hair hung over his eyes, making her desperately want to brush it away.

She dropped her hand again and leaned slowly forward, brought her face close to his, inches from his, looking into his savage blue eyes. "Oh, god..." she whispered. "What am I going to do with you?"

The obvious suggestion in her voice made his eyes narrow to slits, but he was breathing harder than ever, and Alex felt certain it was not all anger. Suddenly she remembered the feel of his hands on her bare skin, and a noise rose in her throat, all the feelings welling upward.

Jess answered her noise with a low growl in his throat.

She reached her hand toward him again, stopping short another time. She'd realized he couldn't bite off her fingers if he couldn't move. But she could not make herself touch him, either, when he clearly would have bitten off her fingers if he could. The temptation was more than she could bear though. Her hand moved slowly toward his chest, his eyes tracking it. She stopped within an inch of his smooth flesh and let her fingertips glide downward in a long, smooth stroke, hovering just away from him, heading toward his stomach. His abs contracted unwillingly, his throat bobbing. Alex let her eyes connect with his for just a second before watching her fingers move diagonally across his belly button down toward his hip bone. He gasped, sucked in air, and hissed at her.

"So you like that," she murmured, a smile playing at her mouth.

The ferocity rose in his blue eyes like a sun going supernova, and she expected a snarl, a roar. But he suddenly closed those eyes, retreating within himself, panting, his breath slowing, deepening. He had found a way to get away from her, and Alex did not like that at all.

Her fingers still lingered a hair's breadth from his hipbone. She could feel his warmth radiating into the air. She knew if she touched him she would draw him back to her. And god, she wanted to touch him. Her eyes grazed down the long line of his thigh. He was wearing thin, linen pants, like something that might be worn on a tropical island, and, stretched as he knelt, the material left little to the imagination. She could see every contour of his muscular thighs. What's more, the tent between his legs was as painfully obvious as the throbbing need between her own. For just a moment, she imagined having her way with him. Letting her fingers contact his hot skin. Unlacing his drawstring and pushing the pants down. She could already feel the thrill that would shoot through her insides at the sound of the gasp he would make.

Alex shivered, drew in a ragged breath, and ran from the room.

They sat splashing their feet in the cool blue waters below the Hold. Desperately wanting anything that would shock her soul to its depths and rip the previous experience from her grasp, Alex had suggested trying out the waterfall slide. It was not so much a slide, it turned out, as it was a waterfall.

With complete abandon, Alex had followed Silver and Ice off the cliff, jumping into the tumbling water. The thing had been absolutely terrifying. Exactly what she needed. She did not know how or why she had survived dropping thousands of feet and being pummeled by tons and tons of water, but she had. After being churned around a bottomless pool until she was absolutely senseless, the two of them had got hold of her and dragged her from the water. She sat there heaving for what seemed hours, trying to clear the liquid from her lungs.

"Amazing, isn't it?" Silver had beamed at her.

Looking like a drowned, beaten rat, she had managed to give him a bemused smile.

After that they'd stretched themselves out in the sun on a beach of sparkling blue sand, letting the warmth of the day dry their clinging clothes. Then they went back to the water, where a rocky outcropping hung low over the surface, and dangled their toes. The water was cool and soothing to Alex's tired soul.

During this time, they hadn't spoken much. Alex's thoughts had started to churn in her head again. She sighed and looked at Silver on one side, then Ice on the other. She placed one hand on each of their thighs. Ice's tensed briefly, then relaxed under her touch. "You were both my lovers." It sounded like a statement, but she was waiting for confirmation.

"Yes," Silver agreed.

"And—"

"And Sage."

She nodded. She'd already known it, but she'd wanted to hear it from them.

Ice's hand stroked over hers, moving on his leg.

"Once I turn Jess... will he be my lover, too?"

"Do you want him to be?" Ice asked, his eyebrow cocking. When Alex looked at him, she saw a faint undercurrent of jealousy.

Silver cleared his throat. His hand went to the small of her back. "Conquering us and bedding us were two separate things," he explained. After the slightest pause, he grinned and glanced at Ice. "At least, most of us."

Ice threw a cool look back at him. "Unlike others of us," he said, "who apparently were satisfied with a belly scratch."

Silver shrugged and smiled unashamedly. "I get lovemaking and belly scratching. See if you ever get your belly scratched."

Alex was laughing softly. Her fingers squeezed, gripping their thigh muscles. Silver let his hand wander around the curve of her hip.

"I went to Jess's cell," she told them, and when she glanced at them they did not seem surprised. She blushed now. "I don't know what it was... this... heat. My god, I'm lucky I got out of there without humping his leg."

Ice's thigh muscle went rigid. She peeked at him, and he was staring out at the water expressionlessly.

"Don't worry," Silver murmured, leaning close to her. "He'll get used to it eventually. He's never had to deal with a new one, before."

She hadn't thought of it. As Ice gave Silver an impatient look, Alex asked, "Were you jealous... when Ice came?"

Silver looked past her and met Ice's gaze, which had turned from annoyed to curious. "Incredibly," he said. "But not as bad as Sage. He still longs for the days when he had you all to himself."

"But you all..." She squinted, trying to think of a different way to put it, but failed. "...share."

"Much the way that wolves share a kill," Silver laughed. "With plenty of snarling and baring of fangs."

Alex was surprised at the little splinter of disappointment that worked under her skin. She tossed some words out without thinking. "You never considered just... getting along."

A slow smile curled Ice's full lips as he read her. "Even with snarling, wolves manage to eat together, Alex."

She felt herself go wet between the legs as his words moved into her stomach. Silver's hand gliding over the swell of her backside did little to help, nor did his nose pressed to the back of her neck.

Ice reached for her legs, lifted them out of the water, and spun her toward him, pushing her legs apart. Alex tried to right herself but found herself half slumped against Silver. He took her shoulder and pulled her back, lying her across his lap while Ice twisted his torso toward her. Silver stroked back Alex's hair, smiling softly down at her. Ice put one hand on each of her bent knees, drawing them apart a second time, as they seemed to have gravitated back to each other. He pushed them wide, wrapped his hands to the outside of her thighs, and stroked along them, pulling her legs straight, placing one in his lap, and one behind him. He let one hand slide, warm and slow, up the inside of her leg, while Alex stared into Silver's eyes, her heart racing.

"I don't think this one is ready to eat with the pack," Ice observed, noting the tension in her muscles. He let his hand wrap to the outside of her leg and work its way back down.

"She's hardly more than a child," Silver agreed, looking into her eyes with so much warmth. "It's fortunate the beast mind is starting to fade now. Though I'm really not sure how we passed that first day."

Alex had a sudden image of Silver, naked in the light of a fire, eyes full of animal lust. She shivered.

He rested his hand on her ribcage, just beneath her breasts, and leaned over her, waves of brown hair falling around his face. "What do you intend to do with Jess?" he asked. "He's been in that cell for days."

She felt Ice shift under her leg.

"I don't know," she murmured, turning her face toward him. "I thought maybe I could reason with him...."

Both of them laughed.

"I know," she said. "I understand that now, after seeing him. He... despises me."

"You have to realize, Alex," Ice said, "he thought you killed us. That's what I thought, too, before you captured me. Did you not see how he looked at me in the Realm of Sky? Like I was a spirit."

"He really thought you were dead for all those years," she murmured, staring at the sky. "But... he's seen you, now. He knows you're alive. Doesn't that count for anything?"

"He doesn't believe we're really us," Ice told her.

"But, aren't you?"

Ice's and Silver's eyes met, and she could see them trying to read the answer in each other.

"Don't you know?" She sat up, drawing her legs up and placing her arms around them. Silver rubbed the curve of her back, his touch so automatic, always bringing her little waves of pleasure without even thinking.

"It's hard to say," Silver finally answered. "We're not... I mean, we are—" He scrunched up his eyes, trying to make sense of it or trying to figure out how to say it. "What we were still exists," he settled for saying. "Though there is more to us, now. Looking into the chaos does change you. It reveals new things. And in a way, it destroys some of the old."

"Not destroys," Ice said, "but fades. Things that felt concrete to us before are now... ephemeral."

"And what about your Realms?" Alex asked. "Are they still OK? Without you there to rule them?"

Ice and Silver exchanged a look, then Ice's blue eyes met hers. "They're part of the Wyld, now. The same way we are."

"What?" She blinked surprise. "You mean..."

"I mean there is a reason you are called 'Empress'," Ice said. "Four Realms are yours, now. You've taken their power."

Alex took a long moment to think about the implications, though she was sure she wasn't fathoming the half of it. She fixed her eyes on Ice's face, her own expression grave with the weight of this recent knowledge. "And are your Realms well? Have they suffered because of me?"

"They have changed," Silver said firmly, behind her. "The same as us, they've been transformed. In all of the substance of creation, change can be painful. Difficult. It usually is. But without it, there is only stagnation."

Her shoulders relaxed slightly as his words sunk into her. Her voice drifted softly between them. "Chaos."

"The thing is," Silver said, stroking the tips of his fingers down her back, "it doesn't really matter. Once you've come through, there is only this." He raised his eyebrows at Ice. "At least it's that way for me?"

Ice nodded, his dark eyelashes and beautifully curved eyelids emphasized by his downturned gaze. "Maybe it took me longer to come to that point, but I did." His ice-blue gaze turned to Alex, now. "But for all of us, that point is on this side of the chaos, Alex. Jess is not going to submit to you until you turn him. I know you don't want to, but..."

She scrubbed her hands across her face, shaking her head. "No, I don't want to. It feels... wrong." She looked deep into his eyes, wanting him to understand the importance of the question. "What right do I have to do that to him?"

Silver squeezed her arm gently. "Remember he's your enemy, Empress. He would have killed you without hesitation."

"Yes, but... he was your brother."

Silver gave a small shrug. "And he can be again."
Chapter 23: Ice

AS THE NEWEST of them, this was the first time that Ice had to witness a conversion from the outside. He shook as he eyed Jess, who had once been like a brother to him. And he remembered the sharp sting of his own conversion. The sheer rage exploding inside him as he pulled at the chains and shrieked the displeasure of his soul. The humiliation of kneeling before her, unable to save himself. His face, hot. His body trembling. He'd been terrified— that was the worst, the pride breaking in the face of such fear. His expectation of being slaughtered at her hands had passed into something darker, something colder, as he'd realized she'd had other plans. He'd believed then that she meant to dominate him entirely, to take away what he had been.

But he hadn't known.

What Alex was— what she did— was the complete opposite of control. She'd opened his eyes to possibility, to chaos. She'd let him see the Wyld.

Part of him thrilled, remembering the way it had wound tendrils into him, through him. In the span of heartbeats, he had been changed, though he had still raged against her, wanted to kill her, for the sake of having wanted it for so many years. The conversion had only been a beginning that had paved the way to the rest.

Now, the four of them were like one, and as one they trekked up the face of the Calling Peak, a wave of a mountain, if it was a mountain at all. It curled to a sudden stop over nothingness, the highest place in all of the Wyld, unless you took to the sky itself. Jess trudged between them, the chain around his neck a leash in Sage's grip. Jess's hands were bound, and he was collared as well, but Ice was on edge. He knew how dangerous Jess could be.

It took them hours upon hours to reach the summit. Ice was not sure why they hadn't simply flown. Perhaps some odd ritual or tradition. They'd walked Ice up the mountain, too, all those centuries ago. Regardless, it gave him some time to sink inside himself, to prepare himself to witness this inevitable event. Jess, his brother, his friend... The words Ice had spoken on that platform in the Realm of Sky were true. It was time.

Sage jerked the chain, halting Jess unexpectedly short of the very peak. Jess turned a murderous glare on him, looking like he might tackle him, chains and all.

Alex moved to the very edge of the peak. They hadn't needed to tell her this part. The chaos called to her.

She raised her hands to the sky, the swift winds of the peak blasting her fur cloak away from her body to reveal the beautifully curved shape of her backside. She wore knee-length fur boots decorated with bone tassels. Bare thighs. A short red skirt split at both sides and belted with a thin leather strap ornamented in carved othok beaks. Her shirt was a primitive scrap of leather that looked like it had been ripped onto her. And her black hair blew loose on the wind, feathers and beads tucked into it haphazardly. Ice did not think he had ever seen her look more like she belonged to this place. His heart soared at the sight of her, and he had to keep his feet planted firmly where they were to resist sweeping her into his arms and interrupting her magic.

She raised her face and called to the sky, plucking her scythe from the chaos. With a roar, she swung it in a great arc, slashing open the heart of the Wyld.

The sky hung open in a great mouth, wonders of red magic plummeting and churning within.

Ice gasped, feeling the charge of magic shock through him. He hadn't expected to feel it as a bystander, but it filled him, storming his veins with electricity. He managed to turn his eyes to Sage.

Silver had joined Sage, now, and together, they each took Jess by one shoulder, as they had once done to Ice. Ice jolted with the shock of that, the memories flooding him. But he found himself moving to them, placing himself behind Jess, adding his own hand to the ones that would guide their once-brother to his new destiny.

Together, they moved Jess forward, though he planted his feet in the ground and had to be dragged.

Alex turned to them, stretched her arm toward them. They brought Jess to her. He fought and twisted and kicked, but the three of them got him to the edge, where her fingers curled around his arm. His face was to the chaos. He froze. It had hold of him, now.

Sage and Silver and Ice let their hands fall away, leaving him to her. His gaping blue eyes reflected the red magic in bursts and flares. His mouth hung open, chest heaving.

Ice could feel the power surging around them all. He raised his face to the sky and crowed. His brothers howled and crowed with him. Alex was laughing at their delight, absorbed in Jess and the moment and the force of it all.

Jess's shoulders jolted. His body jerked. Alex's eyes went a little wider as she regarded him. She opened her mouth to say something, but Jess had ripped his arm from her and was shaking himself like a dog trying to fling off water. He clamped his eyes shut, curling in on himself, and when he came up again, he looked around, his eyes darting. He looked over the cliff. And he jumped.

The rest of them froze.

Then Ice screamed and dove after him, wings pushing him desperately downward. Jess was collared against magic. He could not fly. Clearly, he meant to defy them with his own death. Terror clutching him like a monster, Ice flew harder than he could ever remember flying before, his body an arrow shooting toward the earth. He only just grabbed Jess out of the air before they hit the ground. Too close. He could not recover properly. They smacked into the ground and tumbled.

Ice lay starfished, breathing for a few seconds. His body seemed to be in one piece, though that piece felt like it had been pounded by a meat mallet. He scraped himself up, staggering, to find that Jess had done the same. They looked at each other. As Silver and Sage alighted on Jess's other side, Ice reached into the chaos and drew his weapon along with them. They faced their captive down.

Jess simply glared at them.
Chapter 24: Alex

ALEX WAS SHAKING as they arrived back at the Hold. She did not know what had gone wrong, only that something had gone terribly wrong. Jess had looked into the chaos and had somehow resisted it. He had not been turned.

It should not have been possible.

Sage, Silver, and Ice threw her dark looks as they turned off to drag Jess back to his cell. Jess tugged at the bonds, his fingers pulling at the metal locked around his throat. Sage growled at him and gave the chain a jerk, sending him stumbling. As Jess recovered, he leveled such a glare at Sage that Alex thought he was about to charge. But the thin silver collar prevented his anger turning toward them. At least, Alex thought it did. Now, she wasn't entirely sure.

Shaking herself, she moved away from them and wandered absently, deep in thought. Her feet led her toward the throne, toward the focus of her power, even though it was no longer there.

The throne chamber was empty, save for one creature. One embodiment of creatures, anyway.

Tinal turned toward her as she entered the room. "Empress... you have need of us?" Tinal had somehow known.

Together they sat on the steps of the dais, and Alex related what had happened. When she had finished, they sat through a long silence.

"Let us go to the Wheel and ask the Wyld," Tinal finally said.

Alex did not understand, but she nodded.

"I will put out the call," Tinal said and rose to glide away.

Moments later, a thunderous drumming sounded through the Hold, ringing out across the entire Realm.

Later that night, Alex found herself winging her way across the Wyld, carried in Ice's arms. Sage and Silver were close beside them. There were other creatures in the air.

Those who had answered the call were a select few, a sort of disorganized priesthood, that joined them at the Wheel. As they swooped downward, Alex marveled at the pattern of lights that burst from the ground, shaped in spokes that radiated toward a circular edge. It was as if someone had planted stars right into the earth itself. Scattered in and amongst the lights were standing stones, huger than any Alex had ever seen on earth. The creatures— perhaps fifty of them in all— arranged themselves in alignment to the points of light and the stones. Sage and Silver and Ice stood back, watching. Alex could not help but notice the tension each of them wore. The muscles of their backs and shoulders were tighter than normal, strained as though they were ready to spring. This thing with Jess had set all of them off, left them uncertain. That uncertainty manifested itself in a readiness to act, a desire to be physical. Perhaps it was a remnant of the animal mind, or perhaps it was simply part of the chaos that now filled them, but whatever it was, all three of them clearly longed to release their frustration by pommeling something.

"We are ready, Empress," said Tinal, breaking Alex's train of thought and bringing her back to the present task. She pulled her eyes from the three massive warriors and scanned the field of stones and stars before her.

Alex walked to her place at the center of the Wheel. Drawing her scythe from the chaos, she planted the staff end of it into the ground at her feet. No one had told her how to do this. More and more, the magic was coming to her, as was the need to claim this place. She fixed both hands side by side on the staff of her scythe. As though she were stirring a giant pot of thick soup, she began to pull. The earth beneath her rumbled and moved. Alex's effort turned into a slow spin, her feet rotating her in a circle. The ground shifted with her. She could feel the weight of the Wheel, the pull. Once it began to really move, it gained momentum. She spun freely now, urging the Wheel to higher velocity. The world beyond her whipped into a dizzy streak. She spun; the Wheel spun. They blurred into motion and light, and she felt the all-consuming power of the magic descend upon them all.

She woke up, flat on her back in the grass, reeling. For a long while, she lay wondering how the sky had become so beautiful, how night could sweep away in so many washes of colors, how the stars could be brighter than light itself. She sat up all at once, feeling her head rush with the movement of blood. Her hands flew to her temples, where it pulsed and throbbed in her head. Somewhere not far away, others were conversing. She forgot about her head, climbed to her feet, and joined the group. Her hellpups were there, still vibrating with tension, and so was Tinal.

"We have had an answer, Empress," Tinal said. "Though you won't like it."

She raised one eyebrow. "No?"

Sage's green eyes met hers, intense with some unknown emotion.

Thankfully, Tinal was not one for drawing things out unnecessarily. Their face shifted, new features emerging under the stretch of white. "When the rulers of the Realms were drawn from the substance of creation, they were drawn in balance and harmony. Their essences always pulled together, magnetic to each other, even as they clashed."

"By 'they', I assume you do mean 'we'," Alex said, making a circle that included herself, Sage, Ice, and Silver.

A new face appeared in Tinal. "Yes, Empress. You hunted each other as it was your nature to do so. None of you are complete without the others." A new face. "But you cannot be joined through force."

Three sets of male eyebrows climbed higher at this news.

"Your domination of these is merely a vision, a dream. The coupling of power is not complete. Not without all."

Alex was not sure she really understood it all. "And Jess?"

"The last one must come to you. All must agree."

"That makes no sense," Alex complained. "This is the Wyld. We like chaos."

Tinal continued. "Order is chaotic to chaos. Sometimes it exists."

"So I heard," Alex murmured, casting a look at Sage.

"It was the heart of chaos that rejected Jess, Empress," Tinal explained. "As the last of the princes, it will not have him until he will have it."

Alex sighed, her shoulders deflating. There was a snowball's chance in hell that Jess would ever come round to her way of thinking. Without him, her struggle to maintain control of her Realm would continue, even though the people were satisfied, for now. Alex needed his power, and she knew it. But getting it was not going to be as simple as she thought.

"Thank you, Tinal," she said for now. "It looks like I shall have to do some thinking."

When the others had left and she was alone with Sage, Silver, and Ice, she sat down in the grass and wrapped her arms about her legs. "Apparently, the chaotic heart of my Realm thought it would be funny to outright reject my conquering, tempestuous ways. The only way to bring Jess to us is to convince him to do it willingly." She sighed. "What do I do now?"

Silver looked at the other two, shrugged, then said, "Scratch his belly?"

Clearly Jess was a puzzle that would take some figuring out. Alex had every intention of rising to that challenge, but the others cautioned her that it would take time. Possibly lifetimes. For the moment, the power she had demonstrated in capturing Jess seemed to be plenty to impress her subjects with the rightness of her claim. And though it wouldn't last forever, it would do for the time being. With Jess being the long road that he was, Alex's mind turned to other things.

"Are you sure you want to do this, Alex?" Sage asked as they came to the end of the passageway and stood looking at the dazzling light of the opening. Despite his words, clearly he wanted to do it, because everything about him was still swimming with the same barely-contained energy that the hellpups had sizzled with since Jess had failed to absorb the chaos.

Alex already had her scythe in her hand. She'd shifted into her horned, glowing-eyed form, and those eyes were intensely staring into the portal's light as though she might see beyond it.

"She's sure," Silver answered for her, his glare and posturing as intense as hers. Silver was the only one to whom Alex had told the whole story, and he was set on blood.

Ice, as cool and smooth as ever, strode past them, staff in hand. "Then let's go." He stepped through and the rest were right behind him.

This was the first passageway that Alex had made, and with a little instruction from the others, she had gotten it spot on. Not only the location, but the timing.

They melted through the light and stepped into the common room, where junkies' eyes flashed wide, hookers shrieked and fled, and thugs and dealers leapt to their feet with startled exclamations.

The four of them had donned their armor for the occasion, and with the mix of glowing red runes, vicious-looking weapons, and partially shifted fangs the boys bared now, they were a sight to behold. Not to mention that they'd just stepped into the room out of nowhere.

Alex's eyes fixed on Hector. The drug dealer had leapt to his feet with the others. Now he was completely frozen as he stared at them wide-eyed. Alex moved past the others and strode up to him. Her glowing eyes pierced into him as she lifted her chin and rolled her shoulders back. "I find you guilty of pissing me off."

Alarm flashed in Hector's dark eyes, but his fight instincts won out over flight. His eyes narrowed. He reached for the gun he kept stuffed in the back of his belt.

Pivoting, Alex swept the staff of her scythe in a wide arc that knocked his legs from under him and sent him sprawling onto his backside. She tossed her hair, threw Hector one more disgusted glare, and moved past him. As she did, she snapped her fingers. "Silver." A ferocious snarl answered her command. Alex did not bother to look back to view the ensuing chaos.

Sounds of battle raged from the room behind her. Shrieking and growling and gunfire. Alex left the room and found the next hallway. She took the narrow staircase upward, the old boards complaining loudly with each of her steps. When she reached the top, she remembered to shift back to her fully human form. She did not want to frighten anyone, now.

Cindy was sitting in her favorite spot in the large windowsill of one of the upper rooms, her long legs bent, her body curled with the curve of the window. The broken panes scattered a web of light across her. She wore a shirt that hung off one shoulder, short, ripped shorts that exposed the sensual dark flesh of her slender legs. Her hair was caught up in a little ponytail that created a puff of curls at the crown of her head. A cigarette dangled between two fingers. As her dark eyes turned to Alex, she raised one eyebrow, took a drag, blew it out slowly, and asked, "What the hell is going on down there?"

"Oh, just a little payback for Hector," Alex said, crossing the room to her friend.

Now Cindy's eyes flashed and she sat up straight.

"Don't worry," Alex told her. "We're leaving. For good."

Those lovely eyes narrowed on her. Cindy laughed lightly. "Good one, Al. Don't mess with me like that. I thought you were serious for a second."

"I am."

Cindy twisted the butt of her cigarette into the worn, paint-flaked boards of the windowsill and swung her legs down onto the floor, giving Alex her full attention. "You know I daydream about that as much as the next girl," she said. "But there's no such thing."

Alex allowed the smile to stretch onto her lips, now. "There is. I promise." She reached one hand out to her longtime friend. "Do you trust me?"

Looking from her hand to her face, Cindy's head tilted. "Yeah," she finally said. "I do."

Absolute love flooded through Alex, because she knew exactly how difficult it was for Cindy to find that trust. She knew how unlikely, how impossible it was that the thing she offered was true. Her smile widened and she grabbed up her friend's hand. "Come on then. Let's go."

Cindy pulled back as they started toward the door. "Wait. I've got some money stashed."

"You don't need it where we're going."

Now Cindy gave her another calculating look. "Girl, are you sure you haven't lost your mind?"

"I swear I haven't," Alex laughed. "But you'll think you have before this night is through."

Cindy's eyes flashed again, looking past her, and Alex turned to find Sage in the doorway, only a couple of paces from her. The stealth of his movement still amazed her. With the glowing armor and his whip hanging from his grasp, he clearly did not belong to this world.

Alex turned from him to Cindy, smiling. "See what I mean?"

Back at the Hold, Alex sat Cindy down and explained everything to her as calmly and logically as she could. She started out with, "I know this all seems crazy and you don't believe it right now, but in time you will. Everything from now on is going to be better. It's going to be great. I promise."

When they had stumbled through hours of conversation, and Alex had made sure that Cindy had eaten, she left her friend tucked up in her own room, in her own bed. It was the first room and the first bed that had ever belonged to Cindy in her whole life, and Alex had prepared it carefully before they'd left, choosing all the things that she thought her friend would love. Fabrics in soft purple, the fluffiest pillows she could find. Clothes that Cindy would drool over. Perfume and lotions in sweet, spicy scents— Cindy loved spicy-smelling things. A jeweled silver comb for her hair. Jewelry worked of the finest gems and metals the Realm had to offer. As Alex stepped from the room and closed the opening, tears gathered in her eyes. Of all the things the Wyld had given her, this was the best one yet. To be able to give something to someone else.

Silver was waiting for her at the end of the hall. He'd washed off the shocking amounts of blood he'd been bathed in when they'd joined up.

"You didn't kill him, did you?" She'd told him not to, but she wasn't entirely sure he'd listened. And she hadn't had it in her to ask before.

His expression, his tone of voice, bore no regret. "I killed him."

She stopped before him, regarding him.

"No one lays hands on you unless you approve of it," he said. "He's not the first who has died for it, and he won't be the last." One large shoulder raised in a half-shrug. "He would not have wanted to live. His death was a mercy."

Alex decided that she would rather not have the details. She gave him a single nod and moved on.

He fell in at her side. "How is your friend?"

"A bit shell-shocked." Alex glanced at him, managing a small smile. "Can't say I blame her. But she's the most resilient person I know. She'll probably bounce back quicker than I did."

"The others were unsure that a normal human wouldn't break under the mental strain."

"And you?"

His eyes connected with hers. "I don't imagine you'd choose a normal human as your closest friend."

Alex's fingers found his arm and squeezed. "I can almost forgive you for everything, Silver." She stopped and turned to him, crooked smile on her lips. "For tossing me through the air. For all the taunts. Enticing me into deadly waterfalls. Disobeying me." She reached up to touch his face, to look into his ash-grey eyes. "Sometimes all of that seems to fade away."

He answered her with a wicked grin. "I suppose I'll have to try harder, then."
Chapter 25: Alex

ALEX LOUNGED IN the decadent swaths of red silk and plump pillows that scattered the round bed she had slept in her first night in the Wyld. She'd had the hellpups retrieve it, along with the other dressings, from the stronghold where they'd entered the Wyld. Though the entire Hold was now well-furnished with all the things her people had brought, there was a fondness in her for that particular bed, as it was her first taste of what the Realm had to offer. Even on earth, she'd never had anything remotely indulgent, and the fabrics and textures of the Wyld were gratifying beyond compare. Rich and luxurious and sensual in every way. She thought she could have stayed in that bed for days.

The bed itself was made even more sensuous by the addition of three gorgeously sculpted males, who had arrayed themselves at various angles around her, displaying stretches of taut stomach, corded thigh, and mounded shoulder. They were wearing only undergarments, and the styling of those was also far more enticing than anything she had seen on earth. Silver's seemed to be two flaps strung together at the waist, and as he stretched on his stomach, propped on his elbows, with the swoop of his muscled back leading toward a nicely rounded backside, Alex found herself tempted to lift the flap in question and find out if there was anything under there.

_Well, there's definitely something under there_.

She wiggled, enjoying the feeling of the baby-soft fabric of her gown shifting against her skin. Ice's fingers drummed on her stomach.

Sage was lying on his back, staring up at the ceiling. He ticked off on his fingers as he spoke. "Bond against magic. Bond against treachery. Against flight. Against deceit..."

"Against self-harm," Ice spoke up, though seemingly absorbed with Alex's bellybutton. He'd found it beneath her gown, and he seemed to be enjoying the fabric's texture as much as Alex, running his fingertips over the area in exploration.

"Against icy glares and sarcasm," Alex tossed in there.

Silver laughed.

"Against summoning help?" Sage tipped his head, thinking about it, then ticked the finger off. Why not?

"How many necklaces are we talking?" Alex asked, trying to keep her voice steady against a sudden contraction of her stomach.

"You can make it all into one," Sage answered, lifting his head to look at her. He scowled as he watched Ice cup his mouth over Alex's belly and blow hot air.

"One?" Her voice seemed a bit threadbare.

His foot shoved into Ice's side. "Yes. It will take a bit of time and effort, but you are capable of it."

"We want to make sure we've got the whole list before you make it," Silver pitched in, his eyes flicking from Ice to Sage in amusement. "You can only use one at a time, and with all the effort you'll put into layering the bindings, it would be annoying to have to remake it because we forgot something."

"Well definitely write down the glaring bit," Alex smirked.

"I'm sure if there was anti-glaring magic, you would have made it into necklaces for these two long ago," Silver mused.

It was true that Ice and Sage were glaring at each other.

"I wouldn't talk much if I were you." Alex reached out and smacked him on that tempting behind. "You've been throwing around your fair share of glares, too."

Silver gave her a bemused smile and rolled onto his side, where gravity revealed that there was definitely nothing, and something, under the flap.

"Anything else to throw into the mix?" she asked, pulling her eyes away from the display.

Silver and Sage were both quiet, and Ice was too busy trying to nibble her stomach to have been any use. She ran one hand over his soft crop of hair and let her fingers toy with the tiny curls at the nape of his neck.

"Well, that's the first thing covered," she said, sighing, and then gasping as a chill shot through her stomach. She wriggled and focused on the conversation. "But the question still is, how in hell am I ever going to get Jess to join us?"

There was more silence.

Finally, Silver shrugged and said in all seriousness, "You could seduce him."

Alex gave him a disapproving look, and Ice surfaced long enough to glare at him.

"What?" Silver blinked at him. "It worked on you."

Curious, Alex turned her gaze on Ice. "Is that so?" She'd been hearing the hints all along, and she wanted the full story.

"I would tell you," he murmured, still focused on her belly, "but since the course of that seduction took over three hundred years, I would rather just..." His fingers brushed downward, grazing her hipbones, further, across her lower belly. She shivered. He found the bottom hem of the short, slinky gown and pushed it up, revealing a stretch of lacy panty. His lips descended on bare stomach now, his tongue probing just over her ovaries.

Alex moaned.

Ice bit off a grunt as Sage's foot thrust into his side again, but he did not allow it to interrupt what he was doing.

Silver's head tipped sideways, watching him, watching Alex.

"Is it gonna take me... three hundred years to... seduce Jess?" Alex panted.

Ice stopped long enough to throw Silver another brief glare before lowering his mouth to Alex's belly yet again. Clearly he did not approve of that plan... but he was busy.

"Not if you keep panting like that," Silver smirked, and with a twitch of his hand indicated how effective the panting was.

Alex's eyebrows jerked in appreciation.

But Sage was growling... that deep growl that indicated that a dog fight was about to break out.

Alex sat up, scooting back, gently pushing Ice away. She crossed her legs under her, straightening her gown, and looked at them all, trying to focus on the conversation at hand. "Are you all serious? Do you not have any other plan?"

"We could... keep him locked in a cell for a thousand years and see if he breaks," Sage said.

She pointed at him. "Sarcasm necklace for you, hellpup."

Ice's mouth jerked into a smile while Sage glowered.

"It's not just me," she told them. The realization had come to her suddenly. "It's us. You all heard Tinal. We were meant to join. We've all been looking for a way to join since we were formed."

Silver sighed, and there was something so sweet and melancholy in that sigh. But his words were, "God, yes, we have. I can remember a few times, too, that I was pretty sure the force of our substance smacking against each other was going to—"

It was Alex kicking Silver in the side this time. He grabbed her foot and hauled it toward him, and with a shriek she found herself halfway across the bed flat on her back. He pounced on her, getting on top of her, but ever so slowly lowering his weight onto hers, his eyes looking deep into hers.

Alex was panting again. The length of his hard body stretched against hers. Her arms wrapped his neck, drawing him into a deep kiss, and her legs circled his waist, tightening around him.

And Sage's previous growl was nothing compared to what rumbled out of him, now.

"Oh, god," Alex moaned, releasing Silver and giving him a shove. "You three are impossible."

"Me?" Silver gestured to his chest as he sat up. "I'm not the one who's been growling."

Alex sighed heavily, managing to upright herself, and crawled over to Sage. He was still lying on his back— he hadn't made a move to initiate a fight— but he was definitely scowling. She ran her fingers along his shoulder and down his arm. "Don't be jealous," she cooed. "I'm right here."

"Unbelievable," muttered Ice.

"You know what they say," Silver muttered with him. "Bitchy hellpup gets the grease."

Ice snorted his amusement.

Alex turned a chastising gaze on them. She was growing ever frustrated with this game. The more the magic of the Wyld took hold of her, the more she felt the instinct to lay claim to this Realm, the more she wanted all of them as well. Not just in a physical way. She was starting to feel that the three of them belonged to her, that they were part of who she was. It was as Tinal had said. She wanted to join with them. She wanted them to complete her. But they were still on edge, still filled with pressure that threatened to erupt once again into violence. They seemed more interested in fighting over her than in actually having her, and that fact annoyed Alex to the depths of her core. "Would you all like to just split me into three pieces and take one for yourself?"

Silver's eyes scanned down her, clearly considering which piece he would want.

Meanwhile, Sage's hand clamped down on her arm, demanding her attention. "Ignore them," he murmured to her. "Come here." His arm went round her back and thrust her against him. Kissing her with increasing longing, his other hand pulled her face to his. Alex's fingers contracted on his chest like a cat's claws. Shivers were breaking through her.

...And the others were growling.

She disentwined herself from Sage, which was a difficult task because every time she unwound one seeking, grasping, squeezing appendage, another one seemed to appear. Was the man an octopus? The increased growling behind her spurred her to new urgency, and she managed to get herself away. She sat in the middle of the bed, in the middle of the three of them, feeling thoroughly pawed. Her hair was mussed, hanging over her face, her body was aching with desire, and these three mutts could not seem to sort out their differences. She huffed a big sigh, glaring at them each in turn.

They looked past her, at each other. Lips were curling, the beginnings of more rumbling in their throats.

"Aw, the hell with it," Alex spat. If they insisted on chaos....

She shifted into she-wolf form. They blinked surprise. She wiggled her tail at them then took off running. Alex bolted through the winding passageways of the Hold, a snarling pack of hellhounds on her trail.

**End of _The Wyld_**

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Journey along with Alex and her hellpups as the series continues in _Fall of Sky_ and _All That's Lost_ , available now.

**The fate of the Wyld lies in the hands of the prince who yearns to see it destroyed... unless Alex can change his heart in time.**

When demons start coming through a rift in the sky, Alex must do everything in her power to protect her Realm. But her power alone is not enough. She needs Jess's help. It could take the course of centuries to convince him to join her, but time is not on her side.

Her hellpups will do anything to help her, even as they face their own struggles through a churning mix of emotions brought on by her reincarnation and Jess's presence at the Hold. The truth is, they will do too much. They'll risk themselves long before they'll allow any harm to come to her. They will lay down their very lives.

And if Alex loses them... the Wyld... the Realms... none of it will mean anything to her.

_Fall of Sky_ is the second book of _The Wyld_ , a slow-burn, steamy reverse harem fantasy series. The adventure continues in the third book, _All That's Lost_.

Also by Parker de Vesci

**The Wyld: Reverse Harem Fantasy**

_The Wyld_

_Fall of Sky_

_All That's Lost_

_A Date With Chaos_

**Contemporary Romance**

_Crashing Down_

_Luck and Virtue_
