Black City

“Where did you get those pants? I never pegged you for the leather type. Although I like them,” he said, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively and peeking around me. “They make your backside look good.”

I punched him in the shoulder. “Just because I kissed you does not mean you get to be a lech.”

“Well, what does it mean?” he said.

“Right now, not much. This isn’t the time for a heart-to-heart,” I said. “We took you from Titania but we’ve got no way of leaving this place until we can get to the borders of her lands and call for Lucifer’s help. We can’t walk there without killing a lot of time, and time is something we don’t have much of.”

I told him about Therion’s message and what was happening in Chicago. Then I told him about the harpies.

“Are you out of your mind?” J.B. asked. “If the harpies detect us, they will rip us limb from limb and eat us, and not in that order.”

“We’re pretty much out of options,” I said. “If we stay here, Titania will rip us limb from limb and then feed us to one of her pets.”

He rubbed his forehead. “Why is it your plans are always insane?”

“Maybe because we’re always in insane circumstances,” I said. I saw the others approaching us. “Listen, J.B. Titania punished you because of me.”

“Yeah, I know,” he said. “Don’t worry about it.”

“No,” I said. “I can never make it up to you.”

He looked down at himself. “You seem to have already, since my previously broken parts are no longer broken.”

“J.B., she tortured you,” I said. “That doesn’t just go away.”

“Don’t worry about me, Black. I’ve got a sturdy constitution,” he said.

Beezle landed on my shoulder. “Told you it would work.”

“Are you going to be insufferable now?” I said. I was a little annoyed that J.B. wasn’t taking his trauma and my guilt about it very seriously.

“No more than usual,” Beezle said. “So, how are we going to do this, then?”

“I will carry Madeline,” Nathaniel said. “And Samiel can carry Jude.”

“I can carry Maddy,” J.B. said.

“You were just unconscious a second ago,” I said. “And you can hardly see without your glasses.”

“I’m fine,” he said in that tone that men get when you imply that their manliness might be less than optimal.

“We are not going to argue about this,” I said. “You’re still recovering. All I want you to do is get yourself safely to the top of that mountain.”

He screwed up his face. I knew he couldn’t see the point that I was referring to, and there was no way in hell he would admit that.

Chloe and J.B. pushed out their wings. I watched them with no small amount of jealousy. Nathaniel and J.B. tried to prove who was the better man by carting me around, but I would have preferred to be able to fly without assistance from either of them.

Nathaniel scooped me into his arms and Beezle shifted from my shoulder to J.B.’s. Samiel slung Jude over his shoulders.

“Fly as fast as you can,” I said to all of them. I looked at Chloe. “Stay close to J.B.”

She nodded. J.B. looked insulted, but he was half-blind at the moment and I didn’t want him veering off course.

Nathaniel shifted me in his arms. It was going to be difficult for us to defend ourselves from the harpies with me in this position.

“How do you kill a harpy?” I asked curiously.

I didn’t know much about them except that they were half-bird, half-woman and that there was one in the film The Last Unicorn. That harpy had scared the bejeezus out of me as a kid.

“Play to your strengths,” Beezle said.

“You want me to set them on fire?”

“It’s probably the most efficient way of getting rid of them,” J.B. agreed. “And you’re the only one here who can throw fire.”

“Nothing like the fate of the whole party resting on your shoulders. You’d all better fly ahead of us, then, so you don’t get caught in the cross fire,” I said. “All right, let’s go.”

We waited for the others to take off first. I looked at him.

“I’m not going to get much done if you carry me like a baby,” I said.

“If you shift to the position you were in when the Agents chased us, I could hold you steady while you fired behind me,” he said.

“Yeah,” I said, and climbed up, wrapping my legs around his waist. Nathaniel put one hand under my butt and the other around my waist. I could see over Nathaniel’s shoulder in this position, and both of my hands were free. Please, don’t let J.B. look back.

I felt that same electricity between us again, that crazy burning lust that had settled just under the surface of my skin. Nathaniel felt it, too. It was there in the flare of his eyes, but he didn’t say anything and neither did I.

Nathaniel spread his wings wide and lifted from the ground. I focused intently on the sky behind us, watching the trees in the forest that we had left hours ago. There was no sound, no movement.

“How quickly could the harpies catch up with us?” I shouted to Nathaniel.

“Very quickly,” he said. His hand shifted, pressing me tighter against him.

I was getting breathless, and not from the stress of watching for harpies. “Nathaniel, now is not the time.”