Seemingly convinced Levet had come alone, Tane turned to study the gargoyle with a disbelieving scowl.
“Styx sent you?”
Levet gave an airy wave of his hand. “In a manner of speaking.”
The honey eyes narrowed. “Did he send you or not?”
Levet took a sudden interest in polishing the end of his tail. “Well, it is difficult to say precisely what he desired considering I was speaking through a portal and our connection was not exactly 3G. There was some yadda yadda about this and some yadda yadda about that …”
“Levet.”
Sensing death in the air, Laylah hurriedly searched for a distraction.
“What the hell is a Charon anyway?”
It was Levet who answered. “A vampire executioner.”
“Nice.” She turned to meet Tane’s guarded gaze, belatedly realizing why the vampires had been so anxious to kill him in the cave. She’d bet he was the least popular guy at the family reunions. “No wonder you’re so eager to hand me over to the lynch squad.”
His dark brows lifted. “Lynch squad?”
“Tell me, is there some sort of Executioner Code of Honor?” she demanded. “Do you share bounties?”
“I do my duty.”
“You deal in death.”
He stiffened, almost as if her harsh words had wounded him. Which was beyond ridiculous.
“Deal in death.” Levet chuckled, blithely unconcerned by the lethal vampire that hovered mere feet away. “Death Dealer … get it?” His gray eyes widened. “Helloooo, did no one watch Underworld?”
Tane shot him a furious glare. “Go away, gargoyle.”
“And leave poor Laylah alone with a cold-hearted Charon? Do not be absurd.”
With a slow deliberate motion, Tane removed the dagger from his waistband. “That wasn’t a request.”
“No.” Laylah stepped between the two bristling males. “I want him to stay.”
Levet peeked around her knee to spray a raspberry at the towering demon.
“What can I say? I am irresistible to women.”
Tane ran a finger along the sharpened blade. “I doubt she would find you so irresistible if she’d heard your earlier opinion of Jinns and their offspring. As I recall you were foaming at the mouth to have Laylah hauled to the Commission.”
“Non, non, ma cherie. Never foaming,” the tiny gargoyle protested, moving to regard her with a pleading gaze. “It was merely that I had a most unpleasant encounter with a Jinn some years ago. Can you believe he mutilated one of my beautiful wings? It took me years to grow it back.”
Laylah shrugged aside the familiar sting of rejection. What did it matter? Levet was merely another to add to the very long list of those who judged her a monster without even knowing anything about her.
Instead she concentrated on his shocking revelation as she fell to her knees and grasped his shoulders.
“A Jinn?” she breathed. “Are you certain?”
“I assure you that it was an encounter that has been barbecued into my mind.”
“Barbecued?” She frowned before giving a dismissive shake of her head. “Never mind. Was the Jinn in this dimension?”
“Just barely.” Levet shuddered.
“Where?”
Another shudder. “London.”
“Gods.” Laylah struggled to breathe, her heart squeezed in a tight fist of disbelief. Since the day she’d been old enough to discover she was a mongrel she’d desperately sought to discover another with Jinn blood. She had finally accepted that she was completely alone in this world. “When?”
Levet blinked in surprise. “Really, ma belle, a gargoyle does not reveal his age.”
“Please, Levet. It’s important.”
“Two hundred years ago.” He shrugged. “Give or take a decade.”
Tane stepped forward, his expression suspicious as he easily sensed her trembling excitement. “Laylah, we need to talk …”
“I don’t think so.” She licked her dry lips. “Levet and I have business to attend to.”
“Ah, now that is the kind of business I am always eager to conduct.” He waggled his heavy brow. “I do hope it involves the removal of clothing and the rubbing of wings.”
“Actually it involves a trip to London.”
“London.” Levet shook his head. “Non, such a damp and gray place. I far prefer Paris. Now that is a city created for lovers.”
She slowly straightened, keeping her hand on Levet’s shoulder. She had never tried to carry someone into the mists, but now seemed like the perfect moment to give it a whirl.
“I need to find the Jinn.”
Levet cleared his throat. “Ummm, Laylah …”
Tane instinctively moved to block the door to the barn, his expression unreadable.
“I can’t let you leave, Laylah.”
Arrogant ass.
Her smile was taunting. “I don’t need your permission, vampire.”
His muscles coiled as he prepared to pounce, belatedly realizing that a Jinn had more than one means of travelling.
“Adios, He-Man.”
Closing her eyes, Laylah called on the faint echoes that were forever whispering in the back of her mind. At the same time she ignored the infuriated Tane as he rushed toward her, his icy power filling the barn, as well as the gargoyle at her side who was frantically tugging at the frayed hem of her denim shorts.
“Laylah, there’s something I need to tell you …”
Did they not realize just how dangerous it was to distract her at this delicate point?
Conjuring the image of a shimmering curtain, she mentally squared her shoulders and stepped forward, dragging a reluctant Levet with her.
She unconsciously grimaced, as always unnerved by the sensation that she was stepping through a nasty shroud of cobwebs. It felt so tangible that it was always a shock when she tried to brush them away and found nothing.
And then there was the pain. Tiny pinpricks that bit into her as if trying to flay the flesh from her bones.
One thing was certain, she acknowledged grimly, shadow walking would never replace airplanes and cruise ships.
Hell, riding a donkey had to be preferable.
The inane thought barely crossed her mind when the pinpricks abruptly became a deluge of agony.
She grabbed Levet close, screaming as they were roughly jerked through the barrier. Gods, she felt as if someone was attempting to jerk her inside out.
After a hellacious journey that ended with a jarring landing that left her splayed across a hard ground hidden by the thick, silvery mist, Laylah took a much needed moment to catch her breath.
WTF?
Not even her first fumbling forage through the barrier that separated dimensions had been so harrowing. Or brutal. A good thing. She’d never have tried it again.
Grimacing as her body struggled to heal her crushed ribs and several internal injuries that she didn’t even want to think about, she battled to push herself into a sitting position, her eyes widening with furious disbelief at the sight of the vampire crouched at her feet.
The bastard.
No wonder she’d nearly been ripped into a thousand pieces.
It was bad enough she’d brought Levet through the barrier, but to add a huge, freaking vampire who had been clinging like a barnacle to her ass …
She shuddered.
Wasn’t that how black holes were created? As if sensing her feral glare, Tane struggled to lift his head, obviously as battered by the trip as she was. Good. He deserved to suffer.
“Damn you,” he rasped, his gaze darting about the silver mists that swirled around them. “What have you done?”
“Me?” Her mouth dropped in sheer disbelief. “You nearly killed me you oversized, troll-brained brute.” She slowly pushed herself to her feet, unwilling to remain in the corridor any longer than necessary. Not only did she fear that the doorways to other dimensions might open and suck her from the mist, but time tended to move oddly. When she emerged it could be a few minutes had passed, or it could be days. Once she’d even come out to discover that it was two days before she’d ever entered. Talk about screwing with the whole space/time continuum. She turned her attention to the tiny gray bundle that was nearly hidden in the fog. Her heart gave a tiny leap of alarm. “Is Levet hurt?”
With a loud hiss, Tane rose to his feet, absently brushing the dried blood from his chest as he moved to stand beside her.
“Just unconscious.”
“Thank God.” She lifted a hand to rub her aching neck as the relief poured through her.
He frowned. “What’s wrong?”
“I feel like I was hit by a semi.”
He brushed aside her hand and replaced it with his own, his touch firm, but insanely talented as he worked the knots from her muscles.
Mmmm. Her muscles slowly uncoiled as he moved down her spine, a delectable warmth easing the persistent ache in her joints.
Whatever his faults, and they were numerous, this vampire did have talented hands.
Clever, wicked, powerful hands.
Hands that could send a woman to heaven or condemn her to hell, a voice whispered in the back of her mind.
It was the whole hell part that had her spinning away from his mesmerizing massage before she could melt into a puddle at his feet.
“Don’t touch me.”
His lips twisted, revealing he was all too aware of her rampant awareness.
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“Don’t try to bully me, He-Man,” she muttered. “This is my domain.”
“Your domain?” He lifted a brow. “And that would make you Skeletor?” “Ha, ha. Hysterical.”
He stepped closer, his expression hardening with an unmistakable warning. “Tell me where we are.”
“I don’t know if it has a name or not.” She shrugged. “I stumbled into it by accident.”
He glanced around, an odd fire burning in the honey eyes. “It’s another dimension?”