Sammie’s Door Warden felt her master outside her lair. She tried to resist, but his power dragged her to her door. He looked down to where she abased herself before him, his brow knitted with repressed anger.
“You defied me.”
She tried to resist, but the truth ripped its way from her mouth.
“Yes.”
“You sought sustenance from another.”
“Yes.”
Pain lashed through her. She held herself still, even though she wished she could writhe across the floor.
“I am pleased with the culmination of Belle’s plan, so I will not destroy you, but you will not leave your abode or communicate with any other being until you are able to form a visage I find more appealing. Do you understand?”
Surprise raced through her. “You are pleased that she was destroyed?”
A ghost of a smile raced across Sammie’s lips, almost too fast to see.
“She never understood the thing to fear most.”
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“What is that, my lord?”
“Betrayal.”
***
X wiped a damp cloth across Gelt’s brow. She returned to herself, but terribly slowly. She would starve to death if they didn’t feed her. He and Ricardo took turns keeping her alive. Luckily the tiny Caribbean Island he chose for their retreat had ample supplies of water and fruit. Beside that, Gelt wasn’t comatose, just absent. She followed simple directions.
X looked into her eyes now and realized how little of her remained. She saw him looking and smiled the guileless smile of a child. He shuddered at the thought of what had happened to her, thinking about how easily it could have happened to him or, worse, Ricardo.
He looked over to where Ricardo watched Matthew and Michaela through a tiny rift in space. His lover’s boundless fascination with oversized coupling made him smile, and he flitted over, putting his arms around him and watching over his shoulder. They watched for a few minutes, vicariously happy for the couple.
Before Ricardo and X could descend into the inevitable ribald joking they would share while watching the oversized, a shadow drifted over them. Ricardo let the scrying window snap shut and huddled back into X. X composed his face but didn’t bother to move.
“My X, the Queen, you are showering her with the disrespect.”
“Ricky, if she whilin’ over you and me, she can stick this title where the sun don’t shine.”
The Morrigan’s harsh caw washed over them, stealing away the warmth of the sun. “That would be my entire realm, little Pixie.” The dark goddess smiled, and the sticky warmth of a deep swamp swept over the Pixies. “My daughter is once more safe with her Golem. The earthbound angel is bound to a Golem of her own. How goes the mission to which I set you?”
“It half done, Boss Lady. We got her. Now we just settle down to wait for the rest of it to be ready.”