“Get the hell away from me!” I said, voice shaking.

He took a step forward. “Kara.”

“No. No!” I gasped, taking a reflexive step backward. “Get away from me!”

Rhyzkahl raised his hand, and I stepped back against an unyielding barrier of potency. “Kara, come,” he said softly. “It will be different.”

Sweat trickled down my sides as I fought back panic. “No you’ll make me different!” I pressed back against the barrier. “Fuck off! I’m staying me!”

Rhyzkahl took another step forward. “Yes. That is what I am here to tell you. I will reverse all.” His eyes traveled over my scars. “All.” His breath came heavily as though it challenged him to say this. “Come.”

His gaze felt like a foul touch. “I trusted you once,” I shot back with a curl of my lip. “Never again. You fucking tortured me.”

He stepped within a pace of me, aura surrounding me, suffocating me. “It can be undone,” he said with a shake of his head. “Dear one, it is not too late.”

“Yes it is! You can’t undo the fact that it happened, not without destroying me in the process.” My breath came in shallow gasps. He wasn’t even projecting terror at me in that way, but his presence alone brought it forth. “You’re the one who said it was too late, and now you sound like a psycho stalker.” I pressed back against the potency barrier. “I’m not going with you. I’ll never go with you. You can’t undo this.”

Another aura. Mzatal. I vaguely felt his arm across my chest, but it was as if he was the dream and Rhyzkahl the reality. Rhyzkahl sensed it too. He looked beyond me then snapped his focus back to my eyes and spoke with measured intensity, breath hissing. “You do not understand.” He caught my face between his hands. “Kara, all will be well. I will take you away. Away from here. Away from the realm. And you will be you and whole.”

Mzatal was there, somewhere—an invisible support. “No,” I said, baring teeth. “I do understand.” Though my heart still slammed, I gathered myself, gripped Rhyzkahl’s wrists and tugged, seeking to get his vile touch off my face. “I understand that you would give me over to Jesral and those other fuckers. I understand you lied to me and betrayed me. I will never ever go with you. Get that through your blond head right now.”

A whisper passed through my mind, and I knew Rhyzkahl read the truth of my words. Good.

His breath quickened. He released my face and took a step back, hands lifted as though he still held me. A stricken look swept over his features, and he shook his head, looking strangely lost.

I felt Mzatal’s physical hold on me more clearly as well as his nonphysical touch. “Rhyzkahl. Leave me now,” I said as I took a step toward him, willing him away.

He retreated another step.

A flush of determined anger seared through me. “Go! Leave me alone.”

Potency surged over me as he tensed and dropped his hands to his sides. “Ungrateful chikdah.” He spat the words and took another step back, visibly shaking in what could only be anger.

I blinked in true surprise at the slur. “Wow. Yeah, dude. A couple of pointers here if you want keep a girl. First, don’t torture her. Second, calling her ugly names is also a no-no.” I held steady to my core and the supporting presence of Mzatal. “Get away from me. I don’t ever want to see you again.”

“You think your savior’s hands are clean?” he asked with a short, cold laugh. “You will see me again. Soon.”

Mzatal’s encouragement to continue to resist and push came through clearly, and I did so with ferocity. I shook, there was no doubt about that. But I also had no doubt that I could and would push this fucker away. My fingernails bit into my palms as I rejected his presence with every fiber of my being.

Rhyzkahl took a forced step back and growled an angry curse. He turned his back on me, lifted his open right hand. “You had all within your grasp and cast it aside. You will be mine.” He made a fist and ripped it forward, wrenching the dream-sending away.

I gasped and my knees buckled. Mzatal held me securely from behind, his left arm over my shoulder and across my chest until I could get my legs to support me again. I managed to do so, then pressed the heels of my hands into my eyes. “Shit.”

Mzatal muttered something in demon as he half-carried me back into the bedchamber and settled me in his chair. He dragged the sheet from the bed and draped it over me, then crouched and peered up into my face.

“What was that?” he asked, naked concern etched in his features. “I could only peripherally sense it.”

I grimaced as my head throbbed. “Dream. A dream-sending from Rhyzkahl.”

“That was no dream. This has happened before?”

“Yeah, shit. A bunch of times on Earth,” I replied, rubbing my temples. “This time it was way stronger than before though. When I died, the link was broken, but he hooked it right back up next time I summoned him. The bastard.”

Mzatal laid his hands over mine at my temples and eased the headache, then drew my hands down into my lap and held them there. Without taking his eyes from mine he called out to Gestamar. “Have Idris prepare a purification now, with the last quadrant open. I will need to specialize it.”

I heard Gestamar’s acknowledging grunt from the other room. Mzatal squeezed my hands. “It would have been useful to know of this sooner.”

I gave the lord a sour look. “Well, he hasn’t done it in a long time, and I figured you’d tromped through my head enough to know every fucking thing about me. I mean you know what goddamn brand of tampons I use.”

Mzatal closed his eyes and shook his head. “And understandable to draw that conclusion. But this is something I could not detect, and even when active, I could not follow it.”

That didn’t sound good. “Can you get rid of it?”

“I gathered enough during the contact to localize it,” he said, opening his eyes again and looking into mine. “I will deactivate it.”

So far he’d followed through on what he said he’d do. No reason not to trust him in this as well. I managed a weak smile. “I guess training will come later?”

“Priorities. This first. Definitely this first.” He gave my hands a final squeeze then released them. “Tell me what happened,” he said, and moved to sit on the edge of the bed.

And I did. By the time I finished, a slight frown curved his mouth, and he seemed deep in thought.

“What is it?” I asked.

Mzatal shook his head. “He is dangerous in a new way. He has shown signs of true jealousy. I witnessed it clearly during the ritual, and it colored much of your interaction in the dream-sending.”

“He’s possessive,” I agreed “What’s so bad about that? I mean apart from it being totally psycho that it’s directed at me.”

“I have known Rhyzkahl for millennia, and he has never shown jealousy,” Mzatal said with a slow shake of his head. “Possessive power displays between qaztahl, yes. That is normal for all of us. Personal jealousy such as he has shown is alien. It is not our nature.”

I took that in, though it was hard to get my head around the idea of the lords not being jealous. “Well it sure as hell looks like his nature now,” I said, scowling. “He seemed to lose it when I told him I would never go with him.” I put the puzzle pieces together. “You’re saying he’s an unknown because you don’t have a precedent for it, and therefore he’s dangerous. More dangerous.”

Mzatal nodded. “Yes, and we will need to take that into account.”

“What did he mean when he said, ‘You think your saviour’s hands are clean?’” I asked, watching him carefully.

Mzatal exhaled. “I have lived millennia, Kara, and done much that would revolt you. My hands are not clean.”

I realized I didn’t really want to know the details right then, not with everything else I already had to deal with. The fact that he hadn’t tried to dance around the question was sufficient—for the moment. I didn’t hold any illusions that he was a saint; he was a demonic lord, and I’d had a glimpse of his darker side.