I laughed. “Come over this afternoon, and you can check him out all you want.”

“I’ll do that,” she said. “I have to go to birthing class this morning, because y’know, she’ll never come out if I don’t have proper training.” Her face fell.

“What’s wrong, chick?” I asked.

“Zack’s only made it to one of them,” she said and sighed. “I told him I would change to evening classes, but he still didn’t say, ‘Oh yes dear, that will be wonderful! I can make it then.’”

“Sheesh. Men.” I snorted “Demon men.” I tilted my head. “Maybe it’s simply that he already knows all the stuff and doesn’t realize it’s more for your support? I’ll slap him and inform him, if you think it’ll help.”

Jill narrowed her eyes at me. “How would a demon know all about human childbirth?”

“I’m sure he’s been around plenty of humans. There used to be a lot of back and forth between the two worlds up until sometime in the sixteen-hundreds.”

She considered that. “So he’s read a book or whatever. It’s not the same thing—” She turned and stared at me. “Wait. Wait. You’re telling me that Zack was around in the seventeenth century?”

Whoa. He hadn’t told her news as big as that yet? “Umm, well . . . yeah,” I said, shifting my weight a couple of times as if preparing to flee her impending wrath. “Plus a couple thousand years earlier, most likely.”

Jill went super-calm scary. “I’m going to kill him.”

The urge to flee grew. “I honestly thought he’d have told you this stuff by now.”

She added narrowed eyes to her scariness. “What other ‘stuff’ is there?”

Where would I even start with something like that? “Let’s back up.” I summoned up a glare of my own. “Have you ever asked him to tell you about his demon-ness.”

“Sure I have,” she insisted. “But he didn’t say he was around to witness the fall of Troy!”

“What did you ask him?”

She fidgeted and looked away “I don’t remember!” she exclaimed. “Something about what it was like being a demon.”

I knew Jill. She would never hesitate to ask all sorts of embarrassing questions if she wanted to know the answer. She’d been with Zack for a good while now, and she might have asked him a vague question about being a demon? Nope. That didn’t cut it.

“It’s scary, isn’t it,” I said gently.

“Scary? Zack?” She tried to laugh it off, shook her head.

“Yeah,” I said. “It’s pretty scary. All really weird and different. It’s hard to think of Zack as a demon too, which probably doesn’t help.” Zack played his human role well. He blended, a surfer dude. Nice guy and tough fed. No one would have a clue he was anything but human. The only reason I did was because he’d shown superhuman strength and speed when picking me up to race me away from an attempted summoning. “Have you ever seen his demon form?”

Jill sobered and went a bit pale. “No.”

I sighed. What the hell was Zack thinking keeping her in the dark like this? “Jill, you should. The demahnk are beautiful. You still care about him, right?”

“Yes. Sure I do,” she said, but the look in her eyes reminded me of a rabbit ready to run.

Worry rose in me for both Jill and Zack. “Look, please, for your sake and your daughter’s, please talk to him about this. Ask him about him.”

“Okay. Yeah. Sure.” She glanced at her watch. “I gotta go! Time to learn how to squirt this kid out.”

Run rabbit run. “Okay.” I gave her a hug along with the best smile I could manage. “You’ll come by later, right?”

“Yep. After lunch and errands.”

“Sounds good. Happy squirting!” I frowned. “That came out wrong.”

Jill laughed. “It sure did! See you later. Make sure your honey is all spruced up for his inspection.”

I grinned. “I think you’ll like what you see.”

Chapter 21

After Jill left, I took care of my morning ablutions, got myself all prettified again, then texted Zack an update.

J still says no. Find out real root issue why. Also RV too small. Mobile home instead?

That task completed, I headed down to the basement. There wasn’t much to be done to prepare. Zack’s assistance, with clearing the area and again topping off the storage diagram, had been invaluable. Yet another point in his favor.

An odd rhythm in the flows caught me briefly off balance as I began the summoning, like waves on a white-capped lake. Breathing deeply, I waited and watched for lulls, found as much of a pattern as I could, then made the call during a calmer period, like waiting for a pause in the rain to dash to one’s car.

The arcane wind picked up and whipped my hair into my eyes. I added power to the flows and stabilized the perimeter of the portal, once again grateful to Zack for the additional power in the diagram. It would be poor form to lose any of the four I was bringing through, to say the least.

Finally the wind died, and I felt the rush of potency that told me the call was complete. I anchored the flows and settled the weird turbulence as much as I could before releasing the portal.

Mzatal knelt in the center of the diagram, head lowered. Bryce stood beside him, bent over at the waist with his hands on his knees. Paul lay sprawled on his back by Mzatal, breathing hard. Jekki, curled in a tight blue ball, lifted his head and gave me a chirrup, then raced upstairs as if the summoning had been a walk in the park.

“Whoa,” Paul moaned. “That was a lot worse than going.”

My attention remained on Mzatal, and I clung to the hope that he was truly rested and recovered. “Good to see you again, sweetheart,” I said.

He lifted his head, opened his eyes, ancient gaze upon me. A smile touched the corners of his mouth. “I have missed you, beloved.”

Potency radiated from him, and his eyes damn near glowed with strength and vitality. My smile widened. “You look good, Boss.” I moved to him, crouched, slid my arms around him. A humming vibration passed through me. Hot damn, was he ever supercharged.

The vibration increased as he wrapped his arms around me, kissed me. Though I felt no threat, I had the sense he was so strong in this moment he could snap me in half with his arms if he chose to. I smiled into the kiss. What the hell had he been up to? Whatever it was, I liked it.

After a moment, he broke the kiss and released me. He laid a hand on the downed Paul’s shoulder briefly, then stood in a smooth movement and held his hand out to me.

I took it, rose from the crouch then looked over Bryce who still stood doubled over beside us. “Thatcher, you look a lot better than the last time I saw you.” I smiled. “I’m Kara Gillian.”

With effort, he pushed himself upright. Medium build, lean and efficient, he wasn’t an overly handsome man, but he was also far from unattractive. His hair was about the same color as mine—boring dull brown—but his hazel eyes held an interesting combination of kind and dangerous. “Ms. Gillian,” he said, extending his right hand. “I owe you my life. And please, call me Bryce.”

I took his hand, shook it. “Not a problem. I’m sure we’ll figure out a fair trade.” I grinned to signal that I wasn’t serious.

Bryce gave me a smile. Nothing toothy but not as subtle as Mzatal’s either. “I’ll see what I can do about that.”

Paul groaned and struggled up into a sitting position.

Bryce moved over to him. “Hey, kid, you okay?”

The young man staggered to his feet, swayed. “Sure,” he said with a gasp that left me doubtful, though I knew Mzatal would address it if Paul had suffered any true harm.

Bryce caught his arm and studied him, a look of concern on his face. “No shitting me. Are you okay?”

Paul dragged in a deeper breath and straightened his shoulders. “Yeah. I’m good. I promise. A little shaky is all.” He gave Bryce a convincingly reassuring smile. “Thanks.”

“Go sit until you’re not shaky anymore,” Bryce ordered and herded Paul toward the futon.