A strangle moan escaped her at this new position. “It’s too much,” she whispered raggedly. Her thighs started to quiver, her core to pulse, and she knew she was so close. But, she didn’t want to go without it.

“It’s perfect.”

He drove into her faster, harder. They were one with uneven breaths mingling and lips clinging to each other without really kissing. He was hard and moving inside her, pushing her closer and closer.

“I love you, Alrik.” Her heart stuttered at saying the words aloud. But his response erased any doubts she had whatsoever.

The hand at her hip flexed against her. “You’d be scared at how much I love you.”

His reply shocked her, but then he slid his tongue against hers and focused all his energy on making her scream. Which he did, two more times before finally burying himself deep and jetting into her.

“You’re crazy,” she said afterward.

Their sweat-slicked bodies had long dried. He’d wrapped her up in his arms like a precious bundle he didn’t want to let go. She’d never cuddled before, couldn’t stand it in fact. However, with Alrik she could easily get used to this.

“No, I’m not. I’m just feeling something I haven’t ever felt before,” he said.

His words shut her up and got her thinking. While this whole situation might be one big mess, she’d at least gotten one good thing out of it.

Abby pressed a kiss to Alrik’s lips and he returned it.

Yeah, that was worth it.

Chapter Twenty

The soft, feminine voice hissed at him.

“Alllriiiik. Awaken, Allllrik.”

He twitched, fighting the lulling sound. There was something about it he recognized but couldn’t quite place. What made his hairs stand on end was the magic encompassing the words. The woman wasn’t asking, she was commanding it with vast power behind her words.

As if in a daze, Alrik woke and stood. Abby turned on her side but he had no care for her.

“Come to me. Coooooome.”

He started walking. The voice seemed to come from nowhere yet must have a distinct location. No matter, the spell slowly wrapped around his mind and body knew where to take him. He walked across the base of the mountain towards the south where the flickering of fire in distance looked so much closer.

As soon as he saw the fire, he knew that this wasn’t a dream. He was being summoned. And his mother was waiting for him. It was her sick magic being forced into his body to answer to her will. He tried to fight it, but no amount of spells he tried to cast overcame her power.

Each step he took he tried to still it. Nothing worked. His body just kept moving. He dug his heels into the ground and desperately tried to turn away from the fire in the distance. He had to get back to Abby. She was alone and unprotected. His heart started hammering in his chest. Sweat beaded his temples and slicked down his face.

The path he walked ended on a ledge just past the mountain. He couldn’t see down it yet but he knew it wasn’t a cliff because he could just make out the other half of the valley sunken into the ground. The area felt warmer here. Sweat pooled and slid down his back and chest. Humid air suffocated him as he neared the ledge like a walking zombie.

Without even a moment to determine the drop off, he was sent rolling down the hill. He rolled like a log falling down and down. The grass was wet, mossy. The valley had a distinct moist smell. The trees were wide and not as tall as the other rift trees. They were bulkier and shorter. Their long branches hung like old arms out toward the ground with thousands of dark green leaves coloring them.

A fire roared nearby. He could hear its mighty crackling flame, and smell its woodsy stench. Except it didn’t just smell of woods. Something was burning in that fire. Something that smelled so repulsive his stomach clenched to keep from heaving.

Wherever that fire was and who tended it was behind him, but he couldn’t even turn his bloody head to look.

Like a robot, the spell commanded him to stand and come forward. Then he saw her. And her army.

Fuck!

Things were so much worse than he expected. She didn’t have a small army of maybe a few dozen idummi under her control. She had more than a few hundred.

The idummi stood as his body waded through the crowd. They parted for him sneering and chomping their teeth at him. Rage boiled in his blood. He fought even harder against the magic binding him. He’d tear off every single one of the demon’s heads and toss them into the fire pit right after he slaughtered his mother.

And there she was—his mother—in all her crowning horror.

She stood on a stone dais. It looked recently built, not aged as some of the temples and old buildings he’d seen along the rift. The corners were sharp and not worn down. The rock still shined as they had just been dug up. A set of six stairs were carved into either side of the dais. The whole thing looked so out of place in this marsh that he would have laughed if he could. Only his mother would require elegance and royalty while banished from home. She hadn’t learned to hunt her own food or to live humbly as he had. No, she just weaved her spells until she had an army do it for her. Smart, really.

The fire roared off to his left. Massive stones formed a circle around the base and a mighty black cauldron was held above it by tall metal stakes coming from the ground. Idummi worked around it with their bony legs bent out at sharp angles. Their green skin shined sickly in the fire light. They tossed things into the black cauldron. A ladder stood up against one of the stakes and one idummi held a mighty pole that he used to stir the hellish concoction inside.

She had her minions create her favorite part of the castle—the throne. She even had a lavish chair on top of it. The frame looked elegant and intricate, worthy of royalty even in his eye. The wooden frame curled into spirals at the bottom of the four posts, and at the top two curled back. A rich green cushion decorated the wooden frame and she sat upon the edge of it, her bony, golden shoulders thrust back, and her body facing him with a mad gleam in her eye.

She stood as he neared.

“I see nothing has changed,” said Alrik.

Even out here in the middle of nowhere in a damn marsh she wore a vibrant splash of color on her face. Her eyes were darkly lined in black to better show her violet eyes. The reminder of what his real eye color looked like didn’t sit well with him. The fact that he had anything in common with her made him want to jump into the fire until he burned to a crisp.

Her long raven black hair sat in two heavy braids on each of her shoulders. Gold, silver, and red thread was weaved through the braids, and atop her head was a golden crown. It wasn’t her royal crown. No way would they have let her leave with it when he banished her from the kingdom.

No, she’d forged her own. Two crescents of shimmery gold stood apart from each other. Small jagged points stood facing each other from opposite sides of her head. A middle piece with luminous diamonds and rubies flashed from the fire light, and atop the crescents and middle connector were two sheer points like horns of an animal. They arched up into the air.

Her red gown had gold flowers etched into the tight bodice and white fur lining the long, elegant sleeves and the bottom of the dress swept the ground as she stood.

“What do you want from me?”

He looked upon her cold beauty and golden skin with uncontained disgust.

A small smile played at the corner of her mouth. “Is that any kind of greeting to give your mother?”

“No. The better one would be to cut your fucking head off.”

Her eyebrows rose. Good he surprised her. That made him feel better.

The smile died from her face. Even the life in her eyes seemed to die. She raised a hand and flexed her fingers in the air.