Page 30 of January Blues
“He’s quite dead when I catch him,” Damon promised.
“He needs to stand trial for his crimes against the shifters,” Poppy reminded us.
“Poppy, with all due respect as my coven leader, he has my mate under contract and at his mercy. He helped put a hit out on me. On his orders, Toth had been persecuting me for weeks. Unwillingly. Basil isn’t going to live long enough to stand trial.” Poppy’s face blanched at what she saw in my expression. “Oh, I won’t do it. I’m leaving him for my dad and Damon to deal with.”
“We really need to ask him some questions first. Then he’s all yours,” Oak added, clearly having no desire to see Basil go to trial.
“You. I like you.” Damon pointed a slender finger at Oak. Mori glared at the witch. I wasn’t going to worry about that.
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We have to find Toth and Basil first.” I felt physically sick. Wrapping an arm around my stomach for comfort, I looked to Gregoris and the shifters for help. “What should we do? I can get his clothes for scent, but that’s no use until we pin down the rough area. We can’t scry or summon him.”
“Your mate bond can act as a guide. It’s similar to a shifter bond, right? You can look inside yourself and follow the tether to your mate,” the alpha said. The Sweetwater pack had sent their pack alpha and head enforcer to help us. Along with them, there were a handful of other enforcers.
“I can do that?” I heard the hesitancy in my voice.
Gregoris answered. “I believe you can. Do you wear each other’s marks?”
In answer, I let out my horns with my mating rune etched into the surface. Damon reached up and brushed a finger along my pointed ear, making me shudder.
“Hey!” Mori slapped his hand away, looking furious. “Don’t!”
“What? Why?” Damon demanded, cradling his hand, face flushed.
Oak reached over and checked it. “You need a healer.” He spoke to the alpha. “Do you have one with you? I don’t want to use a lot of magic before we find Toth.”
I appreciated his optimism, but with every hour that passed, the more my hope faded that he would be okay when we found him. If we even found him. Would Basil take him away from me? Toth had explained that he had to offer up another demon to Basil to be free. He didn’t want to, and I wouldn’t judge him for it. Together, we’d find a way to help that demon and make Basil face justice. In whatever form that took.
“I don’t need a healer. It’s just bruised.” Damon barked. “Sorry,” his tone softened. “I just want to know why I’m not allowed to touch the ears.”
“It’s basically the same as grabbing someone in the crotch,” Mori told him with a glare. “My son is mated and, therefore, off-limits to you. Hands to yourself. If you were really so curious, you could have asked to see mine.”
I spluttered, made a mental note to do no ear fondling in public, then the second part caught up to me. Was Mori jealous? Did he want Damon’s attention?
“Getting back on track,” Gregoris said with an eye-roll. “You need to center yourself and focus on the mark.” I closed my eyes and followed his instructions. My mating mark was ready for me. “Find the tether. It will be the same color as your joined magic.” The cord was there, a lavender color that was soothing. It was thin, more like a thread than cord, but I saw it reaching across the city, towards Sweetwater.
“I feel him, but I can’t keep a hold of it.”
“Is there a way of boosting it somehow?” Damon asked.
“If we had a family member, or someone bonded to him closely, then that would help anchor Cody.” Gregoris mused.
My heart sank. It was too much to hold on to such a fine thread myself. I was too new at being a demon, having magic, as well as being mated, that I just didn’t have the power to do it alone.
“Hela.” The name escaped from my lips.
“Who?” several voices asked together.
“How do I summon his hellcat to me?” I asked the group. They looked between themselves.
“Take my hand. I’ll do the magic. You focus on her.” Oak reached for me. With his other hand, he made a complicated gesture. “This takes a lot of magic doing it this way, but it’s the quickest way.” I heard him mutter Hela’s name along with his favored spell language, which sounded Greek to me. Focusing on my memory of Hela, I felt a pull and in a puff of gray smoke, she was there.
She meowed and launched herself at me. Thankfully, I was half in my demon form, my strength able to hold her. “Holy fuck!” I heard my friends shout as the black cat, in her true hellcat form, as large as a tiger, with tiny wings and a barbed tail, landed in my arms. My knees nearly buckled at her weight, but I stayed standing. Running a finger over her spike-tipped ears, I petted her, cooing soft words. “Let’s find Toth, huh? Can you help me bring him back?” She purred.
When I looked into the magic, I found Hela’s there with me, bolstering the connection. There. “Found him.”
Everyone came with us on the short journey to the suburbs, still technically Northarbor, but closer to Sweetwater where the pack came from.
“Huh. This is close to Mercury Delivers,” the head enforcer, Deke, said.
