Page 76 of The Fae Menagerie
A note was inked onto the final blank page. The ancient ink had seeped through the thin paper to dot the back binding."Place the offering in the middle of the ring. Say the demon's name to bring him forth. Give him a command to bind him to the offering."
Beneath that was Doyle's full name, spelled out with a pronunciation key.
"What are you doing?" Bret asked when I stepped into the ring with the book.
"It's me," I said. "I'm the offering."
Bret's face contorted from shocked to downright scandalized. "What did you and that demon get up to in that half-hour before the meeting?"
"A lot." I left it at that. I turned my back on him and pulled the coin from my pocket. Mother Thera had said the coin was the only way to summon Doyle from the menagerie. Well, here went nothing.
"Gart'heen Tuathan Dashalik Mehalinae Doy'al'ini de Anthousai. I summon you."
For a moment, I wondered if standing in the fairy circle was a good idea. I hovered above a pool of darkness as a cavern opened beneath my feet. I couldn't move, even though wind rushed past me.
Finally, I saw a speck in the distance below, and then a dragonfly, and then Doyle, my Doyle, with his beautiful semitransparent wings and flowing blue hair. He wore the suit his mother had put on him after we escaped his enclosure.
As soon as our feet landed on the solid stone of the circle, he took one look at Bret and snapped his fingers. His suit vanished, replaced with a pair of buttery soft jeans and a Queen t-shirt. They were the same clothes he'd been wearing when I first saw him. Gone were his wings, and his hair was a nondescript brown, but blue at the tips, same as mine.
"Parker." He crushed me in a hug.
"It's me," I said, gripping him around the waist. "I'm the offering. I love you. I'm your fated mate." I choked out the last words, unable to contain my fear. He could reject me again, thesame way he'd shoved the coin into my hand and sent me back here. "Do you accept?"
"Of course I accept." He kissed me, his lips as punishing as his grip. "I love you, Parker. I meant it."
I hugged him, running my hands over the unfamiliar muscles where his wings should be.
"That tickles," he murmured in my ear. "We have company, I see."
I filled him in on my deal with Bret.
"You're too kind." Doyle kissed my cheek and lifted me up, his hands under my ass, my arms around his neck, so he could carry me out of the circle, into the human realm. My skin tingled with a magic I hadn't felt before.
Even Doyle shivered as he put me down. "That was strange."
"The coin did this," Bret said. "If it can summon demons, it can help me find a job, right?"
The coin was long forgotten in my pants pocket. I reached for it. Finding nothing, I turned the pocket inside out, and then the other. No coin.
"It's on to its next destination," Doyle said with a sheepish grin. "As we should be." He turned to me. "Let's go home."
Chapter
Twenty-Eight
DOYLE
Parker's homewas a quaint mansion in the Minneapolis suburbs. I'm sure it was wonderful for humans, but the abundance of iron and glass had me reeling away with stinging skin. At one point, I backed into a corner amid flashbacks of the menagerie. I needed to leave.
Even if Parker wanted to work in the human realm, I would talk him into living with me in my cottage in the woods. The basement of his workplace was deserted enough most of the time. In the fae realm, I could grow a fairy circle in my yard and portal him to work each day.
"Are you keeping your job?" I asked as he stuffed a hanging bag full of the prettiest suits I had ever seen outside a storefront.
"I am. I think I just got a big promotion. Oh, and I have someone I want you to meet."
"Chani told me." I grinned at his surprised scowl. "They are free of their obligations to the menagerie, now that Mother has freed me. They plan to spend more time in the human realm."
"Did the others escape?"
