Cheat the Grave

That was what Trish meant when she’d spoken of a soul connection.

So would it have lived between us if not for the aureole? How beautiful would he have found me without it?

Would I even have had a chance of capturing his interest in my current fragile, mortal, state?

Whatever the answer, it neither changed the past nor the one thing that kept bucking whenever I mentally tried to say good-bye: Hunter had offered up his body as a soft place for me to land in a season where everything was hard. I’d been on my heels in my new role as the Kairos, part of a world I hadn’t known existed. My sister’s death had rocked me back further. And, in the hours before the first time we made love, the shock of finding my childhood lover locked in the embrace of a mortal enemy had flattened my will to live.

For a while Hunter made all of that better, if not okay. And it hadn’t been a one-sided seduction. I could own up to my part in it all. I hadn’t turned to him as much as I’d fled, finding solace in his strength and peace in his acceptance. Hunter had helped steady me in my new life.

The magic of the aureole connecting us? That was just fucking icing.

“Jo?”

My hand came to an abrupt stop as I opened my eyes, the sacred sound from the prayer wheel breaking into two syllables, then down into silence. I was on the floor of what looked and smelled like a Babylonian garden.

“Oh, hell no.” The syllables scratched the air like stencils.

“That’s what you get for flinging around a prayer wheel,” I muttered, standing cautiously and trying to blink away the reality before me. But there was no blinking it away.

I was in Midheaven. Again.

21

I couldn’t tell who’d called me. Between the whirring of the prayer wheel’s chain cutting air like newly sharpened shears, it had been a fractured sound, like a computer getting a hard boot. But at least I knew where I was.

Another elemental room, I thought, glancing about, my breath echoing hollowly in the tinny air. What else could it be? It was both as shockingly ornate as the odd water room, and as mysterious as Solange’s fire room, yet singularly different than both. Weighed down beneath the scents of verdant foliage and humidity, it would have also been as dim as a late-lying sunset were it not for the twinkling lights strung across drooping boughs by the hundreds. A tentative, almost playful breeze pressed against me, and I shivered as I glanced up at a ceiling hidden by viny whips and a cover of evergreen and pine. More lights winked like stars between the branches, and I shivered again, recalling Solange’s sky of soul-encrusted stars.

But how the hell did I get here? Shen had told me on my last go-round with the elemental rooms that drugs were what allowed incorporeal passage into this world.

Apparently incense and a prayer wheel counted.

And what about calling forth the world in my mind? I hadn’t called Midheaven to me; I hadn’t even been thinking about it.

No. Just about someone living here. Rolling my eyes at my own stupidity, I searched for some other sort of exit while trying to forget Diana’s helpful addendum: that I needed someone to pull me back out of the world in case Solange found me here.

Flat, stone-topped lanterns were tucked amid the greenery, while topiaries and pyramid-shaped shrubs popped up like the heads of curious gnomes. Centered was a small lawn with a gravel pathway cutting the middle, while a small pond sparkling with refracted light sat to my right. Moss in every shade of green climbed boulders slick with algae, and a cluster of wild roses burst brightly from verdant thistle where berries also glistened with dew.

Yet all was not nature and silva. Curving chaises and concrete lounge chairs dotted the small space, and baroque chandeliers swung from the lowermost branches of the accommodating pines. Seductive statues cast inquisitive glances my way, and wrought-iron side tables were layered in lace and pastel spun silk.

The coup de grace was the giant stone table tucked beneath a Japanese cherry tree caught in full bloom. A tiered tray held finger sandwiches, scones with clotted cream, quiche, and tiny pastel petit fours tucked between slivers of white cake. A mirrored side buffet sported crystal goblets and flutes, and a perfect mismatching of gorgeous bone china.

“A fucking tea party.” My metallic mutter skipped sound waves like a rock.

“You’d prefer a latte from the drive-through, I suppose?”

I’d been anticipating an appearance by the dangerous rulers of this pretty little world, and whirled to run smack into the chest of an all-too-real, and apparently bemused, Hunter Lorenzo. He quirked a brow, and steadied me with one hand.

“Of course.” I pulled away, trying to hide my shock, my alarm. My pleasure. “I’m American.”

He merely motioned to the tea set. I looked around, waiting for ambush or at least to wake up. Nothing happened, so I inched past a fern floor and moved farther into the garden. “Tricked-out pad,” I said lightly, though my heart was pounding, making my throat tight.

“The earth room,” he said, confirming my prior suspicions. His voice was as leaden as mine. “Whatever you used to induce the dream state must have been from the dust.”

I’d been right about the incense then, I thought, frowning. And the drugs Carlos had given me the first time were disguised in drink…thus calling forth the water room. I didn’t even want to know what I needed to bring on fire.

I tried to meet Hunter’s gaze, but after working so hard to push even the thought of him away, his sudden appearance was jarring. His eyes were warmly intense, destroying the illusion that I’d let go of this man emotionally. I hadn’t. Not even a bit.

As usual, I covered my discomfort with attitude. “So why are you here?” I asked, crossing my arms.

He took in my body language, blinking fast like he too was making a mental adjustment, and lifted his chin.

“We’re both a part of this world now,” he said softly.

“So that means what? I’m at your mercy? I’m trapped and have to wait until you and your wife decide to let me go.”

He tilted his head. “Don’t you have an anchor grounding you back home?”

“I didn’t mean to come here.”

“No wonder she’s so angry.” His brow furrowed, and for the first time he looked unreal, as if the expression was pressed upon his face like putty, altering a moment after he willed it. Did I look the same? “We really are connected…”

His gaze flitted to my lips, then back to my eyes. I thought about the way he’d strung me along, pulling me in until the very end. Even in the moments before forever leaving Las Vegas for Midheaven proper, when trapped in a tunnel before the rushlight that would ferry him to Solange-his wife, his grail-he’d played on our intimacy.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with you. Not even in the darkest corner of that beautiful soul.

No, I thought now. There’s not. But there’s something wrong with someone who could equally want, love, two women. I didn’t believe that was possible, and getting my life back meant letting go of every impossibility. If friends were the family we choose, then it was time to let Hunter go completely. He’d been no friend to me.

“No, Hunter,” I said coldly. “We’re not even from the same world.”

His jaw clenched at that. His nostrils flared. It was a wonderful display of masculine pique. “Who’s Carlos?”

I drew back. “What?”

“Carlos. You called out his name the last time you were here. You called for him to help you.” His voice was so strained it almost made me laugh. Was he jealous? While biding in another world, locked in his new/old lover’s embrace?