The nightstalker’s eyes narrowed when his gaze fell on the coil between her fingers. “Where did you get that?”
“From one of your friends hiding under the city.” Cheyenne forced herself not to look at Persh’al, though she could feel him staring at her. If anyone’s gonna talk about Elarit, it should be him. “It was supposed to be a temporary gift, right? ‘Cause this tech doesn’t make it across.”
“No, it doesn’t.” Corian wrinkled his nose and nodded. “Keep going.”
“I mean, that was it. The monsters knew I was wearing this, and the other one ignored Persh’al to attack me instead. That’s how I got all torn up.” Cheyenne gestured to her blood-smeared body and shrugged. “Then we weren’t at the portal doorway anymore. The in-between dropped me somewhere else, I blew that fucking centipede to pieces, and another doorway just appeared out of nowhere.”
“And it took you to the portal on your mother’s property.”
“Yeah.”
Corian rubbed his mouth, frowning at the coil in her hand. “Did anyone see you?”
“I mean, the whole FRoE team saw someone run out of that portal. I’m pretty sure they’re busy fighting off the asshole things that tried to push through after me. Rhynehart saw me.” At the blank looks both Corian and Persh’al shot her, Cheyenne added, “The team leader. He’s the guy I’ve been working with the most, I guess. But I took care of it.”
“You took care of it.” The nightstalker groaned. “Cheyenne—”
“No, I mean, I knocked him out. That’s it. The activator gave me the option, and I took it. He dropped, I got outta there, and then I called you.”
Persh’al’s mouth fell open, and he took two disbelieving steps backward.
“You used the activator?” Corian’s question came out barely louder than a whisper. “On this side?”
“Yeah.” Cheyenne stared into his glowing silver eyes and shrugged. “I know.”
A low chuckle rose from the far end of the warehouse. Corian and Persh’al stepped away from each other and turned, giving Cheyenne a full view of L’zar standing in the open doorway of the square office turned guestroom. They all stared at the drow, who stared at the activator coil in Cheyenne’s hand. L’zar’s chuckles grew, then he threw his head back and let out a harsh, uncontrolled cackle. He lurched forward, holding himself up with a hand on either side of the doorframe.
“Shit.” Persh’al rubbed his head and shot Cheyenne a quick glance. “L’zar?”
The drow just kept laughing, his glowing golden eyes wide and crazed with some private inside joke.
Cheyenne lifted her chin and glared at him from the office chair covered in her blood. “You think this is funny?”
Her father kept laughing, doubling over with his first step out of the doorway.
“Is he for real?” Cheyenne stared at Corian, but the nightstalker merely scratched behind his twitching tufted ear and averted his gaze. She leaped out of the chair, stumbling forward as it rolled across the floor away from her. “I almost didn’t make it out of there, I just had my body turned inside-out by that salve, and all you can do is laugh?”
L’zar shook his head and leaned back against the doorframe again, wiping tears from his eyes as his laughter died down into bursts of chuckling again.
He’s been standing there since I got here and didn’t even try to help.
“Cut it out.” She glared at him, and the drow pointed at her with another chuckle.
“Cheyenne.” Another sharp laugh burst out of him as he pushed himself away from the doorframe again.
“You know what? Fuck you.” Cheyenne flipped her insane father the bird and snatched her tattered, bloody shirt off the floor. She shoved it in her backpack, pulled out the bulky hoodie, and slung the pack over her bare shoulder. “I’m not gonna sit here so you can laugh at me. I’m done.”
Corian stepped toward her. “Wait a minute.”
“No. That asshole’s insane. He doesn’t give a shit about what happens to me, and I’m not gonna put everything I have on the line for a magical who does that when things get screwed up.” She snarled at Corian and thrust a finger toward L’zar. “He’s gonna get us all killed. Forget it.”
She snatched the brown glass jar of salve out of Corian’s hand and stormed across the warehouse toward the front door. I need to get out of here.
“Cheyenne.” L’zar chuckled again, but she didn’t turn around. “Stop.”
“Eat shit.”
A loud crack filled the far end of the warehouse, and a blur of gray and white raced past her with another crack. L’zar dropped out of enhanced speed in front of her, blowing her hair away from her face with the shockwave. He’d stopped laughing but grinned down at her instead, his golden eyes roaming over her face. His hand reached toward her cheek as if he were about to tuck her hair behind her ear. “You’re not leaving.”
“Watch me.” Cheyenne slapped his hand away and stepped around him.
“That wasn’t a request.”
“I don’t take orders from anyone, especially you.” Just as she reached the door, a bolt of dark light caught her in the shoulder and spun her sideways. Cheyenne snarled and whirled to face him.
L’zar’s smile had vanished, and he dipped his head in warning. “We’re not finished.”
“Oh, yeah, we are.” She dropped her hoodie when she saw him slip into drow speed and met him there a second before his hand came down on her shoulder. Slapping it aside, she leaned away from him and hissed, “Don’t touch me.”
“I won’t let you leave.”
“You don’t get to choose!”
L’zar reached for her, trying to pull her away from the door. Cheyenne ducked aside and threw a right hook at his face. His long, slender gray fingers clenched around her wrist to stop her and squeezed as he leered at her. “Until you place your marandúr on the Rahalma, I’m still the one calling the shots, Aranél.”
Her golden eyes widened at the last word she didn’t understand and the growing pressure around her wrist. Purple and black
