I could see a bolt of lightning -shaped power inching its way toward us from where she’d thrown it out with her hands.
And that’s when I realized that Solara didn’t truly care about her world.
She cared only about her access to power.
Amalya, on the other hand, cared for nothing other than her world. Her people. Her land.
And that would always include any infant lamias.
But that implied that that she also cared about Solara.
In an instant, I knew what we needed to do.
I sent reassurance sliding along the magical bond that now united us, the one that allowed us to pass power back and forth. It echoed through our every molecule, and Amalya’s acceptance throbbed back through me as she sent a silent agreement to follow my lead.
It would do no good to hurt Solara, even though she was attacking us. That would only make Amalya angry.
So instead, I focused on creating one of my rips in reality.
The diamante sparkles that presaged a rift in reality began flickering into existence all around us.
Amalya gasped and reached out a hand to brush against one of the fire0bright lights sparkling around us.
She hissed on an inhaled breath when her finger brushed against one, and I stretched my hand out before me to follow her lead, wondering what she had experienced.
The sparkle I touched burned white-hot against my fingertip for just an instant, a scintilla of pure magic underneath my questing fingers.
This time, I knew where I was going.
I knew how to get to where I wanted to be.
Kade and Serena, I thought. I remembered the first time Kade had kissed me, the way his golden eyes churned with desire, the way he had stepped me back until my knees bumped against the hospital bed in the private room he dragged me into. The way his lips burned across mine.
I remembered the heat that poured off of him and that slightly spicy scent that belonged only to him.
And when I had wrapped everything I could remember about him around me, I moved on to thinking about Serena. The way she had shifted to follow my lead, choosing an infant serpent form that mimicked the battle shape I’d taken in front of her the first time I had fought to protect her from invaders who wanted to harm her.
All the strands that held us together, that tied me to Kade and to Serena, stretched between us, never diminished by distance.
The glow of the sparkles in the air intensified, and the magic that flowed between me and the queen of a lamia realm far from my own world pulsed once, then twice. And then the air in front of us, the very reality that surrounded us, opened like a zipper unzipping.
I used our combined power to gather everyone in that tableau and hold us as the world around us yawed open and swallowed us whole.
WE TUMBLED THROUGH space, the rift between worlds sparkling with the same magic that I used to open this portal. That I had used to open every portal I’d ever torn in my world back home.
I’ll have to close them all, eventually.
The thought flitted through my mind as we hurtled toward the other end, toward the world that held the two loves I had left behind.
The world where Kade and Serena were presumably still fighting for their lives.
Amalya’s anxiety flowed through me as if it were my own, just as her magic did.
I realized that I had been wrong about her. She wasn’t cold and uncaring.
She was no more cold-blooded than I was — at least, not all the time. Her human half gave her the same ability to love that mine gave me.
And even without someone like my parents to train her, her love for her people, for her world, for those she was duty-bound to care for, ran bone deep.
And for all that Solara had turned her magic against us, Amalya loved her. As if she were Amalya’s own child.
And in a sense, she was. Not only was she one of Amalya’s subjects, but she was also family, one of those lamias “of the Queens line” who could wield magic.
And so was I, I realized as I drew on Amalya’s power and knowledge. Wherever I had come from, however I had ended up in that West Texas desert for my father to find me, I had originally come from the same people Amalya had.
I really was a lamia Princess, a member of the royal family on Amalya’s world, no matter how far removed.
The ties of love might bind me to the world where Kade and Serena waited.
But the ties of blood and kinship bound me to the world Amalya ruled.
And eventually, I would have to figure out what to do about that—which world should have more of my loyalty.
But first, I had to find the people who had all my love.
Chapter 12
We landed in the NICU at Kindred Hospital—the same place I’d left from. I hadn’t intended to take us back there, but I’d been following my instincts, and they told me I should go back to where I last saw Kade and Serena. And this was that place.
But it wasn’t like I had seen it last. Or ever, for that matter.
When I came here to see the babies, there were always nurses and doctors bustling around, and monitors beeping their steady, careful beat, occasionally punctuated by shrill alarms.
It wasn’t like that now. All machines were silent. I didn’t see a single living person.
Then again, it wasn’t like it had been when I had jumped through a portal to the Molly’s world. Then, werewolves had been holding incubators as they tried to kidnap the infant lamias within them.
There were not any werewolves here, either.
In fact, there wasn’t a living soul.
There were, however, several dead bodies strewn across the floor, both human and werewolf. It looked like a been a hell of a fight. Glass crunched under my shoes as
