First And Last - By Stacey Kennedy Page 0,52

to roam was a mistake. This rune, with the goat head, is the strongest of Black Magic known. Obviously, it has yet to be tested, since I did stop them before.” Her look was troubled. “But I do not doubt for a moment that once Mammon gathers his strength, he will start to bring back the others as you’ve already seen. When they call to Satan’s magic,” she actually paled before my eyes. “Hell on Earth will be among us.”

Wonderful!

“All right, so what’s with the Alpha-Omega rune? How does it work?” I asked, though I didn’t want to think about the idea of just what Satan’s magic could do if unleashed. Bah!

“There are two dangerous elements to using this rune against the Demon Lords. Firstly, if you’re not strong enough to use it, it won’t work for you, therefore, you’ll be standing face-to-face with the most powerful demons, defenseless. If you succeed and draw yourself into the rune’s power, then you will face Satan himself.”

“Excuse me?” I couldn’t have heard that right.

Her brows rose, a look of surprise crossed her face as she looked to Zia then back to me. “Did you not realize that you would be drawn into the Realm of Dead?”

“Er…no.” Did she say this before? Either I heard it and didn’t process it or she had not made herself clear.

“When the Pentacle opens to the Realm to the Dead, it’s Satan you’ll encounter. You’ll need to overcome his lure to close it and deny the power he offers to you. If you don’t, the realm will not close and this could happen again.”

Enough said. I jumped to my feet, looking for my exit. “That’s it. No fucking way. You’re all insane. I ain’t doing this. I’m not talking to the Devil. Are you insane?”

Ember smiled through my hysteria. “Finally, the appropriate reaction.”

Suddenly, Ember’s front door slammed open, the cold wind blasted through the room and Kyden lunged through with sword drawn. At first, I leapt with joy to be united with him, but that quickly changed to total irritation as he tackled me to the ground. “What the hell are you doing?” I squeaked from beneath him.

He glanced around quickly, his heavy weight made breathing difficult. “Where is the trouble?”

“There is no trouble,” I snapped. “Get off me.”

He jumped to his feet and pulled me with him. His gaze fell to Ember and Zia, who sat wide-eyed at him, then he looked back to me. “What had you so afraid?”

Finally this little interruption all made sense. He had sensed my fear. He thought I was in danger and came to help me. I burst out laughing, as did Zia and Ember. “Oh God, did you see that?” I exclaimed through my laughter.

“What is funny?” Kyden didn’t find it amusing. “And what made you so afraid?”

“He just ran in like He-Man,” I gasped, holding onto my stomach, which made Zia and Ember just laugh harder.

“You can all stop that,” Kyden said, annoyed. We didn’t. Finally after a moment, Kyden’s impatience ran even higher and washed right through me. He cleared his throat, an obvious attempt to save face. “It looks as though you’re fine here. I’ll meet you at home.” He left, leaving us all hyperventilating.

After a good five minutes of laughing, I grasped my stomach, begged my insides to relax a little. “That was too funny.”

Zia wiped some tears and sighed. “The fear he senses is new to him so it will come out quite intense. He’s not used to feeling that from you and I’d expect he is not used to feeling such an emotion at all.”

“You are newly bonded?” Ember asked.

“Just a few nights ago,” I responded, sat beside Zia and wrapped the blanket back around me.

“Ahh,” she said in understanding. “It takes some time to get used to feeling someone else’s emotions and understand them. He must have assumed fear meant danger.”

“My insides feel bruised.” Then, I sighed, sending away that moment to laugh about later and got back on topic. “Anyways, what were we talking about?”

“Satan,” Zia offered.

Thankfully, Kyden’s little hero moment eased my hysteria and I could think a little more clearly. “All right, so tell me everything again from the very beginning.”

She did just that. Told me of the history which I already knew, explained that we needed to let all the Demon Lords be summoned into the Underworld, because without doing so, I couldn’t banish them all and close off the realm. Then once we had them all together,