Carlo stare at her hard. Okay, if Cain had sent some half-dragon chick in here to put a hit on him, he had no problem smoking her, too, if it came to that.
"He was worried that you would panic, start breaking things to make a weapon, and then try to hurt his pets as you left--even though you are not his captive. They do not eat meat, and are pure energy, but they do bite." She sighed. "He did not wish for you to be harmed in his home." Feeling completely foolish, Carlos looked down at his hands. "I'm tired. I need to eat soon, or at least get something to drink, and I wanna to go home."
"Then go home," she said quietly. "Why stay, if this realm makes you so sad?"
"How?" He stared at her very, very hard.
"You are a Neteru. Do you not know how to focus your energy to go back through the rip?" She stood, covering her mouth with her hand and began to pace in an agitated line along the edge of the pool. "That is the entire debate at court as we speak. Only Cain can tune in to the Neteru frequency and hold the harmonic to cross--but he must be pulled by one anchored in flesh. This is why he rules this realm."
Carlos stood as several mental building blocks began to fall into place for him. The fact that Cain hadn't lied grated him, but that was good to know. Second issue was, Damali's call might have definitely been accidental--and, given her voice hitting high notes, if it rippled in this pool across realms, he couldn't truly blame the brother for crossing over to her. The fact that Cain also didn't lie when he said he was a Neteru and was also a king, that jacked with his pride, but he had to let that go for the moment. The more important questions remained: Why did these entities want to leave a relatively cool environment to cross over, and how the hell was he gonna get out of there before he starved to death?
"Listen," Carlos finally said, trying not to pace with the gorgeous hybrid who was now wringing her hands. "I haven't learned how to focus my energy on this side yet to get enough velocity going to hit that barrier, or even to see where it is."
"I know where the barrier has thinned," she said quietly, and stopped pacing to look at him. Her eyes flickered "It is not an actual rip."
"If you show a brother the door ..."
She held up her hand. "Only if you promise to call me by name through it with you, when the time is right."
Carlos smiled. In any realm, a deal was a deal. Let the negotiations begin. "Why would you want to go to a place with chaos and disease and filth and--"
"Because," she said quietly, wrapping her arms around herself. "There is no sensual sensation in this realm." He just stared at her.
"Just like there is no food for one to taste the succulent juice of a dripping piece of fruit... or for our more aggressive inhabitants to savor the salty emulsion of blood on their tongues--"
"Hold up," Carlos said, slightly offended. "No blood. I knocked the spit out of Cain and his nose bled. Don't play, or we can end this conversation right now."
"He bled?" she said, her breaths deepening. "Cain bled?"
"Uh, yeah," Carlos said slowly, watching desire make her eyes begin to more than flicker, but glow.
"We have been platonic friends for years," she said quietly, her gaze going to the massive bed at the far end of the room. "Do not toy with me. You are sure he bled?"
"Sure as I'm standing here," Carlos said, baiting her with the titillating information. "But then it suddenly dried up and vanished after we started walking deeper into the glen."
She stared at Carlos and licked her lips and put a trembling finger to her mouth. "His energy and structure normalized, then, once he returned... but do you still bleed?"
Carlos chuckled. "I don't know. Do I?" Her eyes closed as her hand slid down her throat. "Do you understand that I am a being fully initiated in the tantric practices?" She opened her eyes very slowly and began to cross the pool, her gown flowing out to float along the unseen current as she stood waist deep in the middle of it.
"Do you understand that at one time I was a Council-level master, now