music demon. What will you do if I follow? Sing me to death?”
Lyric gave the other demon a withering look before reaching out with his senses to see if he could pinpoint Shivaun’s whereabouts. When he sensed her direction, he started walking. Without access to passes, it was the only means of moving from one place to another. But as he walked, he began to wonder if that was true. He stopped and tried conjuring a motor cycle, stipulating comfort. A gorgeous, gleaming, cobalt blue Harley Davidson Dyna Super Glide appeared. Lyric tried conjuring a five star restaurant. Nothing.
So things could be created, but not places. Hmmm.
He started the bike. It vibrated and revved, but made no sound. As he rode in silence, he thought about being trapped in that environment, alone in a monochrome white landscape, with no stimulus, and decided it might be the worst fate that could befall a creature. Shelejiah had given him the means to capture Quicksilver and deliver him so that he might serve a sentence as a ‘pet’ bird. But after seeing the Thracian clouds, he was pretty sure being left there would be the most nightmarish ‘time out’ ever conceived.
He had no way of judging how long he’d been riding, but the strength of his connection to Shivaun had grown with every passing second. That was how he knew he was on the right path, metaphorically that is. There were no pathways in the Thracian clouds. Just infinite white mist.
As the link grew stronger his eagerness surged in kind, partly because he couldn’t wait to reunite with Shivaun and partly because he needed to know she was okay. When he spotted her and saw that she was horizontal, he laid the bike down and sprinted the rest of the way.
“Shivaun!”
She didn’t move. But his fears were instantly transformed into joyful laughter when he saw the empty bottle of Gelston’s and heard her soft snoring. She’d tried conjuring, too.
That’s my girl.
With affection more profound than he would’ve ever thought possible, he smoothed a lock of hair back from her face and said, “You make the Irish proud.” His throat closed with overwhelming emotion when he realized that he’d almost ended the sentence with, “my love.”
“So you found her,” Quicksilver said from behind him. “Good for you. But I’ll be keeping her. She’s part of the redesign of my future and she’s going to get me everything I ever wanted.”
Lyric didn’t rise from his knees when he said, “And what’s that?”
“Absolute authority. The kind that means I can’t be questioned.”
“Over who?”
Quicksilver laughed. “Everything! Everyone!!”
“Even if your authority is not the best thing for everything and everyone?”
“You’re not listening. I’m talking about what’s good for me.”
“Yeah,” Lyric said quietly. “I am listening.” Shivaun stirred in her sleep and moaned quietly. “I’m taking my mate and going. If you know what’s good for you, you won’t put up a fuss about it. Because leaving you here is the best outcome you can expect. Believe me.”
“Your mate? Since when?”
“I can’t say when. But the link is firmly in place. If you were paying attention to something besides yourself, you probably would have realized it.”
Quicksilver’s eyes shot from Lyric to Shivaun and widened when he sensed that indeed the soul link had established while he’d been plotting. It was pulsing strong and bright as the sun emerging from dark clouds. He’d missed his chance. Unless…
The shifter’s eyes narrowed on Lyric. “There are ways to break a mate link.”
Lyric scoffed. “What are you thinking now? That you’re going to extinguish my light?”
Quicksilver nodded, but rather than answering he transformed into the only thing capable of eliciting fear from demons.
Lyric had never seen one, but knew instantly that it was a soul eater. The only thing capable of permanently ending the life of an elemental. He’d once warned Shivaun that there might be things that could harm demons, but he hadn’t known for certain that soul eaters weren’t creatures of myth.
The thing was ten feet tall with red scales, curved horns, yellow eyes, and teeth so large it was physically unable to close its mouth. It meant the thing’s face was frozen into a permanently grotesque smile. As Lyric’s eyes darted to its paws, he was reminded of stories about talons rending the flesh from demons before they were devoured.
As if on cue the scorpion tail rose and danced like a cobra, also bringing to Lyric’s mind stories about the monster rendering its prey helpless with a paralyzing poison. In