Through the Ether (Force of Nature Book 5) - Amber Lynn Natusch Page 0,17

called me through. It had been a focal presence then, but in the club, it had been much more pervasive.

And that made me wonder…

If fey magic could infiltrate our world, then was it possible for Earth magic to penetrate Faerie? Could I send a tendril of my magic through the veil to be used on the other side, as Mack had used the fey king’s? Could I be the spy we needed in the fey royals’ realm, but do it from our own?

“Only one way to find out,” I muttered to myself as I took a deep breath.

Focusing on the thin border between our worlds, I drew magic from the earth I sat upon and gently sent it forth, channeling it at a single spot in the distance. I didn’t want to rip a hole in the veil as I had before for several reasons, not the least of which being that I didn’t want to open the door for the royals to march through. So instead, I tried to poke a hole just big enough for that magic to slip through.

If I could do that much, my plan might just work.

I knew the second I breached the veil. The magic of Faerie called to the part of my DNA that belonged there, but I ignored it and tried to see if I could direct my magic through the realm. But with no target—no knowledge of where I was and where I wanted to go—it seemed a challenge at best. At worst, impossible.

Then I remembered Liam.

“Take me to him,” I whispered as though my mother might hear me. Like an obedient dog, I felt my magic delve deeper into the foreign land, seeking the being I’d requested. I held my breath as that branch of me shot out faster and faster, racing blindly after the Original I’d almost forgotten we’d sent into enemy lands. Lands I was now trespassing in as well. I started to panic as I wondered what would happen if that extension of my magic were caught.

I see you, a voice hissed somewhere in my brain, and I jerked backward, yanking that exploring magic back through the veil into me. It crashed into me like a freight train and knocked me onto my back. I coughed as I tried to catch the breath that had been knocked out of me.

Then the exterior door opened, and Kingston came flying through.

“You and I need to talk.”

Chapter Six

He stared at me strangely as I scrambled to my feet, still shaken from my magical adventure into Faerie.

“What were you just doing?”

“Nothing. Now move. I need to check on something inside.”

He stopped me with a forearm to my chest as I tried to step around him. “It can wait.”

I let out a sigh. “What do you want, Kingston? You know you’re in no position to make demands, right? Even if I couldn’t kick your ass, which I can if you recall, one shout from me and half this house will come running. And they’re not particularly fond of people that hurt me. You remember how well your stunt with Reinhardt went…”

He smiled wickedly. “You mean Daddy, don’t you?”

I stared at him for a moment, biting my tongue until it bled. “We’re done here.”

I dodged around him and punched the security code into the door. I flew through the breezeway with the warlock asshole on my heels.

“Still a bit of a sore spot, I see.”

“And a shitty way to go about getting a favor,” I snarled as I climbed the stairs from the foyer.

“True…” His voice trailed behind me as I rounded the newel post and headed down the hall. Then he darted in front of me yet again. “But that doesn’t matter.”

“Either you start getting to the point or I start kicking your ass.”

His smile fell away. “I want to go to Faerie.”

That was not the conversation starter I’d expected, though it didn’t fully surprise me. Kingston’s sister, Beatrice, had sacrificed herself to one of the fey king’s minions to save her brother—and me. His devastation had been immediate and all-consuming, and it had been all I could do to pull him together enough to face the fey queen not long after. Even then, it had only been his rage that had kept him going. But I’d thought that, after that meeting, his anger and need for vengeance had simmered.

Apparently, I had been wrong. Not that I blamed him.

My sympathy played in my expression as I delivered the blow. “Kingston, I told