she looked a little otherworldly. Until his gaze dropped to the hand holding the two bows, fingernails painted pink. That pink nail polish reminded him that the woman in the purple sweater and snug jeans was still in there. Her sweet scent wafted over him, heating his blood, driving home the lesson. Even dressed like Friar Tuck she stirred his interest.
She met his gaze without flinching. “You can’t go through the gate alone, Charlie Rand.”
“Yeah, I know that.” Humans didn’t possess the magical genes to get through without an escort from Esria. “But all you have to do is hand me through, right? You don’t actually have to go all the way through yourself.”
“I don’t have to stay, but I have to go through.” Her gaze broke from his and traveled to the mammoth fountain that was the location of the gate into Esria. “I will go first, then come back for you.” Her gaze slowly returned to his. “I would not have you walk into a trap.”
His gut started crawling and he looked at her sharply. “Do you have reason to believe there’s a trap waiting for me?”
Her eyes widened. “No. But as I’ve told you, I don’t have the gift of foreknowledge. If there are Esri in the area, I’ll draw less attention if I’m dressed properly.”
“If there are Esri in the area …” A chill washed over him at the thought. She’d be snatched and enslaved and there’d be no one there to protect her. “Forget it. We’re going through together. If we find Esri waiting for us, we’ll come right back.”
There was something about the little Marceil that brought out his protective instincts. Her size probably had something to do with it. But it was more than that. He’d seen her under the control of Baleris, seen the way she fought against the son of a bitch’s far superior power. And he knew she’d probably suffered serious abuse at the bastard’s hands. No way could he blithely let her go back to that.
She’d take him through the gate and come right back. Nothing more.
“The gate’s open.” Kade’s voice resonated over the park.
Charlie’s pulse leaped as he lifted his flamethrower and ran to take his place with the others. There were five of them guarding the gate tonight, four Sitheen and Kade.
Harrison stood on Charlie’s right. Jack and Larsen had taken up position across the park, on the other side of the fountain. And on Charlie’s left stood Kade, seven feet of hard-muscled immortal. Kade didn’t look Esrian, especially in his jeans and leather jacket. He’d been as surprised as the rest of them when they’d realized he was only half Esri. It turned out that both his parents, born more than fifteen centuries ago, were half human, but Kade had inherited his dad’s dark hair and Caucasian skin and his mom’s immortality. The Sitheen were more than happy to have him on their side.
He’d lived fifteen centuries in Esria until a month ago when he’d stolen through the gate on a mission to destroy the Sitheen and steal back the strongest of the seven stones. When he’d realized the full extent of his king’s evil plans for the human race, he’d discovered he had too much humanity in him to let it happen. It hadn’t hurt that he’d fallen in love with a human—Larsen’s friend, Autumn.
As he stood by the fountain, Charlie saw that the light of the full moon had cast the three life-size statues carved into the fountain’s pedestal into ghostly relief. The statues looked ready to leap naked from the marble.
Charlie settled his flamethrower securely in both hands. Adrenaline pumped through his veins like rocket fuel. Within the next sixty minutes, he’d be walking through that gate himself. But first, he had to help make sure no Esri jumped out.
A chill breeze molded the silk pants against Charlie’s legs and lifted the hem of his borrowed cloak. He was wearing Kade’s uniform from the Esrian Royal Guard. The uniform had been hastily altered to fit his more normal, six-one frame. With any luck, if he did run into Esri he could pass himself off as a mixed blood immortal, like Kade. If they figured out he was mortal, he was dead.
Charlie glanced at the giant. “Any last-minute advice before I go through?”
“Stay away from the Esri,” Kade advised.
Charlie laughed. “Yeah, I figured that much. Anything else?”
“No. Nothing that I haven’t already told you. Other than the Esri, the biggest threat to you are the black trimors, but there’s not a lot you can do about them except hope you don’t cross their paths. You’ll never see them coming.”
“Great.” If there wasn’t anything he could do about them, he wasn’t going to worry about them.
He’d spent all morning with Kade, learning as much as he could about the place—what to eat, what to avoid, like the deadly, cat-like black trimors that remained invisible until the moment of attack. And how to reach the Forest of Nightmares where Princess Ilaria had been held captive for more than three hundred years. Kade knew she was alive. Linked by the magic of their world, all Esri knew the moment one of their own died … and at whose hands. Princess Ilaria still lived.
But rescuing her was going to be a feat of gigantic proportions and Kade could offer no advice. He’d never been in the Forest of Nightmares. No Esri entered those dark woods willingly.
“I wish I could go with you,” Kade said, sounding frustrated.
Charlie couldn’t imagine what the man was feeling. Just last night Kade had killed one of his own men as that Esri forced open the gate a day early and tried to abscond with the seven stones of power that were the keys to the gates … and so much more. Kade had stopped him but at a terrible cost. It was forbidden to end an immortal life, and Kade was now marked for death should he ever return to Esria. The moment he stepped through one of the gates, every Esri would know and be able to track him. They would terminate his existence long before he got anywhere near the Forest of Nightmares.
Now Kade was stuck here and Charlie was going into Esria alone.
Silence settled over the small group as they watched the fountain, waiting. The tension in Charlie’s gut twisted even as adrenaline simmered in his veins. Fifteen minutes. Thirty. Forty-five. Enough.
He stepped forward, breaking the circle. “If they were coming through, they’d have done it by now. I can’t wait any longer.”
One by one, the others left their positions to shake his hand and wish him luck.
Finally, Harrison stepped up to him. Charlie had never gotten along well with his too-serious older brother. But this wasn’t the time for old fights. And he had a sense of what it was costing Harrison to watch him enter the Esrian world. Harrison’s first experience with the Esri had been a nightmare. He’d taken his young kids to the Kennedy Center to see The Lion King and fallen victim to Baleris instead. Baleris had done no more than touch Harrison’s six-year-old daughter, Stephie, for an instant, but the pain he’d launched into her small body had damaged her in ways no doctor could repair. Even Aunt Myrtle, with her gift for healing, hadn’t been able to help her. Months later, the child still remained catatonic and might stay that way for the rest of her life.
Anger flared every time he thought of his little niece, but Charlie knew his anger was nothing compared to his brother’s. Harrison hated the Esri with a depth that was chilling. He wouldn’t deal well with the loss of a second family member to that evil.
But Charlie had every intention of
