“You . . . you horrible beast!” I yelled. Bryce burst in behind me, clearly ready to deal with a demon or something worse.
He followed my gaze, then exhaled in relief. “Shit, it’s just Fuzzykins,”
“It’s my bed,” I gritted out. “She had her damn kittens in my bed! Eilahn bought her a ridiculously expensive cat bed, but no, she had to drop her spawn on my comforter!”
Bryce moved forward to peer at the lumps. “She sure did.” A smile spread across his face as the cat mrowred up at him, but he wiped it away when he looked back at me. “Want to crash in the guest room for now, and I’ll, uh, move them or something?”
“Shit.” I sighed. “No, they’re newborns. Better not to move them.” I scowled at the cat. “She knew that too, the little bitch.”
“Actually the proper term for a female cat is a queen, not a bitch . . .” He trailed off at the look on my face. “And you don’t care about that.” He cleared his throat. “Anyway, you still should crash in the guest room—”
Eilahn burst in and shouldered her way past us, cutting him off. “Fuzzykins! You good girl!”
“Yeah, what a good girl,” I muttered. “More creatures in the house who hate me.” A weird and miserable pang went through me at the thought. It bugged the hell out of me that this cat— allcats—despised me simply because I was a summoner. The unfairness of it gnawed at me, though I knew my current exhaustion exacerbated my reaction.
Eilahn continued to coo and ah over the kittens, clearly oblivious to the fact that she sported a black eye and ripped, bloodstained clothing. “Oh, you wonderful girl!” she gushed to Fuzzykins. “There is Bumper and Squig and Granger and Fillion and Dire and Cake!”
Bryce touched my arm and gave me a reassuring smile. I realized he’d likely picked up on my mood. “Maybe in a couple of days,” he said softly, “after they’ve settled in, and you’ve had some rest, you could see what would happen if you got to know one early on. From the beginning.”
“Maybe,” I said. “I don’t know. All cats hate me.” I rubbed my gritty eyes. “I’m going to go crash on the couch or something.”
“Kara, use the guest room,” he insisted. “You need some quiet.”
I watched Eilahn fuss over the kittens, unsettled by the weird feeling that I’d lost her, too. I knew it wasn’t true at all, but right now everything felt off. Why hadn’t I even tried to call her? “Yeah, okay.” I turned and left my bedroom, walked down the hall, and into the guest room. Then stood in the middle of the floor and looked around, confused. I’d thought I was home, but no. Guest rooms were for guests. That made sense. I shook my head at my lapse.
I heard Bryce curse and pivoted to look questioningly at him. He stood in the hallway outside the door with his phone to his ear. His critical gaze raked through me as though finding me lacking, and it left me unsettled, shaken.
An overwhelming sense that I’d forgotten something vital slithered through me, something barely beyond my reach. My mind scrambled to figure out what was missing, and the sensation increased, as if once again I stood on a tilting plain of smooth glass with nothing to hang on to. “Bryce?” I choked out, struggled to dig in, grab on to anything. This was wrong. Une. Due . . . Due . . .
Or maybe I was just tired? Tired and imagining things. Yes, that was it. Simply tired. I looked over at the inviting bed. Everything would be better once I slept. I’d feel like a new person.
“Kristoff? Thatcher here,” Bryce said tersely into his phone, eyes never leaving me. “How far away are you? Kara’s slipping. I’ve never seen it this bad.”
Who was he talking about? Should I be worried about her?I wondered distantly.
He shoved his phone into his pocket, moved in and gripped me by my shoulders. “Kara!” he shouted at me and gave me a sharp shake. “Your name is Kara!”
I sucked in a breath, surfaced. Kara? A flare of sick dread gave me something to hang on to, though it too threatened to melt away. “R-right. Kara.” I reached up to cling to his upper arms, looked into his face, my eyes wide in panicked desperation. “Bryce, this is bad. Don’t let me go. Please.”
“I have you,” he said with fierce reassurance, and comprehension suddenly bloomed on his face. “That’s why Mzatal left me behind,” he murmured to himself, so low I barely caught it. He shook himself and returned his entire focus to me. “ Kara.Mzatal is going to take care of Paul, and I’m going to take care of you. Kara.” He shifted to grip me by the upper arm, then led me out and toward the living room.
I didn’t resist. “Yes . . . yes. He’ll take care of Paul. And I’m Kara.” That was right. Wasn’t it? I felt my eyes squinch in doubt, looked up at him as we walked. “You’re sure?”
“I’m damn sure,” he told me. “Rhyzkahl did this to you. You’re Kara Gillian. Summoner. You have Mzatal who loves you. You have good friends: Zack, Jill, and Ryan who’ll be here in less than a minute. You’re Kara.” He sat me on the sofa, dropped down beside me, and kept hold of my arm. “You have an aunt, uh, Tessa, and a demon guard Eilahn. You rescued Idris a little while ago. You are Kara.”
I gave him a jerky nod. “Sure. Okay.” I looked around the living room. Eilahn crouched a few feet away, eyes on me. Why was she tracing sigils, and why did she look pissed and intense? “Kara,” I echoed, but the name felt strange on my lips, and the familiar room didn’t seem as inviting as it had a moment ago. “I don’t feel right.”
“I know, Kara.” Bryce shifted to face me more, shook me a bit. “It’s the sigils, the scars. It’s Rhyzkahl and his fucking implanted virus.” His gaze flicked to the door then back to me. “I hear Ryan’s car. We’re going to take care of you.”
I clung to his words. “I trust you,” I said and held his arm in a death grip. “You’ll take care of me.”
Ryan burst through the front door. “Kara!”
Distress spiked as I heard the name. I released Bryce, twisted to face my friend. Yes. Ryan was my friend. “Ryan! Something’s wrong.” He would help. That much I knew. “I don’t know what, but it . . . it is.”
Ryan moved to crouch in front of me, face a mask of worry. “Shit,” he breathed. “Kara. Kara!”
My brow furrowed at the shout. Was that myname? It didn’t seem right.
Bryce scrutinized us, jaw tight. “You two are going out back,” he commanded, then stood and pulled me to my feet. “Let’s go.” He jerked his head at Ryan. “Now.”
I offered him a tremulous smile. I trusted these two men, and that absolute certainty helped ease the churning disquiet. Obviously distressed, Ryan led the way down the hall to the back.
“This is a nice house,” I murmured as we passed through the kitchen. Ryan shot a startled look back at me, and Bryce’s hand tightened on my arm.
“It’s yourhouse, Kara,” he insisted. “Your house.”
Fear twisted my gut as I struggled to process that. I looked around for anything that clicked as personal, as mine, but found nothing. How could this be mine? None of this made sense.
Ryan took my other arm as we stepped off the back porch, and together the two men quick-walked me to the mini-nexus. As soon as we crossed the boundary of the power focus I dragged in a shuddering breath, feeling as if the curtain obscuring my Selfreopened a crack. I clawed my way up, clung with everything I had to that slim awareness. “Kara,” I gasped out, tasted it, fought to reclaim my name. “Ryan. Bryce. I’m Kara.” I wrestled against the uncertainty and panic that threatened my tenuous hold. But how long could I do so? For now I held fast to the sloping plain of glass, but if it tipped more . . .