I yelled my fury, charging the spirits around me. Strong emotion is better for physical attacks but not mental ones, and I lost whatever grip I’d momentarily had on the Otherworld. The athame caused some damage to one of the spirits, but the other dodged. It hit me hard, shoving me into my entertainment center. The sharp corners dug into my back, but the adrenaline pumping through me wouldn’t let me feel it. Not yet.
I muttered another incantation to Hecate and felt the power shoot up again. The spirit who had thrown me drifted forward. The gates swung open, and I banished it away. Moments later, its injured counterpart followed. That left two.
One of them swooped in, reaching out for me. I ducked past it, hitting the floor, where I half-crawled and half-rolled out of its grasp. My connection to the Otherworld had slipped again; I needed it back. I kept ordering myself to focus, but then I saw my mom lying in the corner. I couldn’t get past that. I went after the spirit again, and it hissed angrily as the athame dug into its upper body. I was sloppy, however, and gave one of its hands the opening to grab my wand hand and shove me against the wall. The wand fell to the floor. A moment later, the spirit’s other hand twisted my other wrist until I dropped the athame as well. The last spirit floated up and added to the wall around me. Walls were really starting to piss me off lately.
They had me now, trapped and defenseless and injured. I didn’t know what exactly they could do, however. Earlier they’d worried about killing me, yet they could have no romantic interest in me. What could they My patio door opened, and an elemental walked in. An elemental made of mud, of all things. Its body was very solid, very human, and very male. Oozing, brown-gray sludge dripped off it and onto my carpet.
I renewed my futile efforts to break from the spirits. Volusian’s words came back to haunt me. More organized attacks. The spirits couldn’t have sex with me, but the elemental gentry could. It had sent its minions to subdue me first. Clever.
“Where are the others?” asked the elemental, an almost comic look of astonishment on his face as he glanced around the room.
“She banished them, master,” whispered one of the spirits.
“You really are lethal, aren’t you?” The elemental approached. “I hadn’t believed the stories. I thought sending these six was overkill. Still. I guess even you have your limits.”
I sneered at him. “Don’t talk to me about limits. You can’t even cross to this world in full form.”
A look of displeasure crossed that dripping, muddy face. Power was a matter of pride among the gentry. His inability to cross over fully was probably a sore point. Raping me was undoubtedly a way of compensating for all sorts of deficiencies.
“It won’t matter,” he said. “Once I beget Storm King’s heir, all gentry will pass into this world, smiting the race of humans.”
“Okay, Mr. Old Testament. I can’t honestly believe you just used ‘beget’ and ‘smiting’ in the same sentence.”
“So brave and brash. Yet it won’t-ow!”
I couldn’t free my upper body, but the elemental was close enough that I flipped my lower body upward and kicked him. I’d been aiming for the groin, just like with the Gray Man, but caught his thigh instead. The guarding spirit restrained my legs.
The elemental narrowed his eyes. “You make things difficult. This would be far easier on you if you would submit.”
“Don’t hold your breath.”
“She will submit, master,” intoned a spirit. “Her mother lies there on the floor.”
I stiffened in the spirit’s grip. “Don’t touch her.”
The elemental turned and walked toward where my mother had fallen. Almost gently, he leaned down and picked her up in his arms. “She’s still alive.”
“Leave her alone, you bastard!” I screamed. I strained so hard, it felt like my arms would tear from my shoulders.
“Let her go,” ordered the elemental.
“Master-”
“Let her go. She will not do anything, because she knows if she so much as steps in this direction”-the muddy hand slid up to my mom’s throat, leaving a dirty trail wherever he moved-“then I will snap her neck.”
The spirits released me. I did not move.
“I’m going to kill you,” I said. My voice was hoarse from the choking and screaming. “I’ll tear you to pieces before I send you to hell.”
“Unlikely. Not if you want this one to live. Come,” he said to one of his servants. “Take her.” There was a tradeoff, and now a spirit held my mother. “If Odile Dark Swan so much as looks threatening, kill this woman.”
“Odile Dark Swan always looks threatening.” The spirit spoke in a deadpan, nonsarcastic voice. Apparently this elemental’s minions had as good a sense of humor as my own.
“You know what I mean,” snapped the elemental. He came closer to me, so only a few inches separated us. “Now. I will let you live. I will let your mother live. All you have to do is not fight me while I do what I’ve come here to do. When I am finished, we will depart in peace. Do you understand?”
Anger and fury were raging in me, and I could feel tears burning at the edges of my vision. I wanted to reach out and claw his eyes. I wanted to kick between his legs until no one could tell if he was male anymore. I wanted to deliver him to Persephone in a pile of body parts.
But I was scared. So scared that if I even blinked wrong, they’d break my mother. She already hung uselessly in the spirit’s arms like a rag doll. For all I knew, she could have been dead, but something told me she wasn’t. I couldn’t gamble if she might be alive.
So I nodded in acknowledgment to the elemental and felt one of the tears leak out of my eye as I did.
“Good.” He exhaled, and I realized he was as scared of me as I was of him. “Now. Undress.”
Bile rose in my throat. I couldn’t get enough oxygen again; it was like the air was thick and heavy around me. Another tear stole from my eye, and I slowly pulled down the pajama pants, removing the gun I hadn’t been able to use. It occurred to me briefly that I could probably manage to shoot the elemental right now, but I wouldn’t be fast enough to save my mother.
What did it matter? If he was telling the truth, I would still live if I could only endure this. I was on the pill. I probably wouldn’t actually get pregnant. I’d only have to lay there passively while this big anthropomorphic pile of dirt had his way with me. Things could be worse. Probably.
I looked at him, imagining those hands on me. The air grew thicker to me, making it still harder to breathe. The lighting seemed darker, as it had when the spirit choked me, and I wondered if I was going to faint. Maybe it’d be easier that way. Less to remember.
“The rest,” he said impatiently. He too was breathing heavily.
I moved my fingers to the edges of my underwear. I had dressed for comfort in plain, gray cotton bikini-cuts. They were nice but not sexy. They didn’t match the pink top. Of course, it didn’t matter to the elemental what I wore. Naked desire glowed on his face. I stared at the lumpy, misshapen body and worked hard not to whimper. I knew what I had to do, but I didn’t want to. Oh, God. Oh, Selene. I didn’t want him to touch me. I didn’t want him pressed up against me. Nausea rolled up in my stomach, and I wondered desperately where Kiyo was. I knew he couldn’t follow me 24/7, and I suddenly regretted my snide comments about his protection. I wished he were here now. I needed him. I’d never felt so defenseless in my life, not even in that long-lost memory. It was not a state of mind I liked.
As I was about to pull the panties down, a slap of wood on glass made all of us jump. The elemental jerked his head around, and I followed his gaze. The patio door was open, and the wind had blown in, knocking over a picture frame on my coffee table. It was a strong wind, one that kept blowing, scattering papers and other objects around. Yet, outside, the sunshine and azure skies of late spring reflected no such disturbance.