By late afternoon I’d read up on everything Marcus could find about the Sword of Light, also known as Gladys. I’d also been briefed on how the trial would go. This wasn’t a trial that included a jury, who would likely not appreciate the fact that some heavenly host had been causing trouble. No. That would be far too easy. Hugo had laid it all out for me. The “trial” of Jude, the Faithful Motherfucking Betrayer, would be decided by combat with the champion of the sword. Not any sword, but the Sword of Light. Only a sword forged in Heaven could be used in this particular battle, and Excalibur was now considered to be an Earth plane sword due to the magicks worked on it by Merlin. Donovan had tried that line of reasoning. I kind of thought he just wanted to kill something, but it turned out yet again that when bad shit happened on the Earth plane, it was my responsibility to deal with it.

The trial/me potentially getting my ass kicked was to occur at one of the in-between times. Donovan decided on midnight rather than dawn since he believed night would favor my wolf. I wasn’t so sure about that, but I was going with it. There was a whole ritual thing that involved the owner of the sword, and then right before everything went down we would use Zoey’s blood to unleash Gladys. And then we would see if I would live or die.

Just another Tuesday.

“Hey, you okay?” Gray walked out of the bedroom wearing nothing but a pair of sweatpants.

That totally made me feel better. Damn that man was fine. I didn’t hesitate the way I might have in the past. Something about getting my ass kicked time and time again to save the freaking plane made me think I deserved any pleasure I could get. I fought. I bled. I deserved this.

I let my hands roam over his cut torso, pausing to pet that dragon. “Better now.”

“I have dinner almost ready. If you want to eat,” he offered.

“I pretty much always want to eat.” It was something he needed to get used to if he was going to hang around. I wasn’t sure Trent had any idea how to make something that didn’t come from a box, and I was not Martha Stewart. It was up to Gray to make sure I ate anything that didn’t come from Ether or the coffee shop on the sixth floor.

“Good.” He was speaking blandly, as though trying hard to keep things as normal as possible. “Should be about twenty minutes. Can I get you a beer?”

“I think I will skip the beer until later.” I would probably need it and a lot of pain meds since I couldn’t take vamp blood. “How did things go with Neil and Liv?”

He shook his head. “Still working on it, from what I understand. She’s worried about what could happen when he does remember. It would be nice if the doc was able to be there.”

But our shrink was currently in a coma, and he might never wake up if I didn’t win this fight. That weighed heavily on me. Felix Day had fallen and he should have been looking forward to a nice long life on the Earth plane with his love and their daughter, but he wouldn’t see them again if I didn’t make it happen. “Yeah, well, a session with Felix is going to have to wait. If Liv wants to put off trying again until we can bring Felix in, we should know something shortly after midnight.”

Because I didn’t think this fight would take long. I would win or lose and we would know Felix’s fate.

“You don’t have to do this, Kelsey mine.” His hands found my hair. “We can walk away and not come back. This isn’t on you.”

“Isn’t it? I know you can’t see futures that directly involve you, but tell me what you see if this doesn’t happen tonight. Look at it from an intellectual standpoint. Forget that it’s me. Think about what happens to the supernatural world. What happens if there is no trial for Jude, the Faithful Asshat?”

“Can we put that on a T-shirt?” Trent stepped through the kitchen door and leaned against the bar, a smile on his face. He wasn’t wearing a shirt either, and I wondered what the boys had been doing while I was gone.

I do not mind saying I kind of hoped it was something dirty.

“I thought she was the sarcastic one,” Gray said with a shake of his head. His eyes rolled back and became the full-on black that came with his prophecy powers. His body stiffened and I could feel a fine shudder go through him.

“You can never have enough sarcasm.” Trent moved in behind me, resting his head on my shoulder. His arms wrapped around my waist. We were connected, the three of us.

Gray came out of it with a sigh. “War. Death. Unbalance.”

Trent kissed the nape of my neck. It seemed to be a place he loved to nuzzle and kiss, and I couldn’t help but think about how dominant and alpha the gesture was. Or that he’d probably not been this affectionate with a woman ever. He’d waited for me, and now that we were together he seemed incapable of keeping his hands off me.

I liked it.

“That sounds like a job for Super Kelsey,” Trent murmured against my skin. “I would have thought you might be a bit restless.”

I smiled at the thought. He wanted to make sure I didn’t need anything from him, maybe something that could calm me down like a couple of screaming orgasms. “Oh, make no doubt, I’ve got about four hours before this thing goes down. I intend to spend some of that time in bed, but I’m good, babe. I am neither pulling my hair out with worry or morosely waiting for my death.”

I’d done both in the past. Now I was calm and ready for the fight, ready to get it over with so I could move on to the next problem. I still had the threat of Hell looming over my head, but that was a problem for another day.

Gray stepped back. “Well, I’m glad you’re calm because I’m sure as hell not. Have you thought for two seconds about what happens if you die?”

“I try not to.” Because that would free Nemcox to talk about my dad.

Trent groaned behind me and then strode over to the couch. “I told you, she’s good at this. You have to have some faith in her or you’ll go crazy. I’ve watched it time and time again with the king and Devinshea. They always flip out when the queen wants to do something stupid and they forbid it, and she does it anyway and everything turns out all right except that no one gets any sex for a couple of weeks because they’re all mad at each other. I say we do it better than they do and accept that Kelsey can handle things.”

I got the feeling this wasn’t a new discussion. The idea that they’d sat around and tried to figure out how to handle me probably should have worried me, but I kind of liked the idea. I’d spent so much of my life without the feeling that I was cared about.

“How many times have you had to watch her almost die? Because it’s been a few for me,” Gray grumbled.

“I watched her in the arena when she first came to the Council. I watched her against an alpha and his two betas and it was one of the most magnificent things I’ve ever seen,” Trent said quietly.

Ah, good times. That had been my first battle in the arena. I’d been fighting to protect a herd of does from a power-hungry wolf pack. That had been my “morosely waiting for my own death” period. It had been before my training with Marcus and I’d been so alone.

Gray stared at Trent. “I don’t understand how you can claim to care about her and then watch her nearly kill herself.”

Trent’s eyes narrowed, and I could feel the irritation rolling off of him. “She didn’t nearly kill herself. She fought hard and she fucking won. Stop being such a prissy prick. You think she needs to be safe, but that’s never what this woman is going to settle for. You fell in love with her why? I can tell you why I did. I fell for her because I saw the strongest, fiercest, most beautiful bitch I’d ever seen stand in the arena when everyone was against her. She didn’t back off or back down, and despite the fact that she didn’t even have her full powers at that point, she still won. She was bloody and broken and utterly defiant. She could barely hold her arms up but she let the king know exactly how she felt. I knew in that moment that I wouldn’t be happy until I was worthy to be called her mate. When did you fall for her?”

“He saw me in a vision.” I said the words as blandly as possible, trying not to let Trent know how deeply I was affected. The bitch part is a wolf thing. I didn’t take it as anything but pride and affection. The wolf inside me knew she was a bad bitch, but hearing her mate say it made her curl with pleasure. It also made me wonder about Gray because if Trent had fallen for me at my worst/best, then Gray had fallen for a vision that might not exist. “I was in a wedding dress and we were starting our honeymoon. Even before he was an official prophet, he had visions.”

Gray looked at me and shook his head. “Don’t you even think that. After everything we’ve been through, I don’t see you as some doll to protect. I might have in the beginning, but I don’t anymore. I might have thought we could have something normal where I go off to work and you stay home and raise our kids, but if you haven’t noticed, I left that fucking dream behind.”

My heart ached for him because I did know how much he’d longed for a world where he could marry and be a Ranger and not have to worry about descending into Hell. Becoming the Earth plane’s only dark prophet hadn’t been Gray’s idea, and I wondered if he missed his house and his job. Before he’d met me, he’d had some semblance of normalcy. Did he miss my brother, who had been his best friend? But mostly I wondered if he blamed me for much of it. “I don’t know that I’ll ever be that woman in a white dress, Gray. I think you’ve been looking for her for a long time and you might never find her. She was a possibility that might have been left behind long ago.”

He took me by the shoulders, looking down into my eyes. “I don’t give a shit if we never make it to that hotel. You think you’re the one left behind? I can’t even conceive of myself ever being the happy asshole I was in that vision. I know it’s dead and I’m still here because while that vision might never happen, I’ll fight for us. I’ll fight you for us because nothing in my life is as important to me as you.”

Sweet words and words I’d been longing for. “Then stay with me. Stop this bullshit about how bad you are for me and let us be.”

He reached out and lifted me up like I didn’t weigh a thing. He brought me up so I could wrap my arms around his neck. “I won’t ever willingly leave you again. I might have to one day, but it will not be my choice.”

He kissed me and I could feel his passion, his will. He was with me this time, and though we might have a million barriers in our way, I would find a way to keep this man with me.

Gray lowered me down and rested his forehead against mine. “And I don’t think I’ll be able to get rid of that one. He seems dug in.”

One of Trent’s arms pulled me back against his body but the other found Gray’s tat and I felt the moment they connected. Gray gasped slightly, but he didn’t pull away.

“Very dug in. Like a tick,” Trent replied with a husky chuckle, as though he enjoyed the effect he had on both of us.

Considering how he spent a good deal of his time, I wrinkled my nose. “Pick a better metaphor, babe. I will delouse you if I have to.”

He did spend large parts of his life running around the woods.

I couldn’t help but wonder how different that would be now. We would run through the woods together and when he was done he could return to his human form and we would make love there, too. I would wake up wound around him, naked and feeling alive.

“You’ll never have to,” he promised. “I’m a very clean wolf. Well, except when you want me dirty. Then I can get filthy for you, baby. I promise. I’ll dirty up real nice.”

The room was heating up perfectly. I sighed, already getting used to having four hands on me. Gray leaned over and kissed me.

After a moment, Gray released me and turned me toward Trent. “Kiss him. Give me a show, Kelsey mine. I find I like watching you.”

Trent smiled down as his hands tangled in my hair. “He’s giving in to his perverted side. He’s going to be so much happier that way. I like watching you, too, and damn but I’ve waited my whole life to be able to kiss you.”

He kissed me, a long, luscious exploration of my mouth that had me panting. When he finally released me, I looked back at Gray. His eyes had gone dark violet and he moved to join us.

“Yes, dinner can definitely wait. I’m hungry for something else.” Gray picked me up and headed for the bedroom.

 

* * * *

 

Two hours later, I looked at Neil Roberts, who seemed like a completely different person from the one I’d tried to basically arrest a few days before. This Neil Roberts was calm and oozed self-confidence. He stood in the middle of that gorgeous penthouse and held court, laughing and smiling and yes, every now and then he got a little teary. It was as if he’d come back from a place he’d been stuck in for years.

It was not the reaction I’d expected.

“I’m surprised,” I whispered to Liv, who’d managed to get the ritual done on her own. I could tell she was pleased with herself. The spell had done wonders for Roberts, but it had done something for Liv, too. “I expected him to be upset. Remembering all that time in Hell would have fucked up a lot of people.”

“It must have been how smooth and easy that spell went down.” There was a smirk on Liv’s face I hadn’t seen in years. Not since long before Scott and their epic engagement that had ended a few months before. This was the Liv who’d taken on the mosh pits at rock concerts and boldly asked guys out. The one who never gave up and always had my back.

That ritual must have been a hell of a thing.

And I didn’t feel at all bad about missing it since my whole body hummed with how perfectly those two men fed my every hunger.

Besides, it wasn’t like she’d been completely alone.

“Don’t believe it,” Casey said. “It wasn’t easy and it was damn lucky she had me since I’d recently been out to a site on the web that talked specifically about the spell she needed.”

She wrinkled her nose the vampire’s way. “Casey might have figured out I was using the wrong amount of periwinkle. Though I do think you were right about Neil being more receptive. It worked quickly once the formula was right.”

Casey nodded and his arm started up like it was going around her shoulder.

She turned and stared at him, and he tried unconvincingly to turn the motion into a stretch.

“Not there yet, buddy,” Liv said with a shake of her head.

Casey’s whole face lit up. He was grinning down at her, and in that moment I could actually see the appeal. Casey was tall and muscular, in a lean way. “You said yet.”

She sighed. “I did. Now go and get me a glass of wine. I’m going to need it if I have to watch Kelsey get her ass kicked again.”

Casey practically ran toward the kitchen.

“Yet?”

She flushed but that smirk was back. “Yeah. I kind of like him. He’s not a complete ass. He’s actually quite sweet and he’s surprisingly helpful. I think I could train him. Is that a horrible thing to want to do?”

“Nope. I think a spot of training would go a long way with that one.” I went back to watching Neil. His husband was staring at him like he was the only person in the world. When I glanced around the room, though, I caught Gray staring at me the same way. And Trent.

Gray was proving a very bossy lover, and damn if Trent didn’t let him. They were rapidly finding their places, and I was surprised that didn’t worry me at all.

Losing them both worried me. It worried the hell out of me.

Liv turned my way. “And how is the ménage going? I thought you were a lucky girl when you were doing the vampire. Jeez, Kelsey, how are you going to manage those two?”

I shrugged. “I might not have to. When you think about it, I’ll probably die in the arena or I’ll get dragged to Hell by Gray’s brother, and despite what Trent thinks, I won’t bring him with me and then I’ll only have to deal with Gray, who will likely go mad because of his descent. But it’s okay because I’ve been assured I’ll go wolf loco without Trent’s sweet loving, so we’ll all be bonkers.”

Liv stared my way. “That is not helpful.”

Yeah, maybe my morose phase wasn’t entirely over. Now that we were literally an hour away from calling Jude, I couldn’t help but think about the truth that even if I survived this fight, I would have to deal with the fact that I owed Nemcox my soul. Mine in exchange for my father’s.

I shoved the thought aside. I would deal with that problem another night. Tonight was all about survival. “Do you have the spell to call Jude?”

Liv nodded, but she’d paled a bit. “Dico Angelus. That is the name of this spell. Felicity assures me it will work. I’ve been granted the equivalency of an approved heavenly bounty hunter, so he has to answer my call. Once he’s here, Felicity and Oliver will announce the trial and the winner gets the Sword of Justice. By the way, you’ve agreed to give the sword back to Oliver in exchange for him waking Felix up.”

“He can wake Felix up?”

“Only if Jude is in transition,” she explained. “I’m not supposed to call it death. When Jude’s soul is parted from his body, the ability to right the wrongs he’s done on this plane transfers to the angel who embodies justice. Oliver will wake Felix up, but he can’t bring back the dead. We already asked about potentially bringing back the halflings Jude had murdered. That was a no go. The king has to deal with that on his own, but I heard he’s already planning to meet with the families of the halflings and open talks.”

Marcus was going to be able to get his politics on.

And then he would roam the world until his promised love was old enough to decide.

I was going to miss him so much.

I would miss them all if the next ritual didn’t go well.

“And what have you learned about the sword ritual?”

Liv frowned. “Very little. I had Casey look around and he couldn’t find much either. The lore about that sword was lost, or someone got rid of it. I don’t know which. I do know that the sword is ancient. It’s older than Christ.”

“Jacob was the first prophet to walk the Earth plane, so that makes sense. According to Felicity, he gave the sword to the group we now call the companions.” Which didn’t make sense. “Do you think they were always known as companions?”

Liv shrugged. “No idea. I’m surprised they were once some kind of tribe. Even after the king freed the slaves, they don’t seem eager to get back together. I know the queen has some friends who are companions, but when a group of them gets together they kind of watch each other warily.”

Millenia of enslavement could change whole classes of people.

“Your wine, my lady.” Casey offered Liv a glass of red wine with a flourish.

She took it but shook her head my way. “Forgive him. We’re watching Game of Thrones. He’s a dork.”

“You’re a dork, too. She’s totally obsessed with that show,” Casey said, still grinning like a loon.

“I need you to be obsessed with that sword,” Liv shot back. “We’ve got another hour or so.”

Casey saluted. “As you wish. I’ve got a few theories I’m trying to track down. What do I get if I save the day?”

“Dude, you get to live on a peaceful plane,” I replied.

Liv smiled a secretive smile. “We’ll see. But you have to come through big time.”

He ran off down the hall and I heard the door open and close.

He wouldn’t take much training if his eagerness was any indicator. “That boy has the hots for you.”

“It feels good to have someone interested in me,” Liv admitted. “Though I’ll also admit that I’m enjoying living on my own. I got one of the open apartments with a terrace. It’s weird not to have a full garden, but I’m learning how to grow my herbs in pots. And I’ve got more time to study. It’s been good for me. I feel more like me than I have in years, so I’m not going to take this fast with the vamp.”

Slow was a good idea. Just not for me. I had little time left, and that meant getting in all the hot, soul-filling sex I could.

Chad poured a glass of champagne and passed it over to his husband as Neil continued with his story.

I could see the whole thing was making Gray uncomfortable, but he’d insisted on coming.

The queen stood and hugged her bestie and then looked over at me. She tilted her head toward the kitchen before she started walking that way.

It was time. The kitchen was probably as good a place as any to do this.

The minute I started moving, Gray stood up, but Trent got up as well and put a hand on his arm. Trent whispered something and Gray nodded. They both started to move, but not my way. They walked out to the balcony.

How did I handle Gray before Trent? If he hadn’t been around, I would have been fighting to get some privacy. We’d decided to keep this ritual as private as possible. We had no idea if it would work, and if it did the fewer people who knew the queen’s blood unlocked some magical property in the sword, the better. It was me and Liv, the royals, and Evangeline.

Which made me stop and look around because my dad could be sneaky. I listened carefully and heard both Rhys and Lee talking, and then the quiet sounds of Mia saying something I barely could hear.

At least I didn’t have to worry about Lee.

I walked into the kitchen and Donovan was there with the queen, their daughter in his arms.

Gladys was sitting on the counter, Dev having brought her up from the armory. He stood behind the queen, a frown on his handsome face.

“I don’t like it,” he said.

Donovan sighed. “It’s only a little blood. She’ll barely feel it.”

“She’s so young.” Quinn walked to his daughter and put a hand on her head.

“Unfortunately, she’s also incredibly strong, according to the angels,” Liv explained as she picked up the sword and brought it to the island in the center of the kitchen. She laid it carefully in the middle. “They didn’t tell me much. This was a secret ritual among the companions. I was told that the queen’s blood would unlock the sword but also that the companions would crown the strongest queen. Zoey’s title comes from the vampires, not the companions.”

“Because we’re a sad-sack group that serves our masters now,” Zoey grumbled. “We’re not a tribe at all.”

“Yeah, baby, you serve me so often,” Donovan replied. “You’re so submissive.”

Dev’s lips curled up. “Well, she can be.”

The queen sent him a look that would have frozen fire. “Discretion, Dev.” She looked down at the sword. “I can’t help thinking about the fact that we were once powerful. I spent so much of my life without any power, but I come from a line of women who had it.”

“And who owned this sword once,” I murmured. There was something odd about being in a room with the queen and her daughter and Gladys. It made me realize I’d rarely been so close to the queen when I had my sword. Something felt…powerful about being with them, and I knew instinctively the sword recognized either Zoey or Evan.

The queen touched the sword, her fingers skimming over it. “It hums for me.”

Something we had in common. “Me, too. Sometimes when I’m fighting with her, I can feel her pull me this way or that. Just a bit. Just enough that I know what she wants me to do.”

“That’s so cool.” The queen was looking at the sword like she wished she could hold it, fight with it.

“You can pick her up.” If the lore was true, Gladys was as much the queen’s as mine. If we’d been back a couple of thousand years before, it would have been the queen and not the king to invest its power in me.

For a second I thought she would pick it up, but then she stepped back. “I’m afraid my warrior queen days are done. Besides, according to the lore Marcus gave me, the queen didn’t use the sword herself. She appointed a warrior. Who wants to bet that’s where the vampires got the idea for the Nex Apparatus?” She glanced Liv’s way. “Does the sword react to all females?”

Liv shook her head. “I felt nothing. When I picked it up all I thought was Kelsey’s got amazing upper-body strength because that sucker is heavy.”

“I find it interesting that Kelsey can feel the sword but Liv can’t,” Dev said. “It makes you wonder.”

“If the Hunters and the companions have something in common?” Donovan asked, shifting Evangeline in his arms. The girl was trying to reach down toward the sword. “Yes, I was wondering that myself. Companions are humans descended from fallen angels. Hunters are demon fighters. They kind of go together. What if Hunters are another class of companions?”

“Well, we’ll never know.” I didn’t glow the way a companion did so I seriously doubted I had angelic blood running through my veins. “Let Evan touch the hilt. She can’t hurt herself on that. We’re asking her to bleed for that sword. The least she can do is touch it.”

Donovan snorted slightly. “I suppose you’re right. I don’t like the idea of hurting her though.”

Evan shook her red curls. “I’m not scared.” Her eyes hadn’t left the sword. “It’s pretty, Mama.”

“It is, baby.” The queen took her out of Donovan’s arms and lowered her down. “Once it was ours. Once it belonged to a whole tribe of women like us.”

“Still. Still,” Evan said as she reached for it. She stared at the sword with pure fascination on her face.

“It won’t move, sweetie.” Dev hovered close, as though ready to clutch his daughter from the jaws of evil if he had to. “I promise it will stay still for you.”

But Evan wasn’t scared. She tried to wind her tiny hand around the sword’s hilt. She grinned, her face lighting up. “She feels fizzy. I like her.” She looked up at me. “She likes you.”

“Good, my daughter likes weapons. Daddy’s girl.” Donovan sobered. “Let’s do this. I want it done long before that angelic asshole can know what’s happening.” He held out a hand and popped a claw as elegantly as any alpha wolf. “Who’s first?”

Zoey looked at her daughter. “You ready to help your Auntie Kelsey?”

That damn near brought a tear to my eye. I loved those kids.

Evan held her hand out, looking back at Quinn. “It’s only blood, Papa.”

Donovan nicked her palm and she flinched a little, but shed not a tear.

“Squeeze the blood on the sword and watch her drink it up,” Zoey whispered. “Our blood can make her strong so Aunt Kelsey can fight the bad man.”

Evan squeezed her small fist tight and droplets of blood hit the blade. They disappeared almost instantly.

The queen held her hand out and did the same, dripping her blood over the blade and allowing Gladys to soak in her strength.

We stood back and waited.

Nothing. The sword was perfectly silent.

“Should it glow or something?” Quinn asked.

I picked her up and tried to sense some change in her. She hummed against my palm but otherwise was silent. “Feels normal to me. If I’m supposed to feel some kind of power, I don’t.”

Liv frowned. “Perhaps it won’t show up until battle. The problem is we have so little information about it. I don’t know what it’s supposed to do when it’s primed.”

“Because the vampires wiped out the information,” Zoey said sullenly.

Donovan sighed. “I didn’t do that personally, Z.”

She looked up at him. “I know, babe. I’m sorry I’m being difficult. It feels like there should be more. It feels like I should do something more. Cut me again. Let’s give it another try. It’s all right. I’ll heal.”

Donovan nicked her again and I stood back, praying this would work.