Allixta, the Overlady of Witches and the newest Møriør, entered, sauntering toward the table. How she walked in such a skintight dress baffled Rune. A question for the ages. “Are we finally here?” Curses, her familiar, trailed her. The creature was an Elserealm breed of panther, so large its whiskers brushed her shoulders.
“Close enough to wake,” Rune answered.
Adjusting the brim of her oversize witch’s hat, she sank into her chair. Curses hopped atop the table, reclined its gigantic frame, then hissed at Rune.
Rune hissed back, baring his demon fangs.
“This is what I wake to, baneblood?” Allixta glared at his arrow. “Why spill your disgusting poison in the presence of others? Do you intend to cause offense?”
Rune paused his drawing. As a dark fey, he had poisonous black blood, fatal even to immortals. “My dearest Allixta, if I’ve caused offense, it was unwittingly done—but a welcome development.”
Blace, the oldest vampire, suddenly appeared in his seat at the table, goblet of blood mead in hand. His dark-brown hair was tied back into a neat queue, and he wore an impeccable suit, though the shirt, cravat, doublet, and breeches were centuries outdated.
“Good awakening, friend,” Rune said. He liked the vampire. Blace provided welcome counsel. He was sparing with it, and usually dead-on.
Blace swigged his libation. “I wonder what sights your mind will show us this time.”
Darach Lyka, the first werewolf, entered the chamber, still transforming from his wolven form. The primordial wolf wore only trews and carried a wadded-up tunic in one fist. Rune had little in common with the quietly intense Darach—other than a mutual loathing of Allixta—but Rune respected him.
The best tracker in the worlds, Darach had proven invaluable in locating magickal objects. And on the few occasions when he’d mastered his beast and was able to communicate more easily, he’d shared keen insights, demonstrating a surprising cynicism for a man who’d risen from the dead.
Now Darach struggled to reclaim his human body, compacting his nine-foot-tall werewolf frame. Fangs grinding, he clenched his fists tighter, his bones cracking into place.
Each transition grew more difficult. One day Darach would transform into a beast and never return. Unless he found a way to keep his human form. Perhaps in the Gaia realm?
In addition to the Møriør’s overarching aims, each of them coveted something from Earth and its connected planes, had traveled across the universe to collect.
Most thought Rune wanted the throne of his home world. No, his desires ran much darker than that. As dark as his unnatural black blood. . . .
Their liege, Orion—the Undoing—was the last to convene. He was a being of unknown descent, but Rune believed he was at least a demigod. Perhaps a full deity, or even an overdeity.
Orion’s appearance and scent had changed; he altered them regularly. Today he was a tall blond demon. At their last meeting, he’d been a black-haired giant.
He moved to the glass wall without saying a word. He could remain silent for a decade. Before him, that line of ever-changing planets floated by as the stronghold passed one after another.
Now that all the awakened Møriør had assembled, the others began digging into Rune’s mind. Their mental link was so strong, they could even speak to each other telepathically.
He opened his memories wide for them, offering access to almost everything, at least after the first millennium of his life. He worked to conceal that earlier time of betrayals and violation.
Within a few moments, Blace raised an approving brow. “A dozen nymphs in one night?”
Rune grinned. He’d bedded thousands of them, was a favorite of Nymphae coveys far and wide. They were excellent sources of information. “That was merely the first round. The real debauchery started a day later.”
Blace shook his head ruefully. “Ah, the vigor of the young.” Rune was seven millennia old—young compared to Blace. “You come by your trailing name honestly.”
Rune the Insatiable. He buffed his black claws. “Wringing orgasms and breaking hearts for eons.”
Sian said, “Gods pity any female who loses her heart to you. I could almost feel sorry for your bedmates.”
“If one of my tarts is stupid enough to want more, then she deserves all the heartache in the worlds.” He made no secret of his detachment during sex. He felt physical pleasure but no connection, no immediacy—no emotions. Outside of bedsport, he did. He knew amusement; he grew excited about upcoming battles. He experienced kinship with the Møriør. But during sex . . . nothing.
Which was unsettling, since he spent a good deal of his life tupping.
“Tarts?” Allixta sneered. “You are such a whore.”
A former slave, he’d known his share of insults; most didn’t bother him. Now his claws sharpened as he remembered his queen’s words from so long ago: You possess the smoldering sensuality of the fey and the sexual intensity of a demon. . . . I have a use for you after all.
Old frustrations made his tone sharp: “On the subject of whores, did I ever get around to swiving you, witch? For the life of me I just can’t remember.”
Darach bit back a roughened laugh as he pulled on his tunic.
Allixta leveled her green gaze on the wolf. “Something to say, mongrel?” Then she turned to Rune. “Trust me, baneblood, if I could stomach your befouled body long enough to bed you, you’d never forget it.”
Befouled. Rune loathed his blood. Worse, she knew how deeply he did. Some things in his mind were too prominent to disguise from prying eyes.
He reached into his pocket, seeking the talisman he always kept near. Carved from a demon ancestor’s horn and inscribed with runes even he couldn’t decipher, it always helped him focus, reminding him to look toward the future—
Suddenly Sian’s head jerked up. “My brother is dead?” Sian’s twin, the Father of Terrors, had been as hideous as Sian was physically flawless.
Rune nodded. “Killed in a blood sport contest. Murdered in front of cheering crowds.”
Blace shook his head. “Impossible. A primordial like the Father of Terrors can’t be killed.”
“He was slain—by a mere immortal,” Rune said. “These days in the Gaia realms, they no longer fight one species against another; they’ve allied into armies. And more, these immortals don’t just take down primordials. They assassinate gods.”
Allixta smirked. “Perhaps your dirty blood has finally rotted your brain. Deities can’t be assassinated by immortals.”
He turned from her and addressed the others: “Several gods have perished, all in the last year. Including one of the witch divinities.” While Allixta sputtered, Rune reeled off names of old deities, extinguished forever. He studied the set of Orion’s shoulders for signs of tension.
How would a god feel about the deaths of his kind?
Orion just stared at the worlds flickering past.
“Why do you trust this information from your . . . nymphs?” Allixta demanded of Rune.
“Because I pay them well in their favorite currency: stiff fuckings with a stout cock. It just so happens I’m rich beyond measure.”
Before she could launch into a scathing response, Blace said, “These assassinations have occurred. Read his thoughts, Allixta. The information is there.”
“They seem connected,” Sian said. “It’s as if someone is trying to attract our notice. Our very presence. Who would dare?”
“A Valkyrie named Nïx the Ever-Knowing,” Rune answered. “The primordial of her species.” According to the nymphs, Nïx had orchestrated these killings. “She’s a soothsayer and a wish giver. Close to goddesshood.”
Orion often made allies of enemies—he had with Blace, Allixta, and two of the sleeping Møriør. Would the god enlist the primordial Valkyrie?