“Don’t worry,” I said with a short laugh. Silver came over, putting his head beneath my arm as if to remind me that I wasn’t alone. I petted him as I said in all truthfulness, “I have plenty of things to keep me occupied.”

Epilogue

Ian

Someone needed to stop the bloody hammering or he’d murder whoever was doing it.

Ian opened one eye, startled to discover the terrible din came from inside his head. He ran his hand along it, feeling for wounds. Then both eyes opened when he felt nothing except the smoothness of his scalp beneath his hair.

That wasn’t right. He’d been injured . . . hadn’t he?

“Finally awake,” a familiar voice said.

Ian turned, seeing Crispin lounging in a chair not far from him. Crispin’s hair was a dreadful shade of dirty blond and he stank as if he’d been swimming in demon sweat. He was clothed, though, while Ian was naked as the day he’d been born. Then giggles drew Ian’s attention to the rest of the room.

Women naked except for leonine body paint frolicked on the other side of the large area. Men wearing gazelle markings walked past them, avoiding the fire hoops that were in their path, and was that a car full of clowns?

“Where are we? And what are you doing here?” Ian demanded. “Cat will kill you if she catches you at a bordello.”

“I’m not the one indulging,” Crispin replied, eyeing him with an intensity that belied his languid tone. “I’m babysitting you after your hangover. Head hurt?”

“Like the very devil,” Ian moaned, then found himself snapping, “The fire rings are there for a reason, or do none of you have a proper work ethic?” at the next group of painted whores who walked past them.

Crispin’s brows rose. “Hardly their main performance objective, is it?”

No, it wasn’t. Why did he care if they jumped through the fire rings? And why did he feel the urge to praise the clowns for showing markedly more enthusiasm for their roles?

“Don’t bother,” Ian called out when the faux lionesses and gazelles started to line up before the fire hoops. When they took that as an invitation to turn their attentions to him, Ian brushed their hands away. “Start without me. Go, play amongst yourselves.”

“Something wrong?” Crispin asked, still in that mild tone.

Yes. Not only did his head ache as if Lucifer’s hammer itself was pounding away at it, he had the near uncontrollable urge to check the back of it for wounds. And why was he utterly uninterested in the erotic spectacle going on in front of him? Not only did he have no desire to join, he could barely be bothered to watch. “How did I get here?” he asked Crispin.

A dark brow arched. “You don’t remember?”

He remembered . . . blimey, not much. Had he been upset about something and decided to numb the pain with shagging? That sounded right, but being here somehow felt . . . wrong.

“What did I tell you about playing amongst yourselves?” he snapped when a faux gazelle and lion crawled forward and began stroking his legs. “Off you go, there’s a good lass and lad.”

They walked away, pouting. Ian turned to Crispin. “Are you certain I wanted to be here? In truth, I couldn’t be less interested, and look at him.” He shook his cock at Crispin for emphasis. “Limp as a dead snake, he is.”

Crispin pointedly kept his gaze on Ian’s face. “I can hardly offer my assistance.”

“Eh, never fancied you that way. Good thing, too, since we turned out to be cousins. In all seriousness, though, Crispin, why am I here, why do you stink like demon, and why does my head feel as though it’s been split open recently?”

Something filled Crispin’s gaze. Ian’s sense of unease grew. His friend was about to lie to him. Even if he couldn’t see it in Crispin’s gaze, he felt it all the way to his bones.

“I smell like this because we fought the very brassed-off owner of the Red Dragon source you stole,” Crispin said. “Your recent drinking rampage wasn’t enough, so you stole your own source, drank it until you decided lying about being married was the height of hilarity, then called me when the source’s demon owner came after you. We killed him, you set the source free, and decided to celebrate at this whorehouse. I stayed only to make sure you didn’t do anything else supremely stupid.”

Crispin was lying. Ian’s surety grew with every merciless hammering in his head. So why did parts of that story feel familiar?

“This isn’t right,” Ian said aloud. “You’re lying and I’m not supposed to be here. I’m supposed to be . . .”

“Where?” At once, that intentness was back in Crispin’s gaze. “Where are you supposed to be?”

“You tell me,” Ian snapped. “And where is—”

He stopped. That sense of wrongness roared to the forefront, growing until Ian got up and began to pace. Something more was going on than Crispin’s lies. He found his hands running over the back of his head again. His hair was white for some reason, but that didn’t concern him as much as searching for wounds that still weren’t there. Why was he so certain they should be? Why did it feel so wrong that he was here with Crispin instead of . . . somewhere else? With someone else?

“I was about to say a name,” Ian said slowly, “but now I have no idea which one. Why was I about to say a name I suddenly can’t remember? What the hell is going on?”

Crispin rose, his gaze flicking to the whores Ian had already forgotten about. “Leave,” Crispin told them. “All of you.”

Déjà vu had Ian whipping around to stare at the whores filing out of the room. This had happened before, but not with Crispin. Someone else. Who? Who?

A woman’s voice whispered across his mind, her tone more amused than mocking. Are you getting them out of the way because you’re intending to fight me?

“Where is she?” Ian found himself demanding.

He didn’t remember moving, but suddenly, his hands were on Crispin’s shoulders and he was shaking him as if he could rattle the truth out of him. Crispin’s eyes went wide as he stared back at where Ian had been moments before.

“You teleported!”

It took a few moments for Crispin’s stunned statement to penetrate. Then Ian scoffed, “More lies, mate?”

“That is no lie.” Crispin shoved Ian back, then gave him a look of growing expectancy. “See if you can do it again. Where do you think you should be right now?”

“Shower,” he found himself saying. I don’t need to tell you what you smell like . . .

The words had barely formed in his mind when Ian was staring at old blue tiles and grout that had seen far better days. He burst out of the bathroom into the adjoining bedroom, shouting “Crispin!” when a feminine squeal stopped him.

“Who are you? How did you get here?” the petite brunette on the bed demanded. She wasn’t alone, and her companion gave him a very annoyed look.

“Get out,” he snapped. “I paid for an hour!”

Ian ignored them as he left the bedroom. “Crispin!” he shouted again when he reached the hallway.

A whoosh of power, then Crispin flew up the stairs. Ian had started down the hallway toward him when it suddenly dissolved into the blackest of rivers. A thin boat sailed over it, its single occupant appearing out of mists made of darkness.