Labyrinth of Stars(38)

Even if it was.

“I need to find the Aetar who made this virus,” I said, after we’d nudged, pushed, and kicked the corpses into the makeshift grave.

My grandfather sat nearby with the decapitated head of the giant who had attacked us. It smelled. It looked absolutely hideous. I’d kept my back turned the entire time but glanced over just long enough to see Jack give me a sour look. “And then what, my dear? The chances are slim to none that its maker is even here on earth.”

“Better than none,” Mary chimed in, packing down the earth with a tennis-worthy grunt. “Aetar pride is bright. Maker will want to be close to see the cutters die.”

That made total sense to me. “Jack. Why didn’t the Aetar release a virus during the first war?”

He wiped sweat off his nose. “The bonds with the Reaper Kings made the demons immune to everything. But those bonds are gone. The army stands alone.”

“And if they bonded to me?”

“Pfft,” he muttered. “You are powerful, my dear. But don’t make the same mistake Grant did. You’re no demon.”

You are a god, whispered that sinuous voice, deep within. I ignored it. But Mary gave me a queer, sidelong look—and even Jack stared at me.

“What?” I asked.

“Your eyes,” said my grandfather, frowning. “They . . . changed color for a moment. Even the whites disappeared.”

I blinked. Mary grabbed my chin, peering at my face. “Wasteland. Nothing but night.”

I knocked her hand away. “You’re both crazy. And don’t change the subject. Who amongst your kind could have made this virus, Jack?”

“I don’t know,” he said with exasperation. “You forget, it’s been a long time.”

“You’re millions of years old,” I shot back. “A long time? Ten thousand years is a blink of the eye.”

“And this moment is barely a molecule.” Jack slammed his fist into his thigh. “Enough, Maxine. Let me think. I need time. This thing here”—he gestured at the head beside him—“might have some answers. We all leave a signature on our creations, you know. A mark of the maker.”

“No time, Wolf.” Mary took my shovel from me. “Death time.”

It was late afternoon, cusp of evening. The boys would be waking soon. I looked down at my tattoos, taking in their silver veins flowing through muscular knots, winding through scales and flattened claws, and around glinting red eyes staring up at me from my palm and forearm. A tug, a tingle, a shimmer of heat between them and me, sinking into my bones like some radiant fire. My boys, always dreaming.

“Will Zee and the others be safe?”

Jack hesitated. “I don’t know.”

That wasn’t good enough.





I sent Jack and Mary back to the house. No need for them to be here, especially my grandfather. The less contact he had with the demons, the better.

I stayed behind to find my husband.

No walls between the four different demon camps. No obvious divide in territory. It was just air, grass, sunlight, and trees. And some unseen line that demons did not cross without invitation unless they wanted to get beaten—or eaten.

Other than that, I didn’t know much. Even though it was my land, it didn’t feel like home anymore. I was the trespasser, uncomfortable in my own skin—not sure where I fit in.

Then again, I’d always felt lost. Never allowed to be part of the world, except for the world my mother and the boys inhabited—and the loneliness of that life, the isolation I had begun to shed with Grant, always surged back with overwhelming force when I was around the demons.

My childhood, catcalling from the shadows. With it, a perverse need to defend everything that had once been wrong. Death and violence—balanced with equal amounts of love. Impossible to have one without the other. I didn’t want my daughter to have that same life.

Although, given that her father was currently half-lost under a pile of sweaty maggots—all of whom possibly looked like they were trying to mate with him, or each other—I suspected she was going to have a totally different set of problems than I.

Love in my family takes us to weird places.

“Bonding ritual,” growled the demon lord crouched beside me. “Shurik, tactile. Burrower in them.”

Oanu, demon lord of the Osul: Battle Cat of all Battle Cats. I glanced sideways, and up—skimming over his silver pelt, tufted ears, and iridescent blue eyes. “Uh-huh. It’s gross.”

“Shed my fur when I see them,” he rumbled, which seemed very much like an agreement.

I almost smiled, glancing at him again. It was hard not to look. Six feet tall at the shoulder, more than sixteen feet long from nose to tail. Tiny hooked claws covered his legs, jutting from beneath steel gray fur. His tail had spikes growing from the tip, and massive pads of metallic armor clung to his muscular back. A helmet covered part of his face, revealing leonine features and ice blue eyes. Like Lord Ha’an, he was bigger than his own people, stronger, and more beautiful. Deadlier, too.