Lore Read online

  “I wonder what will happen to all his powers,” Carolena said to no one in particular.

  Lily smiled, but didn’t answer.

  Carolena and Carnage tucked her in, then went to Boon’s room and kissed him again as he slept. Then finally they went to their own room and climbed into bed.

  Carnage snuggled her close, kissing her neck when she turned her back to him, so he could spoon her.

  “Lub Leenah,” he said, settling down to sleep.

  “Love you, too. What do you think Lily meant, like Row?” Carolena asked.

  She peeked over her shoulder at Carnage, who pinched his eyes closed and faked snoring, complete with whistling on his breaths out.

  “Fine, I’m going to sleep,” she laughed.

  Carnage didn’t open his eyes, but he grinned.

  “But I’m going to want to talk about this in the morning.”

  “’Kay,” he whispered, taking a break from his fake snoring to answer her.

  Chapter 2

  The next morning Carolena went quietly down the hall, trying not to wake Lore on her way to make breakfast for her family. When she entered the living room, she realized she need not have worried. Lore was gone. The pillow he’d used still bore the imprint of his head, and the blanket he’d covered with was hanging half on - half off the couch, but there was no Lore.

  She walked over to the couch and picked up the blanket, folding it slowly while she thought about the previous night’s events. She was convinced something was happening to Lore. There was some change taking place or trying to.

  Carolena went to the kitchen and began preparing breakfast.

  Not ten minutes later Carnage walked into the living room holding their baby upright against his chest, keeping him snug against himself with one hand and supporting his head with the other so that he could look around while Carnage carried him. “Boon ‘wake,” Carnage announced.

  Carolena looked over her shoulder toward the living room and smiled. Her big bad Goyle was grinning as he bounced Boon with every step he took while making soothing noises at him.

  Boon was busy trying to take in everything around him, while he gnawed on his own tiny fist. He was definitely a morning person; he was up with the sunlight every day.

  Carnage walked up behind Carolena and kissed her neck. Carolena smiled, shivered a bit and turned to him.

  “Trade me? I’ll nurse Boon, and you can start breakfast?”

  “’Kay,” he answered, handing her the baby boy already smiling at his mother.

  Carnage followed her to her chair at the table and waited patiently until she was settled, unbuttoned her shift and started nursing their son. He was fascinated by the fact that his mate could nourish their children. He’d never given it much thought until the first time he’d seen her nurse Lily. He loved to sit and watch when she didn’t realize he was paying attention. It filled him with a sense of peace, of calm, and love.

  He draped a soft cloth over Carolena’s shoulder for when she’d lift Boon to her shoulder to burp him. Then he kissed Boon’s head and Carolena’s lips, turning to the stove to make breakfast.

  “Lore was gone when I got up this morning,” Carolena said, still fussing with the baby, making sure he was comfortable while he nursed.

  Carnage grunted. His way of letting her know he heard her, while he laid sausages in a skillet to sizzle.

  “Something is different about him. I’m worried about him, Carnage,” Carolena confessed.

  “Fine,” Carnage said, shaking his head.

  “No, I don’t think he is. He’s changing. What if he can’t get ‘her’, whoever ‘her’ is, back here, and he loses the ability to move himself from realm to realm. What if he’s lost, and we can’t get to him?” Carolena persisted.

  “Maageek,” Carnage said.

  “I know he has magic. But I’m afraid he’s becoming more human. Lily said he’d be more like Rowan. What if…”

  Carnage interrupted her. “Row maageek,” he insisted.

  “I know, but nothing like Lore. And Lily needs Lore. I’ve been watching him and his mists. He moves with that mist. That mist is changing.”

  Carnage thought about it, wrinkled up his nose and shook his head. He’d seen the mist the night before; it was still there.

  “Lore couldn’t mist up here last night. Lily had to help him, and that’s not all. His head left an imprint on the pillow he used last night. He’s taking a more solid shape, Carnage. He is made of mists. He can force them to be thicker so that he can manipulate whatever he needs to, and so we can get the sense that we are touching him, but he’s not solid, not really. Yet his head left an indention in the pillow last night, and the blanket I draped around him outside stayed rather than drifting to the ground. I want to speak to him about staying in this realm. We can’t help him if we can’t get to him.”

  Carnage laid the fork he was turning sausages with on the cabinet top beside the stove. He turned to his wife and knelt beside her. He looked up into her eyes. “Noo look ‘Arnge?” he asked. “Gonne? Noo look ‘Arnge?”

  “Of course I’d look for you if you were gone. I’d never stop looking for you. And I’d make everyone else I know help me,” Carolena answered, smiling lovingly at Carnage.

  “Lore look his. Noo stopp.”

  Carolena looked down at her son, smoothed a bit of his silky, dark hair from his forehead. “I know he’s looking for his mate. I do. But I worry about him. He’s part of us, part of our family. And I worry about Lily if he was to go missing. What would Lily do? She needs him. Not only is she so attached to him, she needs him to teach her how to do all the things she doesn’t even know she can do yet.”

  Carnage snorted. “Leelee strong. Leelee know.”

  Carolena nodded. Carnage was right. Lily did know more than they gave her credit for. And she was growing so fast, and apparently her powers with her.

  “No waarrrey,” Carnage said, kissing her forehead as he stood to check the sausage he smelled getting a little too done.

  He snatched the skillet off the stove and showed it to her.

  “They look perfect to me. You know I like them a little crispy, and so does Lily.”

  Carnage grinned and nodded as though he’d done it on purpose. Then he started cracking the eggs.

  “Please be extra gentle with those. They do not need to be smashed, just slightly cracked. Then, separate the shells where they are cracked.”

  Carnage nodded, picked one up and smacked it against the side of a bowl. He grinned when the contents splashed into the bowl and reached for another one.

  Carolena shook her head. “Can you at least pick the shell out of the eggs before you start to scramble them?”

  <<<<<<<>>>>>>>

  Destroy was sound asleep. His face pressed into Rowan's belly, exactly the same spot he’d fallen asleep in late last night, right after a long night of passion play. Rowan was flat on her back, the sheets flung partially across her chest, him lying between her legs, face down with his face on her stomach. She must have gotten chilled while she was sleeping because the sheet across her chest was also partially tangled in his horns. She must have pulled it over herself in her sleep.

  But that wasn’t what had woken him. It was the poke in his ribs, and the ‘psst’ that was being hissed in his ear. Slowly Destroy opened his eye and looked around — the other one was pressed into Rowan’s belly.

  Then he heard it again. “Psst!” and something poked him in the ribs - again! Some bastard was in his bedroom, while he slept, on his naked woman! He quickly raised his head to whirl around and attack whatever fool was stupid enough to enter his bedroom and even accidentally look on his naked, sleeping wife.

  Only, his horns got even more tangled in the sheet. The more he fought it, the more tangled he got, and he ended up falling flat on his ass beside the bed, his horns snagged on the sheet that he’d thankfully, though accidentally, managed to pull further across Rowan’s still-sleeping body.

  Destroy heard a q
uiet laughter toward the end of the bed. He snapped his eyes to the right while he lifted his hands to fight with the sheet caught on the sharp tips of his horns. Destroy knew exactly who that laughter belonged to.

  “Do not ever think you are welcome anywhere near my bedroom or my mate while we are asleep,” Destroy snapped.

  “How else am I to wake you?”

  “You are to wait until I’m awake!” Destroy whisper-screamed.

  “Yes, well. I’ve waited long enough. Get up. We have much to discuss,” Lore answered in a bored tone.

  Destroy, having freed himself from the sheet, quickly got to his feet and faced Lore. “Did you not think that if we were asleep, perhaps we are tired? We were up late!”

  “No. I did not. You were my single point of thought. You owe me a favor. It is time to collect. Wake up,” Lore ordered.

  Destroy felt the flutter of nerves in his belly at the mention of the favor he owed Lore. One never knew what Lore would demand as payment for the favors he granted.

  “Hurry up. As I said I am tired of waiting. And put that damn thing away. It’s embarrassing,” Lore said, waving toward Destroy’s nether regions as he opened the bedroom door and walked out of it.

  “Because you’re intimidated by my magnificence?” Destroy called after him, his hands proudly planted on his hips.

  “No. Because you seem to be so happy to see me. You should only be that happy to see your mate, Gargoyle,” Lore’s voice immediately answered from the hallway leading to the kitchen.

  Destroy looked down at himself, fully erect. His face became a mask of confusion. “This is not for you! You just happened to be here!”

  “Keep telling yourself that,” Lore answered clearly, from the kitchen this time. “Come, Destroy. We have much to discuss.”

  Destroy snarled, then lifted the tangled sheet from Rowan and straightened it out, laying it carefully over her body. He tucked her in, leaving one of her feet peeking out from beneath the sheet, because it would end up that way anyway.

  “I’ll be back, Row. Lore wants to talk to me.”

  Rowan turned over, snuggling into the covers, grumbling.

  Destroy left the bedroom, pulling the door closed behind him, but not quite closing it. He still had issues completely closing her away from him in another room, though he knew she’d put a protection spell on their house. As he started to walk away, he heard her grumbles form one intelligible word. “Coffee.”

  He chuckled and headed to their kitchen to start coffee and to speak to Lore. He hoped whatever it was he would have to do for Lore wouldn’t cost him anything too dear to him. He had every intention of fulfilling his promise to Lore — he just worried at the extent that promise would take from him.

  <<<<<<<>>>>>>>

  The hinges of the door squealed as it was slowly pushed open. Evangeline didn’t raise her head to see who entered her room — she feared most of the creatures who tended her in this castle. She heard the heavy steps of booted feet, then a mumbled complaint. “Can’t believe they expect her to eat this refuse.”

  Evangeline agreed. The food they’d left her was no more than refuse. It smelled, and it was somewhat congealed.

  “I know you know I’m here,” a voice said.

  Evangeline listened for a moment before deciding this was the one of her guards that was kind to her. Well, maybe kind was too strong a word — decent. Decent was a better word. Evangeline turned her head just enough to be able to peek through her long, blonde curls, dirty and dingy with the soot of this place clinging to them.

  “Here. I’ve brought you bread and cheese. I’d hoped to bring you fruit as well, but I wasn’t able to find any. Perhaps I’ll have better luck later and find a bit of melon for you.” The guard held out the steel plate for Evangeline to take.

  Slowly Evangeline sat up and pushed her heavy curls from her face. She looked at the plate the guard offered her. “Thank you,” she whispered.

  The guard nodded and continued to hold the plate out for Evangeline to take.

  Evangeline reached out for the plate and settled it on her lap.

  As soon as his hands were free, the guard lifted a strap from across his shoulder, and Evangeline was surprised to see a canteen hanging from the guard’s hand. “I’ve brought you fresh water, too,” the guard said, holding the canteen out to her.

  Evangeline reached for the canteen anxiously, wasting no time in taking a sip of the cool, clean water. She sipped it again and again before wiping her lips with the back of her hand. “Thank you,” she finally said.

  “You’re welcome.”

  “Why are you nice to me? None of the others are,” Evangeline asked.

  “There’s no reason for you to be here. It makes no sense to me. And the others? They are who they are — it never changes no matter who they deal with.”

  “And you?” Evangeline asked.

  “Paying my price. Eat and drink while you can. I’ll be back soon to take the plate and canteen from you.”

  Evangeline nodded, tearing off a piece of bread to nibble on.

  The guard turned his back and left the depressing cell they kept this female in. The guard hated that she was kept here at all. Clearly she was a good female. A female of worth, of grace and innocence. It made no sense for her to be here. It angered. The unfairness of it, the cruelty of it chafing his sense of right and wrong. “I may not be able to free her, but I can keep her fed,” the guard mumbled as he closed the door and went about his duties.

  Chapter 3

  “You want me to go where?” Destroy asked, his voice dramatically rising.

  “Another realm. I need you to help me kidnap my mate,” Lore responded, wrapping his hands around the cup of coffee that sat in front of him.

  “Another realm? Do you even know this realm?” Destroy asked.

  “Yes. Very well.”

  “Then why do you need me to help you?” he asked.

  Lore let go of the cup in front of him. He clasped his hands together, rested them on the table and leaned forward. “Because you promised me a favor. In return for your own mate, you promised me a favor. This is me collecting.”

  “And I will deliver on my promise, Lore. Do not think that I won’t. But why in a different realm? Especially if you are familiar with this other realm, what good could I possibly do there?”

  Rowan shuffled into the kitchen, her slippers making scuffing sounds on the floor as she blindly meandered toward the coffee she could smell brewing.

  “Good morning, Rowan,” Lore said, a smile on his wispy face.

  She paused, looked toward him through squinted eyes, then continued toward the stove. “Coffee,” she said in a husky, sleepy voice.

  “I will need help stealing her,” Lore answered Destroy, taking his attention from Rowan.

  “Am I going to make it back from this other realm?” Destroy asked, an indignant tone in his voice.

  “What?” Rowan asked, taking a seat beside Destroy, across from Lore. “What realm?”

  “The one my mate is kept in. Destroy is going to help me bring her back here,” Lore explained.

  “You promised to go to another realm?” she said to Destroy, blinking her eyes, making a pointed effort to wake up now that she realized Lore was there for a particular reason, not just a visit.

  “Well, not exactly, but yes, kind of,” Destroy answered.

  “Yes or no, Destroy. Yes or no,” Rowan pressed, her own voice rising.

  “Lore helped me find you, save you. I promised that I’d owe him a favor whenever he needed me. He needs me.”

  Rowan turned her face toward Lore. “In another realm.”

  Lore nodded. “Indeed. He will also need a protection spell. As will I, if you would be so kind.”

  Rowan’s eyes snapped up to meet Lore’s.

  “Or, you could just come with us and keep us all shielded,” Lore said, non-committally, not really concerned with her final choice.

  “No! She stays here. If I’m needed there, so
be it, but not my mate. She stays here,” Destroy demanded.

  “Either way is fine with me,” Lore said to Destroy. Then he turned his attention back to Rowan. “But you will want to put a protection spell ‘round his person.”

  “Protection against what? And what is so dangerous that you need a protection spell from me?” Rowan said, her nerves becoming ever more frayed.

  “Everything. Anything you can imagine, add it to your protections. Would that he won’t need it, but if he should, it will be in place,” Lore answered. He stood from the table, pushing his chair back in. “I will return for you this evening. Be ready, Destroy.”

  Destroy nodded. “I will be ready, Lore. I will keep my word.”

  “I know that you will. You are a male of worth, Destroy. I never doubted that for a moment.”

  “Wait! I have so many questions,” Rowan said. “Won’t you stay a bit longer? You didn’t even drink your coffee.”

  Lore smiled sadly while looking at the full coffee cup. “I am as of yet unable to drink anything. My being is so cold lately, I just hold the cup to soak up the warmth. Perhaps I’ll be able to enjoy a sip before too much longer.”

  “But my questions…” Rowan complained.

  “Will be answered. But not this day. I have others to attend to.” Lore performed a little bow. “I’ll be back this evening.”

  Destroy nodded, and Lore inclined his head at Rowan. Then, Lore turned and walked calmly out of the kitchen, out of their house and closed their front door behind himself.

  “I’ve never seen him walk away from anywhere. Why didn’t he do his wispy thing?” Rowan asked.

  “I’m not sure,” Destroy answered. “But something is definitely not right.”

  “You’re not going,” Rowan stated, matter-of-factly.

  “I have to, Row.”

  “Don’t care. If I don’t put a protection spell on you, or him, neither can go.”