And with that, he pushed into me.

His magic went first, preparing me for him. My skin tingled delightfully, reacting to his mojo, as his power spread me open for him, stretching me with a delicious ache. But nothing could match the feeling of him—his skin, his soft flesh stretched over hardness—pushing into me.

I cried out and he held me close, kissing my eyelids, my forehead, my cheeks and chin. He dissolved his fingers of power, then, so it was just us in that bed. Just our hearts beating wildly against each other’s chests, just our sweat mingling while our blood pounded in our ears, just our own whimpers and cries echoing in the small space.

I felt, for a split second, as he moved in me, like I didn’t know where he ended and I began. We’d go back to being Anyan and Jane when this was over, surely. But for that moment, we were one being, intent on each other’s pleasure.

He was crashing into me now, letting himself go as his own need mounted. I answered him thrust for thrust, pulling him into me deeper, wondering where I was putting him even as I squeezed myself around him. Anyan’s groans filled my ears as his fingers found the center of my own pleasure, stroking me roughly till I came, my cries mingling with him as he, too, lost himself in climax.

We lay there in a tangle of sweat-streaked limbs, our hair clinging damply to our necks, our foreheads, unable to move. I was just happy to still be breathing.

But eventually my leg started to fall asleep, and I pushed the barghest gently. He moved, sliding out of me and shifting around so that I was lying half on his chest, his arms draped loosely around me.

His heart thundered beneath my ear, but the look on his face was that of a very contented man.

Wondering if my own expression matched his, I reached out tentative fingers to stroke down his outrageous, gorgeously big nose. He snapped at them playfully with his teeth, and then gathered my hand to his lips for a kiss before lowering it to his chest.

He played with my fingers as he sighed.

“And now, I can die happy,” he said. He’d meant it as a joke, but something dark in his tone made me realize it wasn’t. I also realized just how I felt about that idea.

“We’re not going to die,” I told him. And I meant it. I wasn’t saying it to be conciliatory, or placating, or because I thought it’s what I should say. I said it because I meant it—there was no way in hell I was leaving him, or letting him leave me.

“We are not going to die,” I repeated, and this time Anyan nodded, although he was probably just humoring me.

“I love you,” he said, cuddling me closer.

I stroked a hand down his chest, smiling lovingly as I looked him full in the face.

“Well I just love your doggy style,” I told him. His eyes snapped open and he frowned at me.

“I’m kidding. I love you too.”

He sighed. “It’s too late. You said you loved my doggy style, and yet we’ve only done missionary.”

His hands ran down my flanks as he slid me off of him, moving me onto my stomach.

“I can now think of only one way to preserve your honor,” he told me, his breath tickling my ear as he rubbed his body against mine from behind.

“And that’s make it a reality.”

His teeth found my nape as his hands slipped, once again, between my legs. For the second time that night, I saw stars.

And then he proceeded to prove to me, twice no less, that I wasn’t lying.

I really did love his doggy style.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

My wig itched.

It was short, curly, and brown. Coupled with large sunglasses and a baggy overcoat, my only accessory a large sign that read “Down with Idolatry!” I looked quite the nutter.

Which was our intention. After a long night of strategizing, we’d decided to trump Morrigan’s disguising herself as a penitent by disguising ourselves as protesters.

Meanwhile, we were slowly but surely taking care of the real protesters.

“You’re hungry and your feet hurt,” whispered Blondie to the woman next to me, as Anyan suggested to another that he might have forgotten to turn off his oven that morning. I watched the woman’s hand go to her stomach as she looked around for a café, her weight shifting on suddenly sore feet, and the man looked up, startled, before dashing away from the crowd. He was quickly replaced by one of our own.

The tiny puffs of magic used by my friends were covered up, meanwhile, by Griffin standing front and center near the news crews. He was sending out a massive glamour, but even that glamour was a ruse.

The news crews, you see, were really Daniel’s men, with massive guns disguised as cameras. The real news crews had been taken care of that morning, sent on various mad dashes across Britain chasing after stories suggested by my supernatural friends.

So Griffin was acting very official, surrounded by a small cadre of other Alfar, and glamouring the shit out of the area. It wasn’t to keep off prying eyes, however. It was really to act as a shield for any small magics the rest of us might do, clearing the rest of the area of civilians and replacing their numbers with our own. Any stray tourists were taken care of by placing small, but effective, repulsion wards around the very far perimeter of the area. They looked like tiny mage lights placed on random flat surfaces, but they sent off a powerful glamour that made humans not want to wander near. As for those living or working near the cathedral, Daniel’s “police” had already warned them to stay indoors and to close up shop, with the excuse that there was intelligence the protesters planned on using violence to stop the relics from arriving safely. For most of them, that had been enough to keep them away for the day, and the rest decided it was a good idea to go home once the repulsion wards had gone into place.

So we’d created a supernatural playground out of the cathedral grounds. Even the Minster’s staff had been replaced by those of our supes who could effectively dampen their magic for long periods of time.

Not that anything could be felt over Griffin’s outrageous waves of power.

I couldn’t help but smile as I watched him moving dramatically about the perimeter, waving his arms and gesticulating madly. The theatrics had been his idea, and I think he was enjoying them despite his protestations they were just “to distract the enemy.”

Blondie, meanwhile, was perched precariously and very visibly on the very top spire of the Minster. Our goal was to make the Red think everything was just as she’d planned it: a big human event, surrounded by human media and tons of spectators sporting cameras. Instead, everyone in that square was somehow ours, including the apparently random people dressed as tourists, strolling through and pointing at the “protesters.” In fact, they were all our people, or Daniel’s, and the fire trucks were parked close by and ready to roll.

“Ten minutes till the cavalcade arrives,” Anyan murmured from next to me. He was dressed in a Halloween monk’s robe, hood up, and carrying a sign suggesting the Minster go ahead and invite the pope to tea.

I nodded, and then found myself yawning inappropriately.

“Tired?” Anyan asked.

I wasn’t feeling weak, as I’d had a filthy but recharging swim in York’s river Ouse this morning, so I was more than brimming with power. But I did feel a bit sleepy.

“Someone kept me up all night,” I reminded the barghest.

“Whatever,” he replied, teasingly. “Someone kept me up all night, but you don’t hear any complaints.”

“It’s because I did all the work,” I lied, loving how his long nose twitched at me in irritation.

“I’m gonna give you a workout, later,” he said, in what was possibly the worst threat ever made.

“You better. Or I’m getting my money back…”

Before I could finish, our phones beeped with a message. It was Blondie. She’d spotted the cavalcade bearing the relics. A second later, we received another text from Griffin, saying the relics were arriving early.

“Any sign of Morrigan?” I wrote back to both of them, receiving negative replies from both Original and Alfar.

“Where are you hiding?” I murmured, peering about me cautiously.

On cue, everyone started moving about. First our people serving as cathedral attendants started fussing with the carpets and other fripperies they’d laid out to invite in the relics. They were doing everything to the letter, just as the cathedral had planned, which meant welcoming the dead saint like he was a living dignitary rather than a pile of old bones. Everyone was kitted out in the real religious men’s fanciest robes.

You can’t greet a skeleton in jeans, after all, I thought, but then I realized how silly my cynicism was. After all, yes, the pile of old bones the people thought they were worshiping was really just that: a pile of old bones. Meanwhile, we were ready to fight and die over another pile of old bones, these imbued with tremendous power and evil. It was hard to be too critical when the humans weren’t really wrong, they were just placing their bets on the incorrect pile of bones.

With the cathedral’s attendants getting ready to greet the cavalcade, the rest of our people could also adjust themselves accordingly. Daniel’s soldiers began fussing with their fake cameras, no doubt throwing off safety mechanisms, and gearing up for a firefight. Those of us posing as protesters fanned out, waving our signs angrily but being careful to keep our magic dampened.