In Someone Else's Skin

by Margo Bond Collins

  Shane, still holding one of the shock sticks, slipped around me and started down the hallway. Coit and Grant frog-marched the prisoner out of the elevator. I took up the rear, keeping my magic ready to use.

  Up here, the magic I grabbed hold of felt less slippery, and I felt less likely to fumble it out of my hands entirely. After a moment, I moved up to walk a beside the prisoner, close enough to see him. “Where next?” I asked, keeping my voice low.

  “Your men said you wanted to see the babies, Princess.”

  “Don’t call me that. And, yes, I want to see the babies. They’re mine.”

  “They are of your body?” he asked, his eyes widening almost imperceptibly.

  I thought about the women who’d been forced to carry infant lamias they had no desire to give birth to. “No,” I said, equally quietly. “But they are mine, nonetheless. They are my responsibility, my charge, my obligation.”

  By now, I was almost talking to myself as much as to him, but the guard answered, anyway. “You’ll make an amazing queen someday.”

  I bit down the urge to tell him that there was no way in hell—or on my earth—that I was going to end up being a lamia queen anywhere, anytime.

  But I thought I knew what he meant. In the same way that Queen Amalya was responsible for her people, I had a duty to the lamia infants who had come into my care, no matter how that had happened.

  It was my job to make sure they grew up into healthy, compassionate, kind people, no matter their genetic makeup.

  “It’s that room,” the guard finally said, pointing to one of the several nondescript doors toward the end of the hallway. “But you can get in through that one, too.” He gestured toward a different doorway.

  “What’s the difference?” Shane asked, his forehead wrinkling.

  “The second is the servants’ entrance.”

  Of course there was a servants’ entrance—one that looked exactly like the main entrance. I rolled my eyes and shook my head. “Whichever is least likely to end up with us all dead, please.”

  The guard took us through the servant-entrance room, leading us to another doorway, a second hallway winding along behind the walls of the main rooms.

  We should have been using these halls all along.

  A small window overlooking the room allowed me to glance inside before we moved to take my babies back.

  The queen had come to visit the nursery.

  Amalya was half shifted, her lower body in its snake form wrapped around the almost ubiquitous poles that served as lamia furniture in this world.

  Her back was to us, and the infant lamias coiled around her wrists and neck. The queen crooned to softly to the three babies and their heads swayed gently back and forth to the rhythm of the soft song she sang.

  I froze, transfixed by the sight of the Queen, whose cold cruelty had struck me earlier, singing lullabies.

  Chapter 10

  Slowly, silently, I backed away from the door, letting it remain closed. My mind raced in direct counterpoint to how slowly I moved.

  “What is it?” Grant hissed.

  I waved us all farther down the hallway before answering. “The queen. She’s in there with the babies.”

  “Who else?” Coit asked, ever practical.

  “No one.”

  “That should make it easy.” Shane shrugged when I frowned at him. “You having some kind of second thoughts? She’s no better than the werewolves who tried to take them. They’re not her children. And their birth-mothers gave them over to you.”

  He was right. I knew he was right.

  Yet something about seeing her sitting there singing to the infants left me feeling ambivalent about her. An hour ago, I could have cheerfully hurt her.

  Now?

  Now I wondered if maybe she wasn’t as awful as she seemed when I first met her.

  Queen of a dying race, grasping at any straw of hope—even one so slender as two infants.

  How could I do anything other than pity her?

  But that doesn’t mean you have to let her have your babies, Lindi, I admonished myself.

  “Okay.” I inhaled deeply. “Let’s go get them.”

  Grant gave me an approving nod—and that sent a twisting tendril of worry flipping through my stomach. What did it mean that the werewolf, my recent enemy, my the enemy of my enemy is my friend ally-for-now, liked my plan?

  Nothing good, I’m sure.

  “What’s the plan?” Coit asked.

  “You hold the guard. Shane, see if you can get in behind the queen, maybe use that shock stick to knock her out?” It was the best I could think of. “Grant, whatever happens, your job is to make certain she’s incapacitated. I’ll grab the babies and we can head out.”

  “What about the queen?” Shane asked. “Should we kill her before we go? Try to knock her out? What?”

  “We take her with us.” I didn’t think before I spoke, but as soon as I said the words, I knew it was the right thing to do.

  All three men, however, stared at me with wide, shocked eyes.

  “Seriously?” Shane’s tone hovered somewhere between stunned and horrified.

  “That ain’t the best idea I ever heard,” Coit muttered.

  Grant simply rolled his eyes.

  “Nonetheless,” I said primly, “it’s what we’re going to do. Are all of you ready?”

  I waited for all of them to acknowledge the plan, and then we stepped into the room. We weren’t trying to be quiet, but Amalya didn’t even turn around to acknowledge us.

  “You can put the tray on the table.” She motioned to her left, then went back to humming something low and soothing to the infants, who swayed gently to the sound of her voice.

  Of course she assumed we were servants. She believed everyone around her was there to serve her in one way or another.

  Even the babies, probably.

  When no one responded to her order, she finally twisted on her lower serpent half so she could see us.

  “You,” she hissed. But she’d waited too long to make sure she was safe. Shane was already lunging toward her with his shock stick.

  Harsh lines etched around the guard’s mouth showed how much he hated watching as we attacked his monarch, but he didn’t try to save her. He didn’t even call out. But I didn’t have time to wonder at his odd compliance.

  As Amalya’s body went lax, her serpent half uncoiled, and she dropped. Grant dove under her in time to catch her, and I reached in to take the babies.

  They both hesitated for a second but finally slid over to me when I urged them with my hands.

  “I’m so glad to see you again,” I whispered.

  “Company’s coming,” Coit announced, peering through the window of the servants’ entrance. “Time to get out of here.”

  I narrowed my eyes at the guard. “Can you get us to the garage without anyone seeing us?”

  His nod was almost a bow. “I can certainly try.”

  Close enough. “Then let’s go.”

  He took the lead, Coit following close behind. Grant carried Amalya, and Shane and I trailed after them. We moved out of the nursery room just in time—I caught a glimpse of the servants’ door swinging open as we slid out into the hallway and heard voices behind us.

  But the guard moved into another room almost immediately, then led us winding through hallways and doors, taking us along a circuitous route that I couldn’t have retraced if my life had depended on it.

  Eventually, though, we emerged into a hallway I remembered walking through immediately after leaving the car behind earlier in the day.

  God. Had we really been here less than twenty-four hours? It seemed like days.

  As we stepped into the garage, a figure moved out to stand between us and the vehicle, electricity crackling from one hand to the other.

  Salara, fairly bristling with power.

  She didn’t carry a shock-stick.

  No, that power was all her own.

  “Stop,” she ordered, her voic
e ringing with authority. This was no longer the friendly, chatty lamia who had picked us up in her low-slung car.

  This was a member of the queen’s clan, a woman with power.

  A woman who intended to keep us from leaving with her monarch.

  “Wait.” I jolted at the sound of Amalya’s voice echoing through the mostly empty structure. I could have sworn she was still unconscious, but the lamia queen sat up in Grant’s arms, then slid down to balance on the stone-like floor.

  “My queen,” Salara began.

  “Let us pass.” Amalya spoke quietly, but it . “I go with the infants of my own free will, Salara.”

  The other woman shook her head, her expression collapsing in on itself. “No. You cannot leave us. We need you.”

  I remembered my earlier thoughts about having a duty to the lamia babies that was similar to Amalya’s obligation to her subjects.

  What was happening here?

  Surely the queen wasn’t leaving her people.

  Then again, what was a queen when her country was dying of attrition?

  A queen without countrymen—would she be a queen at all at that point?

  Amalya turned to me, almost as if she read my thoughts. “If you take the infants, I must go with you. They’re the only future we have.” She paused. “But if you take them back to your world, they’ll be in danger, even if I go to protect them.”

  I blinked. “I can’t leave them behind,” I insisted.

  “They’ll be safe here. Cared for. Cherished.” Queen Amalya’s voice broke on the last word. “No one will try to kill them.”

  I froze. That hadn’t occurred to me before—the idea that the lamia babies might be better off here than they were in my own world.

  But would they grow up to be cold? Heartless?

  I examined Amalya through narrowed eyes.

  She clearly cared about the babies. Could that be enough? A base from which to start?

  Could I be certain they’d be taught compassion? Salara had talked about treating humans as second-class citizens. Had that been true, or was it just part of her ploy to take us to the queen?

  “No,” I finally said. “I can’t leave them behind.”

  That’s when Salara attacked.

  Chapter 11

  She shoved her hands toward us, palm-first. Her initial blast sent the men with us tumbling off to the sides like dandelion seeds blown across the yard.

  I braced myself for impact, pulling my magic around myself as tight as I could, preparing for whatever came next.

  Solara’s second blow never landed.

  Amalya reached out, took my hand, and held them above us.

  I half expected her to pull my magic away from me, to suck it into herself and use it as a power source.

  But she did the exact opposite. Instead of taking my magic, she added hers to what I already had, pouring it into me.

  After a second, I followed her example, pouring my own magic into the space between us—and when that space was full, I pushed harder, shoving everything I had into the air that danced between our molecules. I’d learned in school science classes that there was more space in our atoms than matter. And now we used that fact to our benefit, until our magic swirled through us, filling that space, combining and mixing.

  Exhilaration swirled through me and I glanced at Amalya, who flashed a triumphant smile my direction. When I looked back at Solara, I realized that time itself it slowed down.

  I could see a bolt of lightning -shaped power inching its way toward us from where she’d thrown it out with her hands.

  And that’s when I realized that Solara didn’t truly care about her world.

  She cared only about her access to power.

  Amalya, on the other hand, cared for nothing other than her world. Her people. Her land.

  And that would always include any infant lamias.

  But that implied that that she also cared about Solara.

  In an instant, I knew what we needed to do.

  I sent reassurance sliding along the magical bond that now united us, the one that allowed us to pass power back and forth. It echoed through our every molecule, and Amalya’s acceptance throbbed back through me as she sent a silent agreement to follow my lead.

  It would do no good to hurt Solara, even though she was attacking us. That would only make Amalya angry.

  So instead, I focused on creating one of my rips in reality.

  The diamante sparkles that presaged a rift in reality began flickering into existence all around us.

  Amalya gasped and reached out a hand to brush against one of the fire0bright lights sparkling around us.

  She hissed on an inhaled breath when her finger brushed against one, and I stretched my hand out before me to follow her lead, wondering what she had experienced.

  The sparkle I touched burned white-hot against my fingertip for just an instant, a scintilla of pure magic underneath my questing fingers.

  This time, I knew where I was going.

  I knew how to get to where I wanted to be.

  Kade and Serena, I thought. I remembered the first time Kade had kissed me, the way his golden eyes churned with desire, the way he had stepped me back until my knees bumped against the hospital bed in the private room he dragged me into. The way his lips burned across mine.

  I remembered the heat that poured off of him and that slightly spicy scent that belonged only to him.

  And when I had wrapped everything I could remember about him around me, I moved on to thinking about Serena. The way she had shifted to follow my lead, choosing an infant serpent form that mimicked the battle shape I’d taken in front of her the first time I had fought to protect her from invaders who wanted to harm her.

  All the strands that held us together, that tied me to Kade and to Serena, stretched between us, never diminished by distance.

  The glow of the sparkles in the air intensified, and the magic that flowed between me and the queen of a lamia realm far from my own world pulsed once, then twice. And then the air in front of us, the very reality that surrounded us, opened like a zipper unzipping.

  I used our combined power to gather everyone in that tableau and hold us as the world around us yawed open and swallowed us whole.

  WE TUMBLED THROUGH space, the rift between worlds sparkling with the same magic that I used to open this portal. That I had used to open every portal I’d ever torn in my world back home.

  I’ll have to close them all, eventually.

  The thought flitted through my mind as we hurtled toward the other end, toward the world that held the two loves I had left behind.

  The world where Kade and Serena were presumably still fighting for their lives.

  Amalya’s anxiety flowed through me as if it were my own, just as her magic did.

  I realized that I had been wrong about her. She wasn’t cold and uncaring.

  She was no more cold-blooded than I was — at least, not all the time. Her human half gave her the same ability to love that mine gave me.

  And even without someone like my parents to train her, her love for her people, for her world, for those she was duty-bound to care for, ran bone deep.

  And for all that Solara had turned her magic against us, Amalya loved her. As if she were Amalya’s own child.

  And in a sense, she was. Not only was she one of Amalya’s subjects, but she was also family, one of those lamias “of the Queens line” who could wield magic.

  And so was I, I realized as I drew on Amalya’s power and knowledge. Wherever I had come from, however I had ended up in that West Texas desert for my father to find me, I had originally come from the same people Amalya had.

  I really was a lamia Princess, a member of the royal family on Amalya’s world, no matter how far removed.

  The ties of love might bind me to the world where Kade and Serena waited.

  But the ties of blood and kinship bound me to the world Amalya ruled.

  And eventually, I would have to figure out wha
t to do about that—which world should have more of my loyalty.

  But first, I had to find the people who had all my love.

  Chapter 12

  We landed in the NICU at Kindred Hospital—the same place I’d left from. I hadn’t intended to take us back there, but I’d been following my instincts, and they told me I should go back to where I last saw Kade and Serena. And this was that place.

  But it wasn’t like I had seen it last. Or ever, for that matter.

  When I came here to see the babies, there were always nurses and doctors bustling around, and monitors beeping their steady, careful beat, occasionally punctuated by shrill alarms.

  It wasn’t like that now. All machines were silent. I didn’t see a single living person.

  Then again, it wasn’t like it had been when I had jumped through a portal to the Molly’s world. Then, werewolves had been holding incubators as they tried to kidnap the infant lamias within them.

  There were not any werewolves here, either.

  In fact, there wasn’t a living soul.

  There were, however, several dead bodies strewn across the floor, both human and werewolf. It looked like a been a hell of a fight. Glass crunched under my shoes as I stepped forward, and wires dangled uselessly from the monitors that until recently had left doctors and nurses know how the babies were.

  Tables and bassinets were overturned, scattered across the room.

  My stomach plummeted, and all my hopes turned to ashes in my mouth.

  There was no way in hell Kade would have allowed the NICU to remain in that condition. Not if he had managed to survive the attack and stay here.

  I glanced back at Grant, who was surveying the damage with as much interest as I was.

  “Do you know what happened here?” I asked him.

  He shook his head. “Our orders were to do our best to grab the babies without engaging with any adults.”

  “Well, looks like someone has already screwed that part up.”

  He shrugged, a sheepish grin stealing across his face. “Looks like. I think I might’ve learned something important in the process, though.”