Chapter 3

"How'd it go?" I asked as Marcus entered our hotel room. He looked exhausted, shuffling to the closest chair and falling into it heavily. When his only answer was no answer, I left it be.

It was five days since we and Talon had split up and, though we'd certainly visited enough places and sent enough things back to their house, we'd accomplished little of our actual goal.

Tonight, we were in northern Georgia in a very nice hotel located in a beautiful section of town that just so happened to be close to one of the gateways into the Demon realms. That was the criteria for where we stopped and if we stayed. The whole purpose here was to get word to whoever Camilla and Hunter were and stop the crazy bitch who was after my mate.

Each evening after we checked into a hotel, Marcus would leave, sometimes for a couple of hours, sometimes not returning until the next morning. As time dragged on, he returned looking horrible, exhausted and a little less hopeful.

"Marcus?" I asked, quietly, in case he'd fallen asleep.

"Yes, Miss Ramirez?" His voice was tired, too.

"What's going on?" I took a second to clarify. "I mean, why do you look so horribly drained?"

"The realms of Demons are very different than this one," he replied after a moment. "It is very difficult to explain, but each realm takes care of Its natives. Take this realm," he waved a hand around. "Humans, as well as nearly every living organism here, need oxygen to survive. Even sunlight is vital, as are all the elements. There are things to sustain everything, from plant life all the way up to omnivores."

"I take it, then, that the Demon realms are different?" I asked, getting up for a drink and bringing him one, too.

"Yes and no," he took a long drink and sighed. "Our realms provide us with what we need to live." I looked at him blankly. "Life essence, my dear child. It is in everything, even in this realm, but more so in ours. Our very beings are connected to it, like yours is to oxygen, so much so that it is as heavily saturated there as air is here."

"Okay, I think I get it." I cleared my throat and took a long swallow before asking, "So, what does that have to do with my question?"

"I keep going from perfect levels of life essence to very little, very quickly. It takes great power to open a portal by one's self," he told me, "and, even opening it from the other side, it drains me."

"Why didn't you say so in the first place?" I asked, a little irritated as I knelt next to him and placed my hand in his. He jerked away, or tried to, but I'd expected as much and had been prepared for it. "Don't be a fool, Marcus," I cautioned. "You need it, I have it. It's that simple."

He hesitated. "I forget that the code of conduct I was raised to follow no longer applies." I could see now the burn in his eyes that he'd kept hidden, the deep hunger that we couldn't afford for him to quench elsewhere.

"Tell me about them." I made myself comfortable, propping my arm on my knee as he began to siphon out my life essence. It wasn't like when Talon took, which was usually a sexual experience. This was only a slight sensation of weakening, like a calming massage.

"Well," he began, looking thoughtful, "I shouldn't say that the rules no longer apply, just that they have changed a great deal."

"How so?" I was eager for information; Talon told me so little about both himself and Demons in general.

"I guess I can start with this," he gestured to our hands. "I was taught not to feed off another's -" he paused, "- I guess 'spouse' will do, though 'partner' or 'mate' are closer. We're generally very territorial." I nodded. That I understood from growing up with Werewolves.

"I wasn't aware that unions outside of one's species was an common thing."

"It wasn't, unless you lived outside our realms."

"Why only outside? Is it against a law to have in the Realm anything besides those native to the realm?" That seemed unfair to me.

"Not at all," Marcus answered, surprised, probably by the venom in my voice. "It can be uncomfortable for some, but there is nothing against it. It's just not necessary for that kind on union to exist there." I just stared at him in confusion.

"What does that mean? Don't you still need to take essence to survive?"

"No, it is provided." He could see I wasn't getting it. "We Demons require life essence to survive in this realm but not in our own because life essence in our realms is like oxygen here - it's everywhere and in everything."

I thought about that as he continued to slowly take from me. "Like needing an oxygen tank under water?" I asked. "Or in space?"

"Exactly," he beamed. "You can breathe just fine here, but you require another way to gain sustenance elsewhere. You, essentially, are an oxygen tank for a Demon."

We were silent again, the clock on the wall ticking quietly. Another question occurred to me. "Does this mean that there's no oxygen in the Demon realms? That you don't have to breathe?"

He chuckled. "No, there is oxygen in every realm, as far as I know, and we do have to breathe. We can go long periods of time without breathing when necessary, though it's rather uncomfortable." He sighed and removed his hand, stopping the flow of essence into his body. "Thank you."

"You're welcome, Marcus; it's pretty much all I can do, so... ," my voice tapered off with a shrug.

"Your time will come," he assured me, helping me to my feet. "Have you been practicing?"

"It's hard to practice telepathic shields that I can't feel with nobody around who can sense them." It was my turn to sigh. "I don't think I'm ever going to get it. I only know how to build the shields, not make passageways."

"Everything in time," Marcus soothed, moving to the table, where the food I'd ordered earlier sat, mostly untouched. "How's it going with your blade?"

I glanced across the room to where our overnight bags sat, thinking about the very special weapon that I'd nestled into the bottom under all my clothes. Suddenly, there was a weight in my right hand, my fingers curved securely around the hilt. "Quite well, I think."

Sixteen inches from the pommel to the tip of the blade, it was almost long enough to touch my elbow when I held it against my inner arm. Other than being of exquisite craftsmanship, the knife was rather plain. The hilt looked like aged steel with small, irregular grooves cut to help grip the pommel and cross guard. The metal was polished to a dull gleam, the intricate pattern of etching in the middle seeming to glow as the light hit the inlaid silver. It was wickedly sharp on both sides, though not so sharp that it was fragile; it had taken me weeks to get that down using other knives as practice.