I raised my eyebrows at Astrid. “See?” I said, grinning.

Astrid grinned back at me and nodded. “If I’d known all it would take is fucking a gemstone, I’d have given it a go myself weeks ago.”

It amused me to hear Astrid’s misconception of what the merging process had involved, but I would not tell her yet that I had not actually been obliged to fuck a crystal. Even I might have struggled to get excited about doing that. I had decided that I would let Kyrine determine how and when she wanted to reveal her humanoid form to the agents, remembering that she’d said she’d been reluctant to do so up to now. I may have had to use the power of the Keeper to rein Kyrine in a bit, but I had no desire to dominate her or force her to do things she was uncomfortable with.

I chuckled and deftly side-stepped Astrid’s question. “Apparently having sex with the core isn’t enough on its own—you have to be a Keeper too. Something that’s not quite human or Outworlder.”

Astrid shrugged. “The nature of the Keepers is Belinda’s area of expertise.”

“Then I’ll ask her more about it when she gets back. Until then, we have some monsters to train.”

I was about to head toward the massive training ring and the obstacle course when Astrid reached out to touch my arm. “Just a moment,” she said, sounding suddenly a bit shy.

“What is it?” I asked, turning to look at her.

She smiled up at me. “I’ve got something else for you.”

She went back over and reached into her duffle bag, fishing out another fabric-wrapped creature core. When she unwrapped it, I saw that this one was pyramid-shaped, about the same size as the other, and shining in an emerald green with a leaf-like pattern through it.

“Another creature core!” I stared at the core in wonder.

Chapter 17

Astrid handed me the new creature core.

As soon as I touched it, my mind was filled with the image of a plant-like monster. Its base was like a blossoming flower of thick, blood-red petals, but huge, easily five feet across. Out of the flower-like base rose a large, dark green, vine-like neck that ended in an eyeless head that seemed to consist entirely of a pair of toothy, snapping jaws, oddly human-like in shape. The gums of its pink mouth were filled with razor-like teeth. A tongue covered in spines lay within its gaping maw, and the horrible head swayed slowly back and forth on the long stalk as if ready to snap up prey at a moment’s notice.

“That’s an ugly fucker!” I commented as I withdrew my awareness from the vision.