“Bethany—”

“Fucking go,” I growled, though it came out little more than a painful rasp. “Now.”

He went.

I collapsed.

It was the sharp vibration of displeasure humming through the building’s structure that finally stirred me. As I crawled toward full consciousness, I realized that though the storm still raged above me, I was no longer in the midst of it but rather in my own bed. Wood song told me there were two people in the living area and a third in the other bedroom, but the thunder was so damn loud I couldn’t hear any conversation.

I suspected that was deliberate.

Because there was a fourth person here, and she was not only in the room with me but the source of both the noise overhead and the displeasure that sang through the building.

“You can stop foxing, young woman” came the harshly guttural comment. “I know you’re awake.”

A smile twitched my lips, and I opened my eyes. Beira was perched in a chair drawn up close enough to the end of the bed for her to rest her feet on it. She was on the short side—though far too slender to be a dwarf—with sharp brown features, a thick nest of wiry steel-gray hair, and rather large wart on the end of her nose. But it was her aura—which sang with the ferocity of the storm that raged outside—that caught attention and made most people fear her.

I wasn’t most people, and I’m not sure what that said about me.

“And there’s nothing quite like waking to your dulcet tones.”

She snorted. “I’m not here to cosset you, young woman. You damn near killed yourself—what the hell were you thinking, calling down the lightning like that?”

“You’re the one that told me I could use the wind and the storms.”

“Yes, but I didn’t mean for you to jump into the deep end without first learning to swim. If you’d died—and you came close—we’d all be in serious trouble.”

“‘All’ meaning hags? Or everyone in general?”

I gingerly pushed upright. My body no longer burned, but there was an odd tightness to my skin—the sort of tightness that came from newly healed flesh. I glanced at my fingers. The tips were baby pink; obviously, the lightning burning out of my fingertips had been a physical reality rather than a mere sensation.

“Everyone,” she said crossly. “Hags aren’t immune to world events, you know, and the wrong people getting their mitts on the Claws would disadvantage us just as much as you lot.”

“How? You’re all goddesses—”

“Trapped in flesh suits that need to be fed and watered just the same as everyone else. Hard to do if these bastards disrupt the natural order.”

“Yes, but it’s not like you can have a heart attack or die of old age.”

“That does not negate my comment.” It was snarkily said, but her dark eyes twinkled.

“So why are you here? As you’ve said, you’re not the cosseting type.”