"Trailer? Look, you're not supposed to be cussing, and that's definitely a nasty word to me," Aphrodite said. Then she smiled and laughed and pulled me into a super hard hug that I was sure she'd deny ever doing later. "You're really back? And you're not, like, brain-damaged or anything?"

"I am!" I laughed. "And I'm no more brain-damaged than I was when I left."

Over her shoulder Darius appeared. His eyes were suspiciously shiny as he fisted a hand over his heart and bowed to me. "Welcome back, High Priestess."

"Thanks, Darius." I grinned at him and held out my hand so he could help me stand. I had weird jelly legs, so I kept hold of him as the room rolled and pitched around me.

"She needs food and drink," said a super in-charge-like voice.

"Right away, Majesty," came the immediate response.

I finally blinked the dizziness clear, so that I could see. "Wow, a throne! Seriously?"

The beautiful woman sitting on the carved marble throne smiled at me. "Welcome back, young queen,"

she said.

"Young queen," I repeated, half-laughing. But as my eyes traveled around the room, my laughter dissolved, and the throne, the cool room, and questions of queendom utterly evaporated.

Stark was there. He was lying on a huge stone. There was a vampyre Warrior standing at his head, and the guy was holding a razor-sharp dagger above Stark's chest, which was already bloody and covered with knife slashes.

"No! Stop it!" I cried. I pulled away from Darius and started to lunge toward the vamp.

More quickly than she should have been able to move, the queen was suddenly standing between the Warrior and me. She put a hand on my shoulder and spoke one question softly to me. "What did Stark tell you?"

I shook myself mentally, trying to think beyond the bloody sight of my Warrior, my Guardian.

My Guardian . . .

I looked at the queen. "That's how Stark got to the Otherworld. That Warrior. He's really helping him."

"My Guardian," the queen corrected me. "Yes, he is helping Stark. But now his quest is complete. It is your responsibility as his queen to bring him back."

I opened my mouth to ask her how, but closed it before I spoke. I didn't have to ask her. I knew. And it was my responsibility to help my Guardian return.

She must have seen it in my eyes, because the queen bowed her head, ever so slightly, and then stepped aside.

I walked over to the man she'd called her Guardian. Sweat slicked his muscular chest. He was completely focused on Stark. It seemed he didn't see or hear anyone else in the room. As he lifted the

knife, obviously getting ready to make another cut, the torchlight glinted off a golden bracelet that was fashioned to twist around his wrist. I understood then where the golden thread that had led Stark to me had come from, and I felt a rush of warmth for the queen's Guardian. I touched his wrist gently, beside the piece of gold, and said, "Guardian, you can stop now. It's time for him to come back."

His hand stopped instantly. A tremor went through the Guardian's body. When he looked at me, I saw that the pupils of his blue eyes were fully dilated.

"You can stop now," I repeated gently. "And thank you for helping Stark get to me."

He blinked, and his eyes cleared. His voice was gravelly, and I almost smiled when I recognized the Scottish accent Stark had mimicked for me. "Aye, wumman . . . as yie wish." He staggered back. I knew that the queen had taken him in her arms, and I could hear her murmuring things to him. I knew other Warriors were in the room, too, and I could feel Aphrodite and Darius watching me - but I ignored them all.

To me, Stark was the only person in the room. The only thing that mattered.

I went to him where he was lying on the stone in his pooling blood. This time the scent of it came to me, and it did affect me. Sweet and heady, it made my mouth water. But it had to stop. Now was not the time for my head to be messed up by Stark's blood and the desire that lingered in me for it.

I lifted my hand. "Water, come to me." When the soft dampness of the element surrounded me, I waved my hand over Stark's bloody body. "Wash this from him." The element did as I asked, raining gently on him. I watched it clean the blood from his chest, pour over the stone, follow the intricate knotwork all down the sides of the huge boulder and fill the two grooves that cut into the floor on either side of it.

Horns, I realized. They remind me of super big horns.

Weirdly enough, when the blood was all washed away, the grooves weren't white like the rest of the floor. Instead, they shimmered a beautiful, mystical black, reminding me of the night sky.