Free Motor City Mage by Cindy Spencer Pape Page A

sense his amusement. Weird.
    Lana snorted as she blinked back a tear. “Same old Des. In case you hadn’t noticed, there aren’t any spare orange jumpsuits lying around.” Instead, she lay back beside him, tucking the blanket over them both.
    It was maybe ten minutes later, after Lana had dozed off, when Des spoke again. “You’re bleeding.” His hand rested over the worst of the claw marks on her waist.
    “Not much, and they’ll go away after I shift another time or two.” She didn’t want him wasting his limited healing powers on her.
    “Then do it.”
    Lana looked over at the demons. Fish seemed to have curled up and fallen asleep in the corner, and Ordwel had his feet up on the bench while he did a set of push-ups, flexing his already impressive muscles. Neither of them looked like they gave a damn what Lana or Des did, so she shifted into wolf form then human, then furry again. By then, she knew her wounds were completely healed, but she’d worn herself out. Still in her fur, she curled into Des and let herself drift back to sleep.
    * * *
    Des had never been on the Gravaki plane before, so he had no idea what the daily cycle was. Darkness had fallen in the cell a while after Lana went to sleep, though he couldn’t be sure how long. He’d been too weak most of that time to bother lifting his wrist to look at his watch.
    Now daylight began to creep back in through the barred slits high in the walls, and Des had recovered enough to finally sit up and look around. His internal bleeding had been difficult to heal, and the concussion was still a nagging headache, but he’d managed to repair enough that he wouldn’t bleed out and he was able to function. Lana, thank the gods, seemed to be fine now that she’d shifted. Like the rest of their cell mates, she still slept soundly, her furry body pressed close to his, lending him much needed warmth as he’d healed himself.
    Weird as it was to cuddle up to a wolf, especially one he’d had sex with in her human form, he’d clung to her in his sleep. And while he hadn’t felt the slightest stirring of arousal for her as a wolf, he’d still taken comfort from having Lana beside him. He was sure a therapist would have a field day with that.
    Now that they were both back in more or less working order, it was time to find a way out of this place.
    At least some Gravakis could teleport. They’d discovered that in when the one who’d attacked Lana’s pack. So there was probably some kind of magic blocking that, since Ordwel was still sitting here. Unless it was a limited ability, and only some of the species could do it. Des would have to ask Ordwel about that when he woke. Then there would be the matter of finding the portal and getting through it without being killed. With a Gravaki drug gang guarding it, that would be no easy feat.
    He wondered what had happened to Vin. Had the demon turned on them? Been killed? Or was he possibly being held in this same prison but a different cell? Hell, Des didn’t even know if the place had other cells. For all he knew, they were in a palace dungeon or something. All he’d seen around the portal was a ring of stone pillars, set in twos, almost like Stonehenge without the capstones. Maybe half a dozen portals, with nothing around them but desert. He had no idea how long he’d been out or how far they’d taken them afterward. Hopefully Lana had been conscious enough to have some of the answers.
    She stirred against him and shifted back into human form as she woke. Reaching up to touch his chin, she smiled and whispered, “You look better.”
    “Much.” He sat and pulled his slightly battered flannel shirt over his head, glad he’d worn casual clothes and hiking boots for the meeting with Malen. “How about you?”
    “Never better.” She eased up to her knees and tugged his shirt over his head, rolling the cuffs up several times to just above her wrists. “Well, okay, I’ve been better. The situation sucks, I’m