She couldn’t bear it any longer.
Gods, she wasravenousfor a taste of his lips.
So she stood on tiptoe and kissed him. A gentle thing, just a peck, but …
It only made the wave of desire surge.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, because he wasn’t kissing her back. And?—
‘Don’t,’ he whispered against her lips, and she’d never seenthatlook in his eyes before, with a hunger that made her toes curl. ‘Don’t you dare apologize. I want to experience you.’ Her heart roared in her ears. Or maybe that was the pulsing power of the door. ‘I want … I want tolive,Ezer. Before I die.’
He kissedherthis time.
He was passion incarnate, and suddenly she wanted to drown in him.
He washed away everything else, and even as he broke the kiss, gasping for breath as he fought away a cough … she found herself reaching for him.
And pulling him back towards her.
‘Ezer,’ he breathed, and then their lips were meeting again, and he tasted sweet, and he felt warm and safe and for just one moment, she could imagine the way his body would feel against hers when?—
A growl sounded.
And something nudged her, so hard she fell backwards, and landed on the stones.
She looked up, gasping, to find …
Six.
The raphon clicked her beak and breathed into Ezer’s face, warm and stinking … and suddenly enough to push the desire away.
A vision entered her mind.
Ezer, standing on a snowy cliffside … with a different man.
Arawn.
Gods.
Shame washed over her. How had she forgotten him?
And then she remembered where she was. The mission. The timeline.
The Acolyte.
She’d lost herself to the pull of dark power, what had to be some sort of strange protection set in place, like a test for weak minds, those not capable of carrying on. And … Ezer stood and wiped dust from her cloak.
She had almost failed it.
‘That … shouldn’t have happened,’ Ezer said, and wrapped her arms around herself. ‘It was the door. It was thepower.’
‘Not for me,’ he said. ‘Not all of it, at least.’
She paused, her lips parted in question.
He took her hands gently and held them against his beating heart.
‘You chosehim,’ he said gently. ‘Didn’t you?’
