He lifted me so I was straddled across his lap, our mouths clashing together, tongues sliding across each other, hands touching wherever they could reach. I was completely mindless; there had never been a kiss like this in my life before.
It was the kiss to end all kisses.
A throat cleared in an amused sort of sound and a sliver of clarity returned to me. And apparently to Lexen, because his hands gentled, as did our mouths. He pressed his lips to mine once more, slowly pulling away.
Sweet alien world.Did that just happen? Did Lexen Darken just kiss me like his life depended on it?
“I’m so damn sorry I left you alone,” he murmured as we both stared, breathing a little deeper than was usual. “I left you and those bastards stole you right out from under me.”
I lifted my arm, wanting to touch his face, but pain shot through my shoulder. Ouch … wrong arm.
Lexen’s head snapped to the side as he zeroed in on my white bandage. “What happened?” The question was asked slowly, deliberately, and for a second a shadow slithered across his face, like a specter of something more than the Daelighter he was.
“One of Laous’ men threw her off the incubation level,” Daniel said with bite in his tone. “She’s lucky she landed in the trees. Had she hit the ground at that speed, the land would have crushed her.”
Lexen didn’t turn to his friend, lifting his gaze to meet my eyes again. “What else did Laous do to you? I need you to tell me everything.”
Nobody would disobey Lexen when he spoke like that … he was scary. Wasting no time, stumbling once or twice, I told them both what had happened from the moment I woke in the egg cage, leaving nothing out. “And he has … or had a Draygo,” I finished. “That’s how he found out everything about the treaty. He used the power of the four houses by sending you all to Astoria. To find my family.” As I finished, a stony sort of silence filling the cave, Lexen finally looked away from me, turning to Daniel.
“Like I said before, prepare to be overlord,” he bit out. “Laous is a dead man.”
Daniel swore a few times, rubbing a hand over his face in a tired manner. “A Draygo? I knew that my father had a draygone friend who visited. Maybe that was why Laous killed him. To get access to the Draygo…”
“He needs to be stopped,” Lexen bit out. “And the council has to be informed of this new information.”
He stood without dropping me on my head. I’d never had a guy carry me like that before, with such ease, as if he’d forgotten he even held me in his arms. I liked it more than I expected. The independent woman part of me rebelled, but another primal part liked the way he wrapped me up tightly, holding every part of me together, sharing his strength and comfort with me.
Still, now was not the time for me to be carried. I wanted to stand on my own two feet. So I struggled to be let down, and he immediately set me down, keeping me close to his side.
“We need to move fast.” Daniel was serious as he glanced between us. “Laous is going to come for her, and he has way too much control over the justices. We can’t beat him here, in his territory.”
“Has anyone ever made it through the full six levels to reach the seventh?” I asked.
Daniel and Lexen both shook their heads.
Great. I should have guessed that. “So how are we going to get through it, then?” I asked, trying not to sound as pissed off and worried as I felt.
Lexen and Daniel exchanged a grin. The pair of them way too cocky and gorgeous for any girl to keep her sanity. “We’re overlord minors,” Lexen told me. “We have one or two tricks up our sleeves. We can’t hook to the network, but our individual strengths should be enough to get us out of here.”
Daniel started to move, walking to the rounded stone doorway of this cave. There was another stone tunnel behind it, and at the end of that everything looked red. As we got closer, the heat increased to the point where I started to feel faint.
“Explain to me properly about this network you all use?” I asked, looking for information and a distraction.
“The network is an energy grid which spans across Overworld, connecting everything,” Lexen said. “It runs just below our land, and flows between the magical elements. In Darken it’s the stone of our mountains. Imperials have the Cascading Justices. Royale have a current through their legreto, their water. Leights are the forests, all of them connected, all of them alive.”
“It’s mostly where we get our energy and powers from,” Daniel added. “Overlords have extra ties with the network. Ties we are born with. Especially within our own section.”
“So Laous is pretty powerful right now?” I mused, realizing that the danger was far from over.
Daniel nodded. “Yes, he is. In normal circumstances I could call for a clear path to the exit from this place, but to do so now would alert Laous’ warriors…”
I sucked in some hot air, trying to calm myself. Lexen or Daniel getting hurt was too awful to think about.
Further conversation was cut off as we stepped out of the cave for the first time. We stood on the edge of Shaken Ridge, in a section that almost seemed like an in-between place, where the ground didn’t try and throw us around, but we weren’t on the fire step yet either. Below us was a world of red. Heat smashed against me hard enough that I took a step back. This was impossible. There was no way for us to get through without burning to death. There didn’t look to be a single path, just an ocean of lava and spouting fire holes.
“There are two paths through this land,” Daniel said, reading my mind. Or the disbelief that was no doubt on my face.
“One requires a level of athletic ability which might be difficult for you,” Lexen added, sending a smirk in my direction.
