“You can’t just kidnap people,” I snap. “Strip them naked and lock them in your lava castle and peep on them like—like?—”
“Like what, Delia Esposito?” he finishes mildly.
“I don’t know!”
“Like a sacrifice, perhaps?” he supplies unhelpfully.
Bastard.
“Maybe. I don’t know. I mean, that’s kinda what it feels like!” I shout.
He steps closer, and the air between us heats instantly.
Not just temperature—pressure.
Like the room itself is leaning in.
“You are no chicken or goat,” he says, voice low, edged with something ancient. “You are my Shula.”
“I don’t care what word you use,” I shoot back, my voice sharper than I feel. “You don’t get to just steal me and strip me?—”
“I already have,” he cuts in, unrepentant. His eyes glow brighter, heat pulsing off him in waves. “And you are playing with fire you do not yet understand.”
I lift my chin, fury buzzing through my veins, my pulse pounding so hard I can hear it in my ears.
“Oh, I understand plenty,” I snap. “You’re a monster. You kidnapped me. You dragged me out of my life and took me to—” I falter, my gaze darting to the walls, the hearth, the glowing seams in the stone.
“Where are we exactly?”
His presence presses closer, not touching, but close enough that I can feel the heat of him along my skin.
“We are in Ashfell,” he says calmly. “My keep, built deep on the edge of the Broken Plains.”
I swallow.
“That’s not a place. That’s… that’s not even a thing.”
“Oh, but it is, milady. I’ve brought you to another realm,” he replies. “One of many.”
“Realm?” The word makes my head spin. “W–what are you talking about? I live in New Jersey,” I whisper, even as some traitorous part of me already suspects the truth.
“Earth was your old world, Shula,” he says softly. “You belong here now.”
My stomach drops. “But where is here?”
“A fair question,” he answers. “We are in the place dreams are made.”
He opens his palms, slow and deliberate.
A flame blooms in the center of his hand.
Not wild. Not raging.
Perfect. Controlled. Alive.
I gasp despite myself, heart hammering as it dances upward at his whim. With his other hand, he closes his fist around it, and the flame snuffs out silently, as if it never existed.
“I–I don’t belong here,” I say, shaking my head.
