“I know you don’t.” His soft reply brushed me on the inside like feathers. He set the book down, then backed me against the wall. The space between us throbbed with need. He swept a thumb over my bottom lip, flooding wet heat between my thighs. He tipped forward and brushed a kiss where his thumb had been. I roped arms around his neck, and our tongues exchanged silent words. His hand slipped down my back, and mine slid to his waistband.
“We can’t do this now.” I said it, but it was like stating the obvious.
“No, we can’t.” His head dipped, and his lips caught mine, the kiss sweet and slow, then blossoming into deep and hungry. He stepped back, his eyes glassy. “I’m sorry, but the desire will have to live on without the actions.”
I straightened up shakily. My brain had traveled to other types of magical places which involved no clothes. The tome called out to me. The desperation to open it eclipsing the passion that had been ripped away.
“Don’t,” he said as if reading my thoughts.
“Grimoires have never given me trouble,” I replied, lying. There’d been the grimoire sent to us from Great-Aunt Agatha who had attempted to bite me. Mom had sent it back to her.
Ranth saw right through me from the grim set of his lips. “You have things to learn, and you aren’t acknowledging my experience. I’ve opened many power books over the years. Some with instruction, and some I sneaked out of my master’s library. It was forbidden, and opening it almost killed me because I didn’t honor the book owner and ask permission. I’m going to bet you’ve never opened a book with this much power.”
“You mean because this grimoire has a warded cover, and the locks…”
“Grimoires are textbooks, collections of spells. This isn’t a grimoire. Every book of power has a creator who is bound to it, and part of the maker clings to it.”
“That’s earth magic.”
“It’s life magic, actually.”
I bristled at the inference that I didn’t know the difference, but he was right, this was out of my experience. “Binding yourself to a book is totally against everything positive and good. It has nothing to do with life.” I studied the cover through his fingers. Vigorous and lean, like him.
“This current world labels magic as good and bad, and life as a positive force. Magic is gray-edged and messy. To build these books, you have to give of yourself, which makes them precious and also able to survive through the ages. But to open it without harm, you have to have their permission. Remember when Harold opened the book in the other world?”
“He asked something in a language I didn’t understand, but yes, he asked permission. I can do that.”
“In Medieval Latin?” Ranth set the book down between us.
“Don’t they understand English in the plane? The sentiment is the same in any language.”
“You can only call them in their own tongue. Really, Sorrel, please don’t touch it,” he replied as I crouched down.
“It doesn’t look much older than a couple hundred years.”
“It’s been rebound. The original tome would have been a series of scrolls. Later, they were bound into what you hold. So not only do you need to ask permission of the maker, but you also need to ask permission of the binder. A lesson I learned the hard way.” He traced the scar across his nose.
“Ah, that’s how you got that.” Where ancient tomes in languages I couldn’t read were concerned, I was walking in the dark, and we both knew it. “Look, our lives are on the line, sowe’re opening this together—no argument. But I’m drawing the salt circle.”
“I’m good with that if it’s a triangle.” He smirked, picking up the book and following me to the walled-off office at one end of the enormous open area.
Juke’s pink workshop had walls and a door, but the pink shag rug wasn’t going to work for salt, and the neon green-pink vibe hit me as wrong for opening the tome.
Ranth peered over my shoulder and made a huffing sound.
“Yeah. I think we’re using the open space.” We returned to the center of the cavernous room. The skylights filtered the weakening afternoon light. The center had a squiggly mosaic of the sun with a mirror ball in the center.
“Think we can use this?”
“Are you asking for a reason?”
“You seem to always have answers. I was double-checking,” I replied, starting to pour out the salt. Ranth settled in the center. I poured the triangle big enough for us to both sit cross-legged, knee-to-knee.
“What now?” I asked as he placed the book between us.
“We ask the binder to let us open it.”
“That’s going to be on you. My Medieval Latin is kind of rusty.” I smirked.
