“It’s attractive, made of stones of varying colors.”
“There.” He pointed at the ribbons swirling between the cherubs.
“There, what? I don’t understand.”
“Hmm, interesting. You really can’t see it, then?” He knelt down by it.
“See what!”
“The golden net is what the Ahknim call it. The stones energize them. They are magical doors.”
“I see nothing golden at all.”
“Maybe because you weren’t trained…” He looked up at me, and I glared back at him.
“Look, show me the door, or whatever will get us out of here.” I walked around a perforated copper bin and teetered.
“My pleasure,” he replied, darting to me but sending me off-balance. I landed against his chest.
His arms banded around me, steadying me in a cloud of powdered amber and his woody, smoky musk. The air electrified. My skirt brushed against my ankles, whispering anticipation as he walked me backward to lean against the bookcase. Desire for him roared through my blood. His arms were iron and silk. Power and softness. His eyes locked with mine; lightning sizzling behind them.
His head dipped, and I stopped breathing.
I grazed my lips over his. Petal soft, glazed with sweetness. I ached to taste him. His lips parted, and we crashed together, the kiss fast and deep. His hands slid down my hips, and I brushed the satiny skin where his cropped shirt exposed his stomach, curling fingers into his waist band…
With a moan into my mouth, he broke the kiss and staggered back.
I gasped as clarity replaced the broken heat.
Ranth was sucking in breaths as if the effort of moving away from me was like climbing a mountain. We stared at each other, in awe of something precious not to be disturbed or something monstrous that we had barely controlled. It was both.
He looked down, tracing the new dark-purple symbols on his arm. “This place, it’s affecting us. We need to leave. You’ve gone through a portal before, right?” he asked, nodding at the mosaic.
What had we done?I licked my lips, savoring the kiss. His scent was different now, blended.
Our scent.
His words seeped in. I looked down at the stones under my boots.
“This is a portal?” I was standing on what demons came through. “Then youarea demon,” I whispered, stepping off the mosaic and steadying myself with the shelf behind me.
“I’m a wizard, and all wizards should understand portals.” He reached for me, and I let him tug me toward the mosaic, the feel of his skin against mine the rightest feeling. Like biting into a June peach. Sweet and real.
I had no will to fight him, even if I wanted to. I wanted to leave this place, but I also wanted his hands on me.
“I suggest you hang on to me, just in case.” His jaw was clamped, like it was hurting him to touch me.
The air wobbled around us. “In case of what?” Fighting against the terror clawing my insides, I gripped his upper arms as the air turned syrupy.
The room blurred in a blue mist, and I leaned into him as the edges of my vision slicked with rainbows. Then, for a heart-racing second, I completely blanked out. Not blacked out—I was entirely conscious—but it felt like my brain couldn’t process the blur of color and light.
I sank to my knees, gasping for air and trying not to throw up. We were outside the bank vault door where we’d started. Ranth slid to the floor beside me. His arms gathered me like fallen flowers.
“Sorrel, are you okay?” he rasped into my hair.
“Let’s go with no. I went through a demon’s portal without a ground element. It was… unpleasant. How did you know it was a portal?” I brushed him off. Now in the real world again, his touch was odd. Like whatever had happened to us in the other place had been a fantasy or a dream or both. Still, thinking of the kiss was like a match to oil. The flames of the memory engulfed me.
“Doors like these are not unusual to me. I have experience with them.” He fiddled with the string on his pants, not meeting my eyes.
