“Keon?”
“Don’t. I can’t like you, Fee. It will make everything more difficult.”
I grasped his hand and pulled him to a halt.
He blinked down at me with his beautiful cat eyes and sighed. “Now I have the urge to kill a rodent and offer it to you,” he said with a flash of annoyance. “Why you?”
He was talking about his courtship, about the fact that pheromones made him want me, and a week or so ago I’d been horrified by it all. I’d been horrified by him and his strange ways, but now…Now those same strange ways were graceful and beautiful and compelling. He’d just calmly told me it would be difficult to kill me, and I was focusing not on the killing part but the part where it would be difficult.
There was no denying that I was beginning to care about this complex man.
“Why you?” he asked again. Softer, this time.
I gave him a small smile. “Why not?”
He frowned, and then his eyes narrowed. “If you think you can take advantage of my primal instincts and convince me not to kill you, then you’re mistaken.”
I shrugged and let go of his hand. “I know.” I began to walk again. “Keep up.”
He sighed. “I can understand Lilith’s conflict over you now.”
“Oh?”
“She won’t enjoy ordering your death once she finds a way to nullify Eve’s curse. She believes you worthy of her son.” He flashed a look my way and then fixed his attention on the ground ahead.
But he was her son too, long-lived like Azazel, except Azazel had no idea he had a half-brother who was still alive.
“Will you tell Azazel who you are to him?”
Keon’s lip curled. “And have him pity me?”
“He wouldn’t do that.”
Music drifted toward us, the same lilting melody that had taken Uriel. “Can you hear it?”
Keon nodded. “This way!”
We fell into a sprint, veering away from the river and into the forest. The music got louder and louder until it was all we could hear, and then we broke into a large clearing with a log cabin in the center of it, and on the porch sat the man in rags from earlier.
The music stopped.
Seriously? “You… What is going on?”
“Your friend?” He looked to his left, and I followed his gaze to find Uriel strapped to a tree. By the looks of it, he was unconscious.
I took a step toward him, and mist bubbled out from behind him. It swirled into fog and rushed toward me, cutting off my path to him. For a moment, it was impossible to see anything because the fog was everywhere, reducing visibility.
“Fee?” Keon called out.
“I’m here.”
And then the fog dropped, so it was a sea of churning smoke at ankle height. The cabin was gone, and so was the forest. Instead, I was surrounded by stone statues in various poses. The air was still as if holding its breath.
“Keon?” Where was he?
Fuck this place and its mind games.
I wove between the statues, hoping there weren’t any traps beneath the fog. The stone was moss-covered here and there, and the back of each statue was cracked and broken as if someone had taken a hammer to each one.
Limbo sucked, and I was so done with it. “Keon!”
A figure stepped out from behind a statue up ahead, and I sagged in relief. “Thank God. Keon, we need to find Uriel.” I walked toward him. “There has to be a way to get back to that cabin.”
Keon drew his daggers, eyes narrowing as he fell into a fighting stance.
“Keon?” My step faltered, and then he rushed toward me. It took a moment for my brain to comprehend that he was attacking me. “Keon, what the fuck.” I dove out of the way and rounded on him. “What are you—” Shit, I rolled to avoid him again.
“Die, beast!” he hissed, and lunged at me.
Fuck this place. My scythe bloomed to life, and I used the staff to block his assault and shove him back, but I caught a good look at his face; his eyes were glazed as if he was in a dream. Like a sleepwalker. Like someone who was seeing something that wasn’t there.
Shit. I needed to wake him up. My scythe winked out, and I punched his jaw. Pain jarred my arm and had me stumbling back.
Were his bones made of steel?
He moved fast, accelerating his attack, and it took everything I had to evade his slashes and blows.
“Keon, it’s me.”
Fuck he was relentless. I broke away from him, launched myself over the statues, and took flight, but he was in the air after me. I soared up and met an invisible barrier that knocked me back, slamming me into Keon. We both hit the ground together, and then I was pinned beneath him. His hand on my throat, dagger arching down toward my face. I grabbed a fistful of earth and threw it in his eyes.
He cursed and released me in favor of his eyes, and I twisted, flipping us both so he was under me. It was a matter of a split second and I had him pinned, his dagger hand immobilized, but it wouldn’t last. He was stronger than I was. I needed to wake him up, and a punch to the face hadn’t done it.
I slapped him.
He hissed at me, pulled his hand from his face, and went for my neck. Crap. I knocked his arm away, grabbed his chin, and kissed him hard.
He stilled beneath me, every muscle in his body tensing. I kept my mouth on his, lips pressed to his, and slowly released his dagger wrist. He didn’t move. Okay, this was good. I brought my hand to his cheek and laid my palm against it. A sigh rattled his chest, and his mouth softened beneath mine. Was it working?
“Keon?” I spoke against his mouth, maintaining contact. “It’s me. Fee. You awake now?”
His hand was on my hip, and then he was pulling me closer, and yes, yes, he was definitely awake and hard, very hard, and—
He pushed his hips up into me, rubbing against me.
My eyes rolled at the sensation. No. Shit. I needed to pull away, but his hand was on the back of my head, holding me immobile. His lips parted, and his tongue flicked out and dipped into my mouth.
My moan mingled with the steady vibration of his chest. My body clenched, thighs squeezing his hips reflexively as his flavor invaded my mouth. Cinnamon. He tasted positively edible. And I was kissing him, licking the inside of his mouth and sucking on his long thick tongue before the chill of reality seeped past the heat in my limbs to bring common sense back online.
I pulled away from him, sitting up to look down at his parted mouth and heavy-lidded eyes.
“I almost killed you,” he said.
“Yeah, but you didn’t.”
“You fought well.” He swept his tongue across his lips. “You kiss better.”
My cheeks heated, and I quickly scrambled off him. “I needed to wake you up.”
He stood in a fluid motion and adjusted his erection. “It worked.”
I looked away, cheeks hot. “We need to find Uriel.”
A light bloomed up ahead, and Keon and I exchanged glances.
“Could be another trap,” Keon said.
“What choice do we have?”
“I go first,” he said, and then he slipped ahead of me, tail swishing as he led the way into the light.
The gray cemetery of statues melted away as if they’d been a dream, and the light engulfed us. It spit us back out in the clearing with the cabin, the tree holding Uriel captive, and the man in rags.
He was standing on the ground by the porch steps now, his expression closed and unreadable. Wraiths made of silver smoke drifted out from the tree line to surround us, cutting off our exit.
I was tired and fed up, and anger rushed through me. “Why are you doing this? I don’t want to hurt anyone. I just want to save my world.”
“And you think this kind of power comes without a price?” He looked…frustrated. “You think that you can walk in here and just take what you want?”
I didn’t have time for his questions because I needed answers to mine. “Do you know where it is or not?”
“Oh, I have it. It’s mine to keep and mine to give.”
A guardian, maybe? “Tell me what I need to do to take it, please. No more games.”
He gave me a pitying smile, as if I’d already failed, as if he was done with this whole drama. Done with going through the motions. “To obtain the power, a sacrifice must be made,” he said.
“What kind of sacrifice?”
“A soul must burn.”
What? I turned to Keon for counsel. He took a step toward me, but then his eyes rolled back in his head, and he toppled forward. I caught him before he could hit the ground and lowered him carefully onto his side.
“What have you done to him?”
“Choose,” the man snapped. “A soul must burn for the power to be released. Pick quickly. Do it now. Which will you give me? Him?” He pointed at Keon. “Or him.” He pointed toward Uriel.
Keon was out cold, and Uriel remained tied to the tree, his chin resting on his chest, breath even as he slumbered. There would be no discussion. The choice was mine. The burden was mine.
How could I make this choice? “Why are you doing this? There has to be another way.”
His mouth turned down. “Choose one, or you all die.”
Is this what had happened to the Powers? They’d refused to make a choice, and so they’d all perished? Oh, God…The statues with the cracked backs…Were those the Powers? Someone had broken off the stone wings to disguise what they’d been. Would he turn us to stone too?
“Make your choice now,” he boomed.
My chest ached as the decision formed in my mind.
I rolled Keon onto his back. He was beautiful when asleep and unguarded. The harsh planes of his face softer somehow. I brushed his hair back from his face, reveling in the silken nature of the strands that slipped through my fingers. He’d kissed me, and I’d kissed him back, and it had felt…right.
“We would have been friends until the day you killed me. We may even have been more…I’m sorry, Keon. There is no other way.”
“You choose him?” the man asked.