She was an expendable commodity.
Was it any wonder she was floundering? She was desperately trying to squash the urge to bask in the warmth of his emotions, but it was like offering a buffet to a starving man. Impossible to resist.
Still, she wasn’t completely stupid.
This wasn’t destined to be a happily ever after and whoever said it was better “to have love and lost” was full of bullshit.
She’d endured rejection, betrayal, and actual torture, but she’d refused to be crushed by what life threw at her.
Now a voice was whispering that losing Roke might very well be her Kryptonite.
Plagued by her dark thoughts, Sally turned her attention to the first thing that caught her eye.
The box she’d left on the night table.
She frowned, studying the hieroglyphs that glowed with a silver light in the shadows.
Earlier, she’d spent hours running her fingers over the delicate carvings while she waited for her potions to brew. Her fascination had been more than just an appreciation for the beauty of the glyphs.
She was growingly convinced that she could actually understand what the box was trying to tell her.
Madness, of course. But she couldn’t entirely shake the sensation.
“You’re quiet,” Roke murmured, his lips nuzzling the side of her neck.
She shivered, startled by tingles of heat that darted through her.
It seemed obscene that such a light caress could make her melt with need.
With an effort, she fought the urge to wiggle her ass against his cock, which was already hardening in anticipation. She’d just accepted that sharing such intimacy with Roke was far too dangerous to her fragile heart. Did she want to make it worse?
Yes, yes, and double yes, a wicked voice whispered in the back of her mind.
“I’m thinking,” she forced herself to mutter.
He tensed. “Oh hell, that can’t be good.”
She glanced over her shoulder. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
The silver eyes shimmered with a breathtaking beauty as he swept his gaze over her face.
“I don’t want you trying to convince yourself this was a mistake.”
Keep it light, Sally.
There was no use in confessing that she was swiftly making a bad situation worse by tumbling head over heels in love with him.
“Don’t be a jackass this time and I won’t,” she said.
“Touché.” He grimaced, obviously recalling the last time he had her in bed. “Tell me what you’re thinking about.”
“This.”
Twisting out of his arms, she sat up and reached for the box.
“Not my first guess,” he muttered, reluctantly shoving himself up to lean against the headboard. “The glyphs are growing brighter.”
She kept her gaze glued to the box, knowing the sheet would have fallen down to his waist, exposing the bronzed beauty of his chest and the dragon tattoo that she’d so recently outlined with the tip of her tongue.
“Yes.” She was forced to clear her throat. “I tried to muffle them with another layer of magic earlier, but it doesn’t look like it’s working.”
“Is that what’s bothering you?”
“No.” She shook her head, her fingers tracing a glyph as the magic pulsed deep inside her. “I was studying it before I went to bed, and I could swear I—”
“What?”
“That I can decipher a few of the symbols.”
There was a startled silence as Roke stared at her in blatant confusion.
“You read ancient fey?”
“Of course not, but . . .” She struggled to find the right words. “It’s almost as if it speaks to me.”
“Shit,” he growled, his brows snapping together.
She flinched, startled by his intense reaction. “You think I’m going crazy?”
“No, I think the box has more power than I feared,” he corrected in dark tones. “What does it say?”
“It’s still mostly garbled. Like a radio station that’s not quite tuned in,” she said, knowing she wasn’t making much sense. “But this is royalty.” She pointed to a glyph that resembled an elaborate star, before moving to the one that Cyn had assumed was a closing door. “And this isn’t the retreat of the fey.”
“Then what is it?”
“A prison.”
Roke nodded, accepting her explanation without hesitation.
Sally clenched her teeth against the renegade flutter of her heart. His absolute faith in her was almost as unnerving as his tender concern.
“Royalty in prison,” he murmured. “Do the two glyphs go together?”
“Yes, I’m sure of it.”
Not that it helped, she ruefully acknowledged.
Even if she was learning how to decipher the glyphs, they weren’t giving her the sort of information that could tell her why she was suddenly attracting fey like bees to honey.
“Anything else?” Roke asked, his fingers lightly brushing her shoulder as she hesitated. “Sally?”
The casual contact sent tiny jolts of pleasure through her, threatening to drive any rational thought from her mind.
She turned the box over, grimly ignoring the cool fingers that continued to stroke over her acutely sensitive skin.
“I think this is a map.”
Roke leaned forward, the sweep of his hair against her cheek as soft as satin.
“A map to where?”
She breathed in the scent of potent male, soothed by the dark spice even as it stirred her arousal.
“I don’t know. But it’s important.” She wrinkled her nose, glancing to the side to meet Roke’s steady gaze. “I’m sorry.”
His hand moved to cup her chin, turning her head so he could study her rueful expression.
“Sorry about what?”
“I know you would rather be searching for my father so we can break our mating,” she said. “Not chasing down some imp in Chicago.”
His eyes flashed with silver fire, as if annoyed by her words.
“What I want is to know that you’re safe, after that . . .” He leaned down to kiss her with a mind-numbing intensity before giving her lower lip a punishing nip. “Nothing else matters.”
“Roke—”
Her hand had lifted to touch his cheek, forgetting that she’d just decided it was far too risky to give in to her passions, when the temperature abruptly dropped and Roke was leaping off the bed.
“Get dressed,” he commanded in low, urgent tones, moving to yank open the nearby closet and pulling on a pair of faded jeans he found hung inside.
Scrambling off the bed with far less grace, Sally hurried to where she’d left her clothes folded on a nearby chair.
“What is it?”
“Our least favorite demon,” he muttered, his expression grim as he grabbed a gun from the floor.
He must have brought it up with him when he heard her cry out.
“Crap,” she muttered, hastily pulling on the clothes she’d washed earlier before slipping her feet into her tennis shoes. “What’s the plan?”
He moved toward the window, his gaze inspecting their surroundings.
“We need to get to the garage,” he at last decided. “There should be something with enough horsepower to outrun even the fastest demon.”
“I’m ready,” she said, tucking the box in the pocket of her sweatshirt.
Roke led the way to the door, halting on the landing as he tilted back his head to allow his senses to flow through the silent house.
He leaned down to speak directly in her ear. “We’ll go out the back.”
“Through the kitchen,” she whispered back.
“Why?”
“My potions.”
He gave a short nod. “Let’s go.”
They pressed against the wall as they moved down the stairs, carefully avoiding the splashes of moonlight.
He forced her to pause again as they reached the bottom of the stairs, his muscles coiled to strike as he tested the air for the location of their enemy.