The earth was warm, as if it had been sun-heated all day, and the pellets of hail were steaming on it. How could the ground be warm? she wondered, baffled. It was March, for heaven’s sake, and forty-degree weather didn’t heat the soil. Even as she thought that, she realized the air was warm, now that the heavens had stopped dumping a small icy flood on her. Humid and positively summery.
Gingerly, she raised herself up a few inches and glanced about, only to discover she was swathed in a cloud. While she’d huddled, a thick soupy fog had surrounded her. She was completely walled in by white. It made the already eerie situation even spookier.
“D-Dageus?” Her voice quavered a little. She cleared her throat and tried again.
If she was still in the circle of stones—and she was beginning to think that might be A Very Big If—she could no longer see them. The fog consumed everything. It was like being blind. She shivered, feeling horribly alone. The past few minutes had been so bizarre that she was beginning to wonder if she’d not … well, she wasn’t sure what she was beginning to wonder, and would rather not wonder it.
Some people say they’re portals …
She scooped at the fog with her hand. Condensation beaded on her palm. It was thick, dense stuff. She blew at the white air in front of her. It didn’t puff away.
“H-hello?” she called, feeling frantic.
A dark swirl of movement flickered in the whiteness. There. No, she thought, turning, there. Inexplicably, the temperature dropped again and her teeth began to chatter. The hail stopped steaming on the ground.
She sat back on her knees, drenched to the bone, shivering and waiting nervously, half-expecting something awful to leap out at her.
Just when her frayed nerves were about to snap, Dageus glided out of the fog, or rather, one moment he wasn’t there and then he materialized in front of her.
“Oh, thank God,” Chloe breathed, relief flooding her. “Wh-what—” just happened was what she was trying to say, but the words died in her throat as he moved nearer.
He was Dageus, but somehow … not Dageus. As he moved, the fog swirled away from him like something out of a creepy sci-fi movie. Against the whiteness, he was a great, hulking dark shape. The expression on his chiseled features was as cold as the ice upon which she knelt.
She shook her head, once, twice, trying to scatter the idiotic illusion. Blinked several times.
He’s almost inhumanly beautiful, she thought, staring. The storm had ripped his hair free from his thong and it fell to his waist in a wet, wind-tossed tangle. He looked wild and untamed. Animal. Predatory.
He even moved like an animal, fluid strength and surety.
And all the devil ever wants in exchange, a small voice said warningly, is a soul.
Oh, puh-lease, Chloe rebuked herself sternly. He’s a man, nothing more. A big, beautiful, sometimes scary man, but that’s all.
Graceful as a stalking tiger, the big, beautiful, scary man dropped into a crouch on the ground before her, his dark eyes glinting in the shadowy night. They knelt mere inches apart. When he spoke, his words were painstakingly articulated, as if speaking was an immense effort. His words were carefully spaced, tight, coming in rushes, with pauses between.
“I will give you. Every. Artifact I own. If you kiss. Me and ask no. Questions.”
“Huh?” Chloe gaped.
“No questions,” he hissed. He shook his head violently, as if trying to scatter something from it.
Chloe’s mouth snapped shut.
It was too dark to see his eyes clearly, the sharp planes of his face shadowed. In the misty gloom, his exotic coppery eyes looked black as midnight.
She peered at him. He was perfectly still, motionless as a tiger before the killing lunge. She reached for his hands and found them, in tight fists. Most reserved when he feels most strongly, she reminded herself. She closed her hands over his.
His body was racked with sudden shudders. He closed his eyes briefly and when he opened them again, she could have sworn she saw shadowy … things moving behind them, and she had that strange feeling she’d had once before in his penthouse, as if there was another presence with them, ancient and cold.
Then his eyes cleared, revealing such utter desolation that her chest tightened and she almost couldn’t draw a breath.
He hurt. And she wanted to take it away. Nothing else really mattered. She didn’t even want his stupid artifacts in exchange; she only wanted to wipe that horrid, awful look from his eyes however she could.
She wet her lips and that was all the encouragement he seemed to need.
He crushed her in his arms, swept her up and, in a few powerful strides, backed her hard against one of the standing stones.