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CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

Ellery

We carried the scrolls of parchment out to a sitting room we’d discovered during our explorations. The colorful chairs and sofas allowed us to gather near the windows, which provided plenty of the pulsing light to read. Ryker and I extinguished our lightning before we each claimed a roll.

It didn’t take long to discover the parchments were all fiction too. They contained tales of giants, monstrous creatures, grand adventures in foreign realms, pirates, and princesses, all told in neat handwriting.

Because of their fictional contents, we breezed through the numerous parchments far faster than anticipated. By four o’clock, our stomachs were rumbling, and we’d finished the parchments.

One good thing about spending the past hours focused on the scrolls was I’d mostly forgotten all about the stone and its effect on me. I was pretty sure I could stand next to Ryker again without feeling overwhelmed by lust.

When we finished the last parchments, we rolled them up and restored them to their rightful places. With no one here to notice, we could have left them out, but it didn’t feel right to do so.

This was a place of the dead and should be respected.

Once we finished cleaning everything up, we returned to the sitting room to eat and decide our next move. I didn’t dare sit right next to Ryker, but when he settled in one of the chairs, I sat on the sofa near him.

He reached for my hand before stopping himself. Desperate for his touch, I almost grabbed for him but decided better of it. I might feel confident enough to touch him without losing control, but that didn’t mean he did.

“It will be quicker if we split up to go through the town,” Ryker said. “I don’t think there’s anything living here. If there were, it would have shown itself by now.”

“If we go in pairs, it will be safer, and each group can take a road. When we finish with our road, we can meet back at the castle entrance before thoroughly searching the section of town we’ve already come through,” Tucker said.

“It will take at least a few hours to search those roads,” I said. “By the time we finish searching the town, it will be nighttime above. Do we stay here after or return to the tunnel? We’ll have to sleep eventually.”

“The tunnel,” Callan and Scarlet said together.

I was really hoping that would be the choice. Not only did I not want to sleep in the city of the dead, but I couldn’t sleep down here with that gem so close and without knowing exactly what happened to these amsirah.

I’d be constantly torn between wanting to fuck Ryker and terrified that whatever happened here would happen again. Plus, that pulsing light was starting to grate on my last nerve.

I couldn’t take the constantly changing colors or the ever-present reminder the stone existed. I’d very much like to forget it and its effect on me.

“I’ll go with Scarlet,” I said. “We’ll take the road to the right.”

Ryker’s jaw clenched, but he didn’t protest my decision. He knew it was a bad idea for us to be alone, even if he didn’t want us to separate.

The idea of having sex in this place repulsed me, but I couldn’t say it wouldn’t happen. And that was a chance I wasn’t willing to take.

“Tucker and I will take the road behind the castle,” Ryker said.

If the others were surprised he didn’t fight my decision, they didn’t show it. Scarlet hid a smile that had me scowling at her.

“Keep an eye on your watch, Ianto,” Tucker said. “It would be easy to confuse night and day down here, and we can’t let that happen. It would be disastrous if we emerged into the temple in the middle of the day.”

“I will,” Ianto promised.

“We’ll meet at the main entrance as soon as we finish,” Ryker said.

Normally, I’d kiss him before we separated, but I didn’t trust myself. Instead, I met his eyes and managed a wan smile before giving him a small wave.

Before I could lower my hand, he pulled me toward him. I wanted to protest, but I yearned to touch him more.

His arms wrapped around me, and his mouth descended on mine in a harsh, claiming kiss that rattled me more than the blast from the stone. Everything about his kiss was a brand on me and my soul, but it was also a promise of the ecstasy to come.

My fingers threaded through his hair as I drew him closer. I matched his intensity as our tongues entwined, and every part of me became focused on him.

I almost said screw this place as I lost myself to his kiss, but a burst of red against my closed eyelids was a dose of reality that doused my lust as effectively as a bucket of ice—no, it would take a whole tub of ice to cool me off— or one red light.

I tore my mouth away from his and gasped in a breath as I tried to calm my thunderous heart and shaky legs. If he let me go, I’d fall on my ass.

“Later,” he growled in my ear.

The promise in that word sent a shiver down my spine. A lightning bolt fired through the center of his entirely black eyes before he kissed my forehead. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” I told him as he released me.

Determined not to faceplant onto the black stone, I concentrated on walking as I moved away from him.