Page 32 of From Hell

“You know this area is off-limits?” Jaxon’s eyes no longer hold the amusement they did earlier as he takes me in. The blonde is nowhere to be seen.

“We were just looking for the library,” Nola says next to me, steadying me with a hand on my arm, thinking quickly on her feet.

Jaxon is close enough to reach out and touch but doesn’t move. Instead, he blocks the way, paying no attention to Nola, his eyes fixed solely on me. “Then you’re in luck. I was coming to find Laine for the tour.”

“That’s great.” My words come out in a rush, like I’ve been running when all I was doing was walking quickly, heart in my mouth.

“I’ll go find the bar, then.” Nola gives me a look and my arm a squeeze, which I interpret asI’ll keep looking for the archives.

I glance at her. “Okay, I’ll find you later.” We already discussed that I could keep Jaxon occupied while she did the preliminary search.

Once Nola disappears the way we came, it’s just me and Jaxon staring at each other in a tight hallway.

He reaches up to run a thumb across his jaw, regarding me like something the cat dragged in. “Why are you always in the wrong place?”

My eyes narrow. “Just lucky, I guess.”

Jaxon smirks and indicates with his head, taking me once again by the waist. His grip is vice-like. His fingers cast iron as they lock on, digging in so I can’t escape—heat prickles along my back where he touches me. I have an urge to shrug him off, but I squash it down. “This way.”

Farther along the dark hallway, around a corner, is a doorway, opposite the side the drawing rooms were on. Behind it is a large tower room, dimly lit with velvet armchairs, leather sofas arranged around ornate coffee tables, and a fireplace crackling with logs already burning. All around are floor-to-ceiling wooden bookshelves filled with leather-bound books and antique curiosities, spiraling all the way to the top of the tower.

I stop and stare at all the books.

There are so many.

Jaxon releases me, saunters to the mini-bar, and pours two glasses from a decanter.

“I came here as a child but never went to the tower room. I didn’t know it was a library.”

“Knowledge is the key to the throne of the heavens that guides us in God’s embrace,” he quotes, walking toward me and offering me a drink. I take it, swallowing a large mouthful of whiskey until it burns.

I frown at him. “Is that from the Bible?”

He smirks. “No, The Codex of Ascendancy.” He gestures to a clear display case containing a very ancient-looking leather-bound manuscript. I go over to the glass case and try to make out the faded scrawl on the yellowing pages. “The law we doctors are supposed to abide by and the research you wanted to see of my father’s,” Jaxon adds.

“What are—” I turn around, and suddenly, he’s looking down at me with liquid silver eyes. He must have come up behind. Desire spikes through my middle, and the breath leaves my body in a gasp as he steps in closer.

“Are you really here to see old books, Laine?”

“Y—yes.”

He nods, puts down his drink, and then produces a key from his dinner jacket. He unlocks the display case and takes out the manuscript. “Sit down.” That commanding voice again. All at once, I find myself seated with the book on my lap.

And Jaxon right next to me.

The warmth of his side and thigh pressing into mine.

“There are two copies of the Lucian’s Codex. This one is the less fragile of the two.”

“Lucian?”

“Lucius Apuleius, a Roman philosopher, the first founder.”

As I turn the pages, he explains what the texts say and how they have been interpreted.

“How do you know all this?”

“I was expected to study every single word before I turned eleven.”