Page 71 of Immortal Burden

I dropped my arms from shielding my body and reached out, feeling out the shape of a door. Fumbling, I managed to locate the handle. A rush of intense heat rolled through me, beckoning me inside, promising warmth and contentment.

Nervous anticipation of what was within had me hesitating for several moments. But, as I looked back the way I’d come, seeing nothing but thick darkness, unable to even remember where I’d come to get to this point, the choice was clear.

Turning the knob, I drew in a breath, and stepped into the unknown.

The door slammed shut behind me the moment I was over the threshold.

I heard a lock clang as well.

I was all too ready to spin back around and blast it open with my magical might, until a very familiar voice called out to me.

“Sweetness.”

“Ryker?”

“Of course,” he returned, as though my surprise wasn’t warranted.

I blinked hard, adjusting my eyes to the well-lit room versus the darkness I’d been enveloped in outside.

Red. Red hues everywhere. The color of warmth and passion.

The room was sparse with regards to furniture, the most prominent feature being the mammoth four-poster bed, larger even than the luxurious king-size back at my place. Golden drapes cascaded in a waterfall of the finest silk, brushing the deep-red sheets. Dozens of candles flickered, seeming to be directed to illuminating the bed more than any other area of the modest-sized room.

“What’s happening?” I asked, approaching Ryker. “Where are we?”

“You’re late,” he said, rather than answering my questions. “We’ve been waiting for you.”

I tensed. That wasn’t a line that ever seemed to bode well for anyone.

“We?” I asked, warily.

Again, he didn’t answer my question.

Instead, he closed the distance between us, grasped my waist, and swooped down to kiss me.

I jerked back in surprise at such a bold move from a man who had been definitively established as my ex.

A hand came up, steadying me.

Not his.

Both of his were occupied at my waist.

I shot a look over my shoulder to see none other than Lucian Black.

Those vibrant red eyes of his were the first thing I noticed. His shock of shoulder-length wavy hair, somehow a shade even darker than mine, only served to emphasize them even more so. He was clad in a sleek Armani pinstripe that fit his hulking muscular form like a dream.

He smiled, a deeply sensual smile that I felt low down in my belly. “The time for holding back has passed, beauty.”

His words reached something within me, something I’d been trying to bury for a long time.

That which I truly coveted.

Those whom I had been trying to keep at bay, in order to avoid taking up a mantle I didn’t want.

Now they were here, though, neither my body, nor my mind, seemed capable of continuing to do that.

The pull that I’d always felt around Ryker, something that I’d managed to dilute a little with a spell, unleashed itself in full force with both of them.

---