Page 148 of Stone Temptation

Put it on.

Somewhere, beyond the walls of sleepy darkness, I could feel a piece of metal in my closed hand.

Put it on.

Put it on.

Put it on.

Shrieking. An alarm. The noise hurt my ears, burrowed into my skull like a billion drills.

Put it on.

My heavy eyelids opened slowly, finding the face of Asher above me.

Was I in his arms again? Yes. He hurried along a corridor, the gray stone around him blurred, beyond our bubble.

Our. Bubble.

I liked our bubble. We’d built a little haven in the gray bedroom, joined our bodies. Connected. Kissed. Fucked. My skin tingled in delicious memory, ready for more. Ready to see where this went next.

Asher kept his eyes ahead, his face deadly serious amidst the screaming alarms.

Why were there alarms? Ugh. My poor head, so full of rocks and sand. So heavy. It didn’t need this damn screeching. I needed to…

…flow.

“We’ll take him to ground level.”

Seth? Ground level? What was happening?

Asher paused, glanced left and right, not at me, carrying on. Bumpy. Were we going down some stairs.

“Only fly when you can.” Seth’s voice for sure.

Bastard.

I opened my mouth, trying to speak. But my words didn’t work, my throat scratchy and full of cotton wool.

“What’s going on?” I managed to ask through the amulet.

Asher looked down, coming to a hard stop.

Those eyes. Those incredible amber eyes. They were two suns, two hopeful beacons. And his smile shone like summer mornings, calling to the buried parts of me lost to a never-ending slumber. They crawled from the darkness into his light, hungry for more than this purgatory.

Hungry for him.

“You alright?” he asked.

“Thirsty.”

“What are you doing?” Seth asked from my right. “Keep going.”

I winced at a louder shriek of the alarm, voices hollering in the distance.

“The tower’s under attack from chimera. I’m getting you out of here.” He started moving again.

His reassurance hugged me like a fluffy blanket. But the ring wouldn’t allow me to fully embrace the coziness.

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