Page 125 of Inflamed By an Incubus

“Evelyn!”

Chapter 37

Thoughts blurred together, tangled and twisted into knots she couldn’t unravel as she bobbed and swayed, feeling as if she was floating on the surface of a turbulent sea. Images flickered across the dim corners of her mind, things that were both familiar and unfamiliar to her at the same time.

Evelyn groaned as her head ached, tried to lift her hand to rub her brow and soothe the pain, but her arm felt too heavy to move.

She tried to open her eyes and look at her hand to see what was stopping her from moving it, sure it couldn’t just be the hazy fatigue rolling through her. She grimaced as light stung them and made them water. The fuzzy blur of colours she could see told her nothing. Black. Peach. Gold. Crimson. Everything mashed together and no matter how much she blinked, her vision didn’t get clearer.

She let her eyes fall shut again and sank into the rocking motion that lulled her, drawing her towards sleep. A quiet voice screamed at her from within a void, telling her not to succumb to it.

Roaring that she was in danger.

In danger?

She tried to piece together the images fluttering past her, snatched a few that fitted together and frowned as she remembered something.

A stronghold in Norway.

Fenix.

A young man who had mentioned someone called Drystan.

“Yes?” A deep male voice echoed in her ears like thunder, increasing that sensation that she was in danger. “I am surprised you remembered my name.”

Remembered his name? Her head ached more fiercely. No. She didn’t remember that name, not from her past at least. She remembered the man saying it as Fenix had tried to get the location of the mage from him.

Shock rolled through her, clearing the haze in an instant, and her eyes snapped open to lock on the smear of peach and white above her. She blinked rapidly, willing her vision to clear this time, and gasped as a man with long white hair came into focus. His crimson eyes lowered to her and she tried to get away from him, meant to shuffle backwards, only she wasn’t on the ground.

She was in his arms.

“Calm now, Aderyn. There is no point in struggling.” He smiled a predator’s smile at her and she felt there was every point in struggling.

She was damned if she was going to remain in his arms.

She curled her left hand into a fist and punched him.

Only she didn’t.

Evelyn looked at her hands where they rested in her lap, limp against her black sweater. Fear rolled through her when she tried to move them and they didn’t obey her. They remained lax and useless.

“What have you done to me?” she breathed, panic closing her throat as her gaze darted from her hands to meet his crimson eyes.

His smile widened a little further, chilling her. “You have grown more powerful than I imagined possible. I found it necessary to take steps to ensure you did not make another attempt to kill me.”

Another attempt to kill him?

It hit her in a rush of images and a blur of noise. She had attacked him when he had snatched her, had lashed out at him when they had been drifting through a pitch-black world, and had managed to injure him. Her gaze zeroed in on the two long streaks of red that cut down his left cheek.

Claw marks she had left on him.

It also hit her that her own haste was the reason he was able to incapacitate her. She had rushed after Archer before Rosalind had placed the protection spell on her, leaving herself vulnerable to the mage’s magic.

He carried her from the crimson corridor into a dark, windowless room and a strange pressure pressed down on her, making her feel as if she couldn’t breathe. She struggled for air and to calm herself as she looked around her, unable to make anything out in the gloom.

And then the man muttered something beneath his breath and colourful light shimmered over the walls, tracing the elegant lines of interlocking circles and the glyphs and runes within them.

Was that a spell?

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