Page 59 of Inflamed By an Incubus

What had they been doing in that cave in Hell?

She clicked on the next document and sipped her cold coffee, on a mission to unearth the answer to that question in the research her team had brought back from Hell. The researchers had meticulously typed it all up and added it to the database. Or at least, they had typed up some of it. Things she had seen with her own eyes were missing—like the note that had been left for Brink.

Evelyn scrolled through the report and moved to the next one, hunting for answers, hoping she would find something that would set her mind at ease. She didn’t like feeling unsettled, and she really didn’t like the fact she couldn’t put her finger on why she felt this way.

That report was a dead end too.

Instead of clicking on the next one, she ran a search.

It returned a long list of results. She sighed and set to work, reading each document. A few locations popped up, most of them in Europe, and more than one mention of warlocks—a generic term that Archangel applied to all male witches.

Two locations in particular mentioned Aryanna.

One of them was in New Hampshire in the States. It had been investigated recently by a local Archangel team, but it had been empty. Stripped bare. As if someone had gotten there before them.

The other location was a place in Norway. The remoteness of the building was causing a problem. Archangel hadn’t managed to get a team out there yet, but it was high on the places of interest due to recent satellite imagery.

Evelyn clicked on the first of the attached images.

Her eyes slowly widened.

It was an aerial photograph of endless white valleys and huge mountain ranges, and in the centre of it was a dark patch.

She went back and clicked the next image. This one was zoomed in on the patch, revealing a huge area of scarring in the snow that looked recent to her. It reached from one end of the valley to close to the other, where a building stood. She leaned forwards, peering closer at it, amazed by how even the trees had been affected, the snow blasted off them. Some of the trees had even been… burned?

Evelyn closed the image, just the thought of fire had her cheeks heating, and opened one of the reports, focusing on it to take her mind off the sudden spike in her body temperature. It marked the area as a potential battle site. Who had been fighting there to cause such devastation?

The report went on to mention how the trees in the area looked as if they had been subjected to a high-heat fire.

She reeled back in her chair as an inferno flashed across her eyes and her hand flew to her chest as it tightened, a strange stabbing pain stealing her breath as her body heated to an unbearable degree.

“Are you sick?” Archer’s deep voice rolling over her startled her back to the room and she jerked her head up and to her left, her gaze colliding with his.

“What makes you say that?” Panic lit her veins. Was she sick? She rubbed her chest, desperate to soothe that twinge now as fear that it might be something dangerous swept through her. “Maybe I should talk to the docs.”

The light that had been in his eyes faded, his handsome face shifting towards serious. “I meant you were sick because you’re in the Central Archive… somewhere you never like to be. It was a joke. Are you sick though? Is something wrong?”

A thousand needles prickled her skin and she tried to shake off the fear it might be. She turned towards Archer, needing him to reassure her that she was fine.

“You look flushed.” He frowned at her now, a wealth of worry in his dark eyes.

She touched her cheek. He reached for her other one and brushed the backs of his fingers down it in a gentle caress.

“I think I might be coming down with something. I’ve been getting terrible sleep… and I’m having the strangest dreams… and I keep feeling hot and there’s this tightness in my chest. It only lasts for a few minutes and then I feel fine… but… maybe it’s an infection? Something from the wound?” She searched his eyes, desperate to hear him say that she was overreacting and panicking about nothing.

Archer shifted his hand to her forehead and pressed his palm to it as he stared down into her eyes. The coolness of his touch was bliss, had her eyelids falling to half-mast as she savoured it and a sigh escaping her as the heat abated and she felt normal again.

His hand dropped from her forehead. “You feel fine to me. Nothing to worry about. Might be hormonal.”

She scowled at him for that and ignored the heat that flushed her cheeks because it wasn’t a fever this time—it was embarrassment.

“I jest.” He leaned his backside against the desk and folded his arms across his chest, and she didn’t miss the fact he was back to wearing dark Henleys again. He glanced at her screen. “So what are you looking into that has you here all hours of the day and night? Don’t think I haven’t noticed you stealing my haunt.”

She sighed and leaned back in her chair. It squeaked as she twisted towards the screen again and idly scrolled down the page.

“Nothing really. I was just curious about the things we saw in Hell and was looking for some answers about the mysterious Aryanna.” She lightly tapped on the curve of the mouse, nerves rising as she waited to see how Archer would react to that.

He had been acting strange in that cave, hadn’t been his usual self.

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