She glanced up at him. “Nothing. Not even when the scientists were drawn to her and killed. Do you think she’s reacting to us? Because we’re immortals like her?”

He would have smiled at the fact she had called herself an immortal if the ground hadn’t shaken beneath his boots at that very moment. The air vibrated again, so fiercely this time that it made his bones ache and Evelyn gasped and covered her ears.

“What’s wrong with her?” she barked.

Fenix really hoped she wasn’t waking up. “I don’t know! We know she’s here now. We can bring backup to this place… so maybe we should just get out of here.”

Because the instinct to protect his mate was going haywire, had him on the verge of teleporting to her and gathering her into his arms to shield her from whatever was happening.

A male voice echoed through the room.

“Oh, you’re not going anywhere.”

Chapter 28

Evelyn locked up tight as Archer’s bass voice rolled over her, every muscle in her body clamping down onto her aching bones. She twisted away from the computer and Fenix, her breath lodging in her throat as her eyes landed on Archer.

He strode towards them down the middle of the rows of columns in the centre of the cavernous room, the loose tails of the long form-fitting black coat he wore swirling around the ankles of his black knee-high boots with each hard step.

His brown eyes settled on her, the darkness etched on his face lifting for a heartbeat, but then his gaze shifted to the sphere beyond her.

And his eyes went all-black.

His lips peeled back off his teeth as he snarled, “Shut up! I’m here, aren’t I?”

The vibrations in the air grew stronger in response.

Archer’s face crumpled, twisting hard, and he jerkily brought his right hand up and shoved his stiff fingers into his dark hair as he muttered in a strained voice, “Shut up.”

Evelyn sensed Fenix edging closer to her.

Archer’s gaze darted to him, his eyes brown again, and a cruel smile twisted his lips as he shifted his focus back to the woman in the sphere.

He positively growled at her.

“I’ll get you out,” he barked and took swift strides towards her, ones that had Fenix seizing hold of Evelyn and pulling her to one side, away from him. Archer didn’t seem to notice they were there as he stopped before the sphere, his expression blackening and voice echoing around the room. “You’re not helping though! You need to tell me the spell I need to get you out. How am I supposed to get you out without it? Hmm?”

Fenix took a few more sidesteps away from him and pulled Evelyn with him when she didn’t move. The need to reach out to Archer and calm him, to soothe him somehow was strong, had her wanting to remain close to him, even when part of her felt it was dangerous.

That he was a threat to her.

The ground trembled beneath her boots and she swallowed hard as the sense of power in the air grew thicker, pressing down on her, and every instinct she possessed said it wasn’t coming from the woman in the sphere now.

It was coming from Archer.

His gaze snapped to Evelyn.

She tensed.

“Siding with the enemy now?” he drawled and slowly turned to face her, scowled over his shoulder at the sphere, and then faced Evelyn again. “How ungrateful of you. Reviving you and bringing you back wasn’t easy. I can still taste your death… Can’t shake the things that followed me back from the shadowy place between life and rebirth… It tastes like ashes.”

Fenix’s hands tensed against Evelyn’s arms and she sensed the shift in his emotions, the shock that swept through him.

He whispered, “You did die.”

She looked back at him, and the way he slowly frowned at her told her that he had seen in her eyes that she was already aware of what had happened to her and that this wasn’t a surprise to her.

“You could show a little gratitude,” Archer growled and then glared at the sphere. “Shut up! I wasn’t talking to you.” His gaze slid back to Evelyn, his voice loud in the cavernous room, echoing around it with each hard word he flung at her. “Do you have any idea how draining and dangerous it is to use the concoction I drank to cross into that dark place and bring you back?”