Page 67 of The Eighth Isle

Slamming his lips to mine, he kissed me the way he always did, like he was starved for me, like I was his lifeline, and I kissed him back the same way. His hands were all over me and I jumped, locked my legs around his hips, and then we were really one. His moans fueled me, and I took everything he gave me, bit his lips and sucked on his tongue until I was reminded again how perfect he tasted, exactly how he took all my worries and threw them away when we were like this.

I couldn’t get enough of him. I never wanted to stop—but Grey did.

Way too soon, he let go of my lips and put me down on the floor and stepped back, hair all over the place, eyes bloodshot, a bulge in his pants that had me burning just to look at it, until…

“I will get us out of here, baby,” he repeated, touching my cheek with his fingertips for only a second before he was out the door, closing it behind him, leaving me too stunned to move for a little while.

Gone.

He was gone, just like that, and I was all alone in the room, pacing in front of the door, trying to figure out what the hell to do with myself—why the hell did you just leave?!

Then I felt it.

A second before the door of the room opened, I felt the raw energy, the magic that came from Syra’s body. Whether shetriedto shield it or not, I had no idea, but I felt it all the way to my bones.

Then she was right in front of me.

Air no longer moved down my throat. I was standing in front of the door, barely three feet in, and she was there, a brow raised, looking around the room like she expected to find someone else in it besides me.

Like she expected to find Grey.

And when she didn’t, she said, “I looked for you everywhere.” I couldn’t speak if I tried. “Go on, get in bed. You need to rest.”

I shook my head—how had she changed from the woman she was with Hansil on that beach tothisperson? How had that warmth in her eyes turned to this soulless blue?

“It’s not our fault for your misfortune,” I whispered before I could help myself.

Syra paused, eyes wide and unblinking as if she was seeing so much more than just my face.

“It wasn’t my fault, either,” she finally said, turning around so fast that her hairflewin the air before it settled, exactly like itwould do underwater. “Go ahead—sleep. I’ll see you tomorrow, lovely.”

She closed the door and left me alone in the cold room, my arms wrapped around myself and my heart pounding.

It was a long time before my legs were too weak to carry me and I had to lie down on that bed.

The memory of Grey’s kiss lulled me to sleep.

Sixteen

A knock on the door.

My eyes opened to blinding sunlight falling on my face.

Pulling up my hands in front of it, I looked around, disoriented still, and the moment I saw those beige-colored lamps on the nightstand, my stomach fell.

I sat up with a jolt, heart in my throat, to find myself in that room, on that bed with the silk sheets, the glassless windows opposite me—and the doors to the right, one a bathroom, the other connected to the hallway outside.

Then… “Breakfast is served.”

The voice was robotic at best, and it had an accent, too, but not one I could name. It was so strange to be hearing it, to understand those words, and somehow I knew exactly what had said them—a golem. One of the golems that Syra had apparently made out of earth and magic.

Was I supposed to goeatnow, was that it?

And—“What thefuck?!”

I looked down at my body—mynakedbody. I had nothing on me. No clothes and no underwear—nothingat all!

Panic raised the hairs on the back of my neck. I jumped off the bed, not seeing anything for a moment until I forced myself to breathe and to focus. To look around, find my clothes, sure that there was an explanation for this. Sure that I’d taken them off the night before and I just didn’t remember it.

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