Page 22 of All the Devils are Here

I stood slowly, and without Caliban to steady me, I nearly fell again. Instead, I used the wall. It lent me the strength I needed, but I was moving slowly. My body hurt less than when I’d woken the first time, but it still ached.

“Where are we?” I asked again, hoping for a straighter answer.

The man said nothing as I approached the door. The hallway outside the door was equally rocky and cavelike, leading in either direction.

“It’s known many names, and I’m sure it will continue to know many names, but I call itMíann.”

There was light ahead, and all at once we stepped into bright sunlight, and I blinked away the shock of whiteness to find dread seeping down my spine. The cliff we stood on rolled down to the ocean amid lush greenery and beautiful trees and flowers. Beyond that, the water disappeared into the distance with nothing else in sight.

The truth I hadn’t wanted to acknowledge stared me in the face. I was alive, but I was nowhere close to home, and based on the empty blue horizon, rescue was far beyond my reach.

CHAPTER TEN

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MEGHAN

My throat was closing up on me. “Oh, god.” The words gasped out. “Where the hell are we?”

The man chuckled. “I haven’t seen a modern map in a long time, but we’re somewhere in the Mediterranean. I’m sure I could figure out where, but I don’t particularly care.”

He turned and strode back into the rocky hallway, and I grabbed onto the stone to turn and follow him. “But are we close enough for me to get back? I was in Paris, and I have friends who are expecting me.”

The man kept walking, and as I followed, the tunnel twisted down through the rock and stone. Occasionally there were breaks in the stone that showed the outside, and when there weren’t, heatless flames clung to the walls to give light.

Down and down and down until the hallway opened, and it was more like a house—or a mansion within the stone—rather than a small hallway. Down at the far end I saw the entrance to the outside, and as we walked away from the exterior, I saw rooms that seemed like bedrooms, maybe a kitchen, and a couple of other things I couldn’t place.

Still, the man was silent.

“I appreciate you helping me,” I said. “I’m very glad to be alive, but I can’t stay here.”

Not only would Laurent and Christine be freaking the fuck out, but I couldn’t just stay on a random magical island, no matter how much I liked the shifter I’d woken with.

A magical island.

You could know these things were real and still be blindsided by the truth of them.

“You live here?” I asked him. “That must be nice. I mean, I do want to go home, but being able to escape to a magical tropical island every once in a while sounds great.”

The room we walked into could have been a laboratory. It smelled like a perfume store, with an exotic blend of everything. Sugary top notes and an okay center down to an earthy, smoky bottom. A glowing pool of water in the ground looked like I could soak magic into my very skin, and there was such an array of bottles and materials I wanted to look at every little detail.

“You called?”

A low, velvet voice came from behind me, and chills ran over my skin. It was familiar, and I whirled to find the beautiful man from the boat. What was he—

“Yes, Ariel. Thank you.”

Ariel.

Creeping fear flickered across my skin. He should be dead. I’dseenhim throw himself over the side into the ocean, and even if he’d survived that, why was hehere?

Ban crept in around him, staring at me in his feline form. It felt like he wanted to come closer, but didn’t dare. This wasn’t what it seemed.

Panic climbed up my spine, freezing me to the spot.

“You seem to be under the impression that you are here by accident, or out of some goodness of my heart, Meg.”

He knew my name, and I realized my mistake. Ariel was standing in the doorway blocking any way out. Ban growled low and was silenced with a wave of the magician’s hand.

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