I sucked in a breath as the memories came rushing back.
The brand of Kaden’s scorching-hot lips as he kissed me in his bedroom.
The demons.
Silas.
Imogen — dead.
The wings that had carried me through the void.
The stone in Kaden’s pocket.
My gaze traveled from those wings to his face, which was twisted in an odd mask of relief and devastation.
Kaden had lied to me all this time — used me to retrieve the cipher. But for what? He hadn’t gone to all that trouble to dispatch Silas. He could have killed him on his own.
The door to the bedroom creaked open, and my insides clenched with terror when I saw who was standing in the doorway.
TheMorkahlf.
“What are you —” The demon broke off, his gaze jerking from Kaden sitting by the window to me.
“You,” I breathed, recoiling on the bed as if that bit of extra distance would make any difference. I was unarmed and outnumbered in a strange place. Kaden had lied to me, and —
TheMorkahlf’s features turned stony.
“Not helping,” Kaden muttered, shooting him an exasperated look.
“I’ll just . . .”
TheMorkahlfdidn’t finish the sentence. He merely backed out of the room and snapped the door shut behind him. It was such a disarmingly human gesture that I turned to Kaden in bewilderment.
“You’ve been working with them all this time,” I said in an accusatory voice.
“No.”
I jerked my head back toward the door through which theMorkahlfhad disappeared.
“Adriel’s not with them,” said Kaden dismissively. “He’s . . . He works for me.”
“He’s a demon.”
“Not exactly.” A grim smirk ghosted across his face. “What Adriel is isn’t relevant.”
“Isn’trelevant?” My voice shook with the force of my anger as I slipped off the bed. My hands balled into fists at my sides, and I mentally cursed him for disarming me.
Then, without warning, I launched myself past Kaden — clambering for the open window.
I didn’t have a plan, even as I scrambled over the smooth stone sill. I just knew I needed to get away.
I might have been fast, but Kaden was faster. His arm shot out, wrapping around my waist. But any notion of escape drained out of me the instant I caught sight of the sun-faded landscape four stories below.
A wide river wound along a flat bank lined with laurel trees — the source of the spicy scent. The last golden rays of dusk glittered over the water, and beyond the river, just over the horizon, beckoned nothing but darkness.
It wasn’t the peaceful dark of nightfall, I realized. The river flowed toward oblivion.
We weren’t in the mortal realm.
