Falling Light (Game of Shadows #2)(2)

Mary’s hand squeezed his, her expression sharpening with concern. He realized he had fallen into a fugue.

He told her, “Thanks to the damage you did to him, the Deceiver has to take time to recover too, but we don’t know how much reinforcement he has nearby, so we can’t stop in one place again. I can drive for a while, but you need to concentrate on healing yourself. Nothing else matters. Heal yourself so you can take over driving, because soon I’m going to need your help. Do you understand?”

She nodded. “Yes.”

“Good.”

He lifted her hand to kiss her fingers, and she curled her fingers along the lean edge of his cheek as she studied him with a worried gaze. He opened the passenger door for her, and after she had slid in, he walked around the car and eased into the driver’s seat.

Just before he tried the ignition, they shared a quick, tense glance. They were deep in the forest, miles away from any kind of help, and they were both injured. If the Deceiver had found any time to disable the engine, they would be in a shitload of trouble.

She whispered, “Come on, start.”

He turned the key, and the car purred to life. The engine sounded as smooth as it had the last time he had tuned it. “Now we need to make tracks,” he said. “We’ve miles to go before we sleep.”

“Miles to go before I sleep,” she said, her voice slow and tired. “That was a Robert Frost poem, right? Some poet wrote that, anyway.”

He shook his head and wished he hadn’t, because it made his head throb worse than before. His heart beat in heavy, hard slugs, and his mouth felt hot and dry. “Whoever it was, I’ve got a bone to pick with him.”

“At least we’re alive and together,” she pointed out.

He shifted the car in gear and pulled onto the gravel drive. “And at least we get another day or two. And maybe more.” If he had anything to say about it, they would have a hell of a lot more.

“That’s a veritable wealth of minutes,” she said.

She echoed what they had said to each other last night, in the intimacy of tangled sheets, as the firelight died and rising darkness conquered the room.

Despite the seriousness of their situation, one corner of his mouth lifted. He said, “And that’s a staggering fortune in seconds.”

“Hey.” She flicked his arm lightly with her fingers. “You never did steal any flowers for me, you know.”

It had been his final promise to her nine hundred years ago, when they had last met, in other bodies and other, long- ago lives. He would steal flowers for her in the spring. She would learn how to milk a cow, and they would make love all winter long, at his country home outside of Florence in Italy.

They had never gotten the chance to do any of it. They had both died a few moments later.

He set the memory aside. That tragedy had happened a long time ago. Now they had found each other again, and he would be damned before he let any of this slip away.

He gave her a smile. “I’m with a woman who is developing a memory like a steel trap. I’ll have to get right on that.”

Her lips curved in response, although it didn’t banish the worried expression in her gaze. “I’ll hold you to it.”

He had to drive south to connect with a road that would take them back east toward U.S. 131. Even though they traveled on two-lane country roads and there was no other vehicle in sight, he still took no chances and pulled the car to a sedate halt at a stop sign. The last thing they needed was to call attention to themselves.

As the car rolled to a stop, the morning sun spilled at a slant through the driver’s window, stronger than ever as it hit him in the eyes. The light, heavy and gold, blinded him.

He disconnected from his body again.

The falling light.

He and his mate lived in a city topped with graceful white spires. Their sky was crowned with two suns, and the falling light turned their days endless and golden. They were creatures of power and fire, born at the same moment and destined to journey through life together.

She stood tall and slender, and her large, silver eyes were filled with the beauty and mystery of her soul. That mystery called to him. He could empathize with her but never truly fully understand her. The colors of her emotions were like a symphony. She was as fierce in her devotion to her healing as he was to his warrior nature. The rightness of that, the completeness, balanced and sustained him.

Their people did not die of old age. They did not know death, unless it happened by accident, through illness or by war.

Or until a criminal brought it to their city. He murdered innocents who stood in the way of his crimes before he was captured and imprisoned.

And then escaped.

When the call came to find those who would go in pursuit of the criminal, Michael didn’t hesitate to approach his mate about volunteering.

Are you sure? she asked. If we go, we can never return home.

The details of the transmigration spell had been explained meticulously to them. They would die. Their souls would leave their world, and they would have to transform in order to travel to an entirely new, strange place.

The spell was the only way they could reach the other world where the Deceiver had fled. There could be no return. If they chose to transform, they would literally no longer be the same creatures, while all the alchemy that made such an extreme journey possible would remain on their home world.