The Wicked (Elder Races #5.5)(20)

But she could not imagine turning away from him in that moment.

Insane though it sounded, she could not imagine ever turning away from him.

Whoa, Nelly. Don’t panic, it was just a thought. Of course they hardly knew each other, and falling in love that fast with a (near) total stranger was inconceivable, and…

Blah blah blah…

She let the supposedly calm, logical part of her mind babble away. In the meantime, she had more important things to do. Stepping forward, she raised her face and met his kiss halfway.

His firm lips settled over hers. Compared to the crazed escalation from the previous night, this kiss was positively tame, just nestling their lips together in a gesture that was more affectionate than anything else. He rested his hands on her hips, and she covered them with her own. The most intimate thing about it all was that it was so public.

Except that his hot, male Power wrapped around her, invisible and possessive, and the fire that he had started in her last night flared up again, hectic and out of control.

She managed not to reach out and clutch him to her in a totally inappropriate embrace, but her body shook with the effort. He held back too, but standing so close to him, she could feel the tension vibrating off his taut body. His fingers dug into the soft flesh of her hips. She knew he would leave marks on her pale skin. She didn’t mind. She wanted to egg him on.

So the crazed creature that had taken over her body was still in residence, alive and well. She drew back, mouth trembling.

His well-formed lips pulled into the sexiest smile she had ever seen, and the laugh lines bracketing his mouth deepened.

In the meantime, silence had descended on deck. She glanced around cautiously. Dendera looked shocked, and almost everyone got very busy, all except for Bailey, who gave her a thumbs up and a grin.

And Steve, who stared at her with a cold, unfriendly gaze.

Chapter Seven

After all their preparation, and despite Sebastian’s concerns about the inexperienced symbologists, the crossover went without a hitch. Phaedra sank into the ocean with them and shortly afterward the Djinn’s physical form dissipated as she settled at the passageway’s entrance.

Bailey swam along the passageway first, hauling two containers that had been carefully weighted so that they floated a few feet above the sea floor. She cast magical light spells as she went. The balls of light flared and then slowly faded, giving everybody that followed plenty of illumination for their journey.

Behind her mask, Olivia’s expression was full of wonder as they swam along the passageway. Sebastian stayed close beside her protectively, but she made an excellent crossing. They both hauled containers. She transported empty ones designed for the library collection, and he pulled food supplies and packs.

Land magic swirled around them, and partway through the trip the seabed changed. They couldn’t rise to the surface with the containers, so they swam until the water grew shallow enough that they could stand. Then they pushed back their masks and stared at the land in front of them.

A sandy beach lay directly ahead of them just yards away. A bluff rose from the beach, with a path zigzagging up the side. The heavy gold sunlight of late afternoon drenched the scene. A stone fence ran along the top of the bluff, and beyond that, a partially visible manor house sprawled.

Underneath the constant murmur of the surf and the sound of wind, a certain kind of silence lay over the scene, a complete lack of traffic or any other man-made sounds. A bird of some kind called in the distance, warbling a sharp warning of their arrival.

They knew from information that Carling had given them that the island was kidney-shaped and four miles long. Behind the house was an extensive vegetable garden and a path that led to a cottage that held her library.

At the other end of the island, an ancient forest of redwoods towered to the sky. The forest was where the shy, winged creatures lived, and as Carling had said when she had briefed Sebastian, there was no reason for any of their group to go to that part of the island. They would only frighten the creatures that lived among the redwoods, and their job lay elsewhere.

Two by two, the rest of the crew rose to the surface of the water to stand alongside him and Olivia and stare at the scene.

“All right,” said Sebastian after a minute. “Checking out the library is going to have to wait until morning. We’ve got a lot of work to do. We have to haul ass if we’re going to get set up before dark.”

“You heard the man,” said Bailey. She had already dragged her containers to shore and stood knee deep in the foamy swirl of water with her legs braced apart and her wetsuit partially unzipped. “Hop to it. Just remember—at the end of today’s work, we get to help ourselves to Carling’s wine cellar.” She grinned at Sebastian. “Hell, I would have taken the job for that reason alone.”

“It is an incentive,” he said. He unzipped a waterproof pouch, pulled out his sunglasses and slipped them on before any of the others could get a chance to look at his eyes.

The next several hours were filled with nonstop physical labor. Sebastian sent Tony and Derrick into the manor house first to check it out, as the rest of them hauled containers and supplies up the bluff path.

The two men came out again quickly enough. After being uninhabited for so long, the house was dusty and occupied with mice, and a few windows had broken, probably from high winds.

But there was plenty of wood stacked in the large kitchen and in woodpiles out the back, and there were fireplaces in every room, a large stockpile of beeswax candles, and also plenty of linens and blankets stored in cedar chests. All of the chimneys were sound, except for one that had some kind of blockage—probably a nest of some kind. The water pumps in the kitchen and washroom worked.