Total pages in book: 49
Estimated words: 47052 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 235(@200wpm)___ 188(@250wpm)___ 157(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 47052 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 235(@200wpm)___ 188(@250wpm)___ 157(@300wpm)
She stopped in her tracks. “Oh, my gods, you didn’t.”
Unrepentant grin. “Did. Will do it all night.”
Damn it, why’d he have to be fun? She turned to hide her unbidden smile and peered down a hallway lined with doors. It seemed to stretch on forever.
Growing serious, he asked, “How many rooms are there?”
“Over two hundred.” Until she found the cursebreaker, she’d have to investigate each one, and the clock was ticking. She imagined nineteen more years of visitors, corporealized now. Her family would try to protect her from these killers, but to what end?
Though her sisters must be furious with her for ditching them tonight, sometimes Poppy went off script. If she survived, she would totally make it up to them, especially Lea.
On the heels of that thought, she wondered what leverage Rök had garnered over Desh. . . .
With a pouch at the ready, she opened the first door. Sheets covered the furniture, the air stuffy. She sensed the area, feeling nothing more than lingering magic. She continued down the hall with Rök at her side to repeat her process in room after room.
Open the door . . . sense the area . . . next.
One room was all purple. One had only a spartan cot on the bare floor. One looked as if it’d been set up for a séance. Another reeked of wolfsbane.
Rök asked her, “Still nothing?”
“Each area gives off a vibe, but I can’t puzzle out anything of interest.”
“Curious that I haven’t scented a hint of the other explorers. What do you know about them?”
“Twenty years ago, six fey archers and a rage demon came here for adventure, never to be heard from again. Their families dispatched the best trackers in the Lore, but no one found a trace of them.”
“Maybe I knew the demon.” Rök considered himself an honorary rage demon, had told her he felt even more loyalty to that demonarchy than to his own.
“You’ve probably heard of him. Truller the Victor.”
Rök whistled low. “For eons, he won the LoreLympics for strength. I’d heard he disappeared out of the limelight.”
“Involuntarily.” Researching the previous explorers had almost torpedoed her resolve to come here. When she’d seen a picture of Truller, a tattooed rage demon even bigger than Rök, she’d wondered how she could succeed where that demon—backed by a contingent of fey—hadn’t.
But then, she had no choice. She’d come here to safeguard her sanity. Now she was in a battle for her life. Poppy hadn’t tasted enough of this existence, the apple uneaten; she would fight on for her future.
Rök said, “If the explorers are withered to husks somewhere inside this castle, I would have scented them.”
“Maybe they fell prey to the oubliettes?”
“I didn’t detect any trace of a rage demon in the dungeon. No fey either.”
“They might have crossed through an invisible rift to another realm and gotten trapped.” Poppy was a member of an online forum dedicated to the mysteries of Raven’s Murk, and speculation about those explorers was rampant. The “Rift Hypothesis” had gotten a lot of votes.
Rök scratched his chin. “For all we know, gateways like that could infest this place, and not many other realms are as hospitable as this one. Let me lead.” He eased in front of her to open the next door.
Brows raised, she followed.
Gateways to other realms. More visitors. A ticking clock . . . Much was on the line.
So why couldn’t she drag her gaze off Rök’s muscular back, outlined by his well-worn shirt? Her earlier resolution to let him go was already faltering. Her body wasn’t ready. Because her body was indeed a fucking idiot.
She’d always found it humorous when imperiled movie characters got distracted by sex. But maybe the lurking threats explained why Poppy’s attraction to Rök had reached stratospheric levels. Maybe physical danger called to mind other physical things.
Plus, he was temptation incarnate.
“Ah, witch,” he said, satisfaction in his tone. “I can feel your eyes on me. The chemistry between us is as undeniable as ever.”
But chemistry was all it would ever be with him. And it hadn’t been enough to lure him back to her on their date. Which made her wonder how strong it’d been with the temptress who’d summoned him that night.
He turned to Poppy. “If we could bottle it, neither of us would have to take a job again.”
“Oh, you want to retire but can’t? Haven’t saved enough coin?”
His eyes smoldered. “Just waiting for my rainy day.”
The feeling of connection she’d first experienced on their date bloomed again. Before then, they had worked in the same field, passing each other with preoccupied waves, but that night, she’d felt he really saw her.
Not so.
Yet she’d had that same connected feeling last year at a big Lore bonfire. She’d spotted him talking to a few gorgeous sirens. Without warning, he’d turned to Poppy, catching her eye over a crowd of rowdy immortals.