Page 3 of Bedeviled

He still stubbornly strides next to me, his brows furrowed, a scowl on his face.

A few leaves flutter and scrape against the stone markers as a breeze blows through. I weave my way between graves until I come to a familiar tomb that isn’t a tomb at all.

My gaze passes over the moon phases carved onto the weathered gray stone of the crypt.

Lifting a hand, I murmur, “Pes ozkos izkas. Osgus wuvaksutagu sapu ditnavasa ivakmit ewasava.”

Open for me. Reveal what lies beyond.

The door swings inward, exposing the tomb’s darkened interior.

Kane staggers back, only now seeming to notice our surroundings. His eyes sweep over the crypt, then the graves nearby, then return to me just as I step inside the darkened tomb. Candles flicker to life, illuminating the empty chamber. Well, nearly empty. Toward the back of the chilly room, there’s a sheen of light suspended in midair. It looks for all the world like an oil slick. I step up to it.

“What in all the gods’ names are you doing?” Kane asks with rising alarm, his wolf back in his voice.

A slow smile blooms along my face as I rotate around and face him. “Witchy shit. I suggest you don’t follow.”

I catch a brief look of confusion on the shifter’s face before I step back onto the ley line—and then the magical portal swallows me up.

CHAPTER 2

Kane and the crypt disappear, replaced by the endless tunnel of the ley line.

It’s been two thousand years since I stepped onto a ley line by myself, and I feel a strange mixture of excitement and uncertainty.

I take a few tentative steps forward, trailing my fingers over the soft, giving walls of the passage, marveling at this place. Beneath the growing throb of my skin is a deeper ache. My heart clenches in sweetness and pain.

There’s an old marriage ritual all Sarmatian couples performed on the day of their wedding—one that Memnon and I performed as well. It’s simple enough: the brides fled as far as they could from their future husbands, and the grooms gave chase. Only once they were captured could the wedding truly begin.

The tents and horses are gone, the clothes and people are gone, but the memory remains.

Memnon can marry me…after he finds me.

“Ley line,” I call out, my throat catching, just a little. It’s been a long time since I did this. Here’s to hoping it still works. “I offer you a secret in exchange for passage to ancient Sarmatia.”

My surroundings shiver just a little, enough to make me think the magic that fuels these roads is listening.

I draw in a breath. “I am long-dead Roxilana, Queen of Sarmatians, resurrected to fulfill a spell I cast long ago.”

The words feel funny leaving my tongue. Too pompous and dramatic. And yet, they are nonetheless true.

For several inhalations, nothing happens, and I begin to wonder what other offering I can possibly give the ley line next.

But just as my mind begins to race, the walls ripple and shift. I take a tentative step forward, then another, then fall right through the floor.

I grunt as I hit the ground, my body crushing stiff, dead stalks of grass. As I get my hands beneath me, they press into a patch of partially melted snow. More of it wets my jeans. A harsh wind whistles as it blows across my skin, and I shiver violently.

Crone’s cane, I forgot how damn cold this place was. The kind of cold that sinks into your bones, and only fire, drink, and a warm body can ever adequately chase out. I have none of those things. I don’t even have a proper coat.

Fool. Fool. Fool.

I shiver again as the wind cuts through my long-sleeved shirt as though it were not even there.

Pressing a hand to my chest, I incant in Sarmatian, “Cast the cold from my form. Hidden fires, keep me warm.”

My magic rushes out of me, the pale orange plumes of it curling around my body, and the spell takes root, banishing the chill.

Another wave of my power rolls over my form, this time without an accompanying incantation, and my snow-soaked jeans heat and the moisture evaporates from them.