Page 81 of Hell Burns Between Us

“As you wish,” she said.

Swallowing Oleander whole.

Chapter

Twenty-Seven

OLEANDER BRIGHTMORE

Oleander winced, bracing for the clamping of teeth, but instead a massive museum materialised around him. His eyes hadn’t yet truly adjusted to where he was now, for the room spun madly. Through the blur, however, Oleander managed to find Perine.

She was there, wide eyed and gasping for air. Gods below, he needed to touch her.

A strangling desperation clawed inside of him at the distance between them. Why was she so far away? He was just about to pull her into his arms when, to his surprise, Perine was launching herself into them. She wrapped herself around him warm and firm. His entire body erupted in joy.

They’d made it to the Arcane Vaults, safe and sound. Together.

Oleander buried his face in her neck—fuck, she smelled like every one of his hopes and dreams woven into a single being. He noticed with smug satisfaction that she was breathing him in as well. He tightened his arms around her. Perine did the same.

Then she seemed to catch herself, giving a prim clearing of her throat as she moved from his lap until she sat carefully next to him. Her knee landed gently against his and he almost vibrated in pleasure that she was equally unwilling to break contact with him.

As if she couldn’t help it, her eyes slowly moved back to him, watching him closely. A crooked grin pulled at her lips.

“Nicely done.” Then she bit her lip in the exact place he had been dreaming of biting it. “This—this temporary soul bond is… definitely something.”

What Oleander did not point out was that this temporary soul bond only enhanced feelings that were already there. If nothing simmered below the surface then the bond would have felt more like an itch one couldn’t scratch dissolving within minutes. They may have felt a pull to link arms, but this? Well, he wasn’t currently in the position to consider their mutual reaction to the only idea he’d had to get them both to the Arcane Vaults safely.

“It’ll fade after a day or so,” Oleander said, his voice just shy of reassuring. It physically hurt him to consider the dissipation of this feeling between them, finally mutually acknowledged.

He inspected the room to calm his raging emotions—the ceiling rose high, so distant that it was impossible to see clearly. In fact, the Arcane Vaults were massive, impossibly so. There seemed to be no limit to the labyrinth of endless bookshelves, tables crammed with ancient objects, or scattered cauldrons. A place where anything could be hidden or kept safe… or honestly lost by the sheer size of it. How were they supposed to find anything helpful in this place?

Despite its massive size the room was brightly lit, as if sunshine permeated every shadowy crevice. The air smelled fresh, almost sweet, despite Oleander’s strong suspicion that it had been a very long time since anyone had set foot here. He blew out a long breath and noticed suddenly, the strange lack of parasitic presence looming inside his brain. The shadow was not gone, exactly. The shape of it was there if Oleander concentrated hard enough on finding it within him. It was only that its presence was muted in a way that allowed him to actually think clearly. He turned to Perine and asked, “What do you think we should do now?”

She was staring at her wrists, moving them slowly in a circle around herself. “Well, first I have a slight problem I need to address.” With her wrists still held before her she stood nimbly and moved forward. Then pausing to move her wrists around once more, she turned and disappeared behind one of the tall bookshelves nearby. After a few moments she called out,“I’ll be right back! I’m being strongly encouraged to find something for myself first.”

“Would you like any help?” he called back, missing her already even though she’d hardly left him. “Or what should I do while you’re off… walking around with your arms out?”

“I think we need to find a book that would tell us about urns.” She shouted from the other side of the room. “I’m not exactly sure what sort of urn we’ll need, so we’ll probably have to do a bit of research to figure it out.”

“Urns?” This sparked a memory. Hadn’t he read something about urns? He buried his face in his hands while he raked through his memories.

“Yes. They’re a type of vase; traditionally tall with a stem and footed base. They can—”

“I know what an urn is! I was just—” Oleander pulled out a page on spells for trapping spirits into Circumscription Urns, ripped from the book he’d demanded Samael give to him when this nightmare first began. He’d saved it all this time, even as his brain had been foggy and often working actively against him. Apparently, through everything, he’d had enough fight left inside of him to want to save himself if he could.

Perine returned holding strange snakeskin dice in her hands. He wanted to ask what the dice were, or why she’d been so adamant about finding them. Only, he was too excited to show her the piece of paper he had. “Is this sort of what you mean?”

Perine snatched the paper from his hand with a shriek. “Did you tear this from a book?”

“It was bulky!” He reached to take the page back.

“There are all sorts of shrinking spells to make books fit into pockets, you imbecile.” She glared at him, melting the skin from his bones with blistering indignation. Then, with a huff, she went back to reading the torn page in her hands. “But yes… I think the trick here will be finding a vase that is roughly the size of your torso to use as a Circumscription Urn for the, um, shadow inside you.”

She paused and looked at him sidelong. “That shouldn’t be hard since you’re so scrawny.”

“Hey!” Oleander could not help but pull his shoulders back and puff his incredibly muscular chest out in protest.

A wry smile spread across her face. “That was for tearing a page from a—by the looks of it—ancient and likely valuable text.”