Indifferent to his annoyance, Kata wound her way through the lava that could so easily destroy her fragile flesh.
“Yannah,” she called, her tone frantic. “Yannah.”
“Dammit.” Shoving his sword back into its sheath, he moved to stand at her side, barely resisting the need to snatch her into his arms. “Are you trying to attract the attention of every nasty beast in the underworld?”
“Is that where we are?” She shot him a glare, as if this was entirely his fault.
“How would I know?” Uriel cast a disgusted gaze around their noxious surroundings. “Despite popular opinion I didn’t crawl out of the pits of hell.”
She wrapped her arms around her waist, her chin stuck to a defensive angle.
“Hard to believe.”
“Since you’re entirely to blame for our presence here, I wouldn’t be tossing around insults, luv.”
“I didn’t ask you to come barging into my private cell.”
“No,” he swiftly countered, “your daughter did.”
Without warning her features softened. “Laylah,” she breathed.
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry,” she lowered her head, hiding her beautiful face behind the thick curtain of her dark hair. “I only wanted to warn her. I didn’t intend for her to endanger herself or anyone else to find me.”
He lifted his hand to brush back the glossy curls, only to yank it back.
“It no longer matters,” he gritted. “We need to find a way out.”
“Out?”
“Unless you want to stay?” he drawled. “Maybe see if they have a bus tour?”
She abruptly tilted back her head to meet his chiding gaze, appearing unbearably young. Whatever spell the mage had used to keep her alive had ensured she hadn’t aged beyond her early twenties in human years.
“Do you have to be an ass?”
“I. .” His words choked in his throat as he noted the damp shimmer in her magnificent eyes. “Are you crying?”
“No,” she ridiculously denied, spinning toward the swirling lava. “Leave me alone.”
He should.
Victor had requested that he go in search of the captured gypsy, he hadn’t said a damned thing about protecting the female from the hordes of beasts rumored to fill the underworld.
No one would blame him if he abandoned her to her fate.
Unfortunately, he hadn’t become Victor’s right hand man by tossing aside his duty when things got tough. When he started a job, he finished it.
And that’s the reason he reached out to tug her gently into his arms, his thumbs brushing away the tears that stained her cheeks.
“Kata. Shush,” he murmured. “I will find us a way out of here.” He glanced toward the distant opening across the cavern. “Or die trying.”
Her dark gaze held an unmistakable fear. “Are you sure we aren’t already dead?”
“What?”
“How can we be in the underworld if we didn’t die?”
A faint smile touched his lips as he allowed his hands to skim down the slender length of her throat.
“Warm skin, a steady pulse. .” Barely aware he was moving, Uriel lowered his head to touch his lips to the hollow behind her ear, nuzzling the satin softness of her skin. “The scent of tiger lilies,” he husked. “I can assure you that you’re very much alive.”
“Oh.” She shuddered, the scent of her arousal perfuming the air while Uriel planted a trail of kisses to the revealing pulse at the base of her neck. “What are you doing?”
“I think I should double check,” he said, the driving pleasure in touching her overcoming his small claim to intelligence. “We can’t be too careful.”
“I warned you, vamp. .” Kata breathed, her hands lifting to his chest. She no doubt intended to push him away, or maybe something even worse, but instead her fingers splayed over his rigid muscles, the heat of her touch searing through the thin material.
“Uriel,” he rasped.
“What?”
“My name is Uriel.”
She shivered. “Uriel.”
Chapter 5
During the long years of her imprisonment, Kata more than once skirted the edge of madness. Not only from the endless days of being trapped on the narrow cot, but from sheer loneliness.
Even with her ability to view the world through Marika and Laylah, as well as Yannah’s occasional visits, she’d been tortured by her isolation. She was a human who’d been raised by loving parents who’d been openly affectionate. To be suddenly denied the comfort of her family and loving tribe was worse than death.
She craved companionship with an aching need.
Which was the only reason she was tilting back her head to encourage his seeking lips, and why her hands were lifting to tangle in his thick curls. It was why she arched closer to the growing promise of his erection. .
Blessed mother. Ruthless desire blazed through her, belatedly jerking her out of her self-delusion.
Mere comfort didn’t make a woman’s heart race with a wild excitement or her stomach clench in anticipation.
This was lust.
Raw, desperate, savage lust.
“Stop.” Her hands returned to his chest, but this time she didn’t allow herself to become distracted by the chiseled muscles and icy power. “Uriel, are you out of your mind?”
With a low groan, he lifted his head, his eyes dark with a hunger that echoed deep inside her.
“I must be,” he muttered thickly, dropping his hands with insulting promptness. “There can be no other excuse.”
Refusing to acknowledge the pang of loss, Kata stepped backward, wincing at the sting of heat on the back of her legs. Damned lava.
“You said something about getting us out of here,” she said stiffly.
“I did.”
She lifted her brows. “And?”
He grimaced. “And it is something a man says to comfort a hysterical female.”
“I was not hysterical.”
“You were crying.”
She hunched a shoulder, refusing to admit her brief moment of vulnerability. If Marika had taught her nothing else, it was that the least hint of weakness could be exploited.
“So what you’re saying is that you don’t have any clue of how to get us out of here?”
His jaw tightened, as if he was offended by her accusation. “Maybe if you’d warned your daughter that anyone who was sent to rescue you was going to be sucked into hell I might have been properly prepared.”
“More likely you wouldn’t have come at all.”
“It wasn’t as if I had a choice.”
Kata flinched at the stark words.
Well wasn’t that just the freaking cherry on top of the god awful day?
She’d already sensed that Uriel hadn’t been first in line to play the role of her Knight in Shining Armor, but she hadn’t realized that he had been actually unwilling.
“You were forced?”
