“Please, Levet. It’s important.”
“Two hundred years ago.” He shrugged. “Give or take a decade.”
Tane stepped forward, his expression suspicious as he easily sensed her trembling excitement. “Laylah, we need to talk …”
“I don’t think so.” She licked her dry lips. “Levet and I have business to attend to.”
“Ah, now that is the kind of business I am always eager to conduct.” He waggled his heavy brow. “I do hope it involves the removal of clothing and the rubbing of wings.”
“Actually it involves a trip to London.”
“London.” Levet shook his head. “Non, such a damp and gray place. I far prefer Paris. Now that is a city created for lovers.”
She slowly straightened, keeping her hand on Levet’s shoulder. She had never tried to carry someone into the mists, but now seemed like the perfect moment to give it a whirl.
“I need to find the Jinn.”
Levet cleared his throat. “Ummm, Laylah …”
Tane instinctively moved to block the door to the barn, his expression unreadable.
“I can’t let you leave, Laylah.”
Arrogant ass.
Her smile was taunting. “I don’t need your permission, vampire.”
His muscles coiled as he prepared to pounce, belatedly realizing that a Jinn had more than one means of travelling.
“Adios, He-Man.”
Closing her eyes, Laylah called on the faint echoes that were forever whispering in the back of her mind. At the same time she ignored the infuriated Tane as he rushed toward her, his icy power filling the barn, as well as the gargoyle at her side who was frantically tugging at the frayed hem of her denim shorts.
“Laylah, there’s something I need to tell you …”
Did they not realize just how dangerous it was to distract her at this delicate point?
Conjuring the image of a shimmering curtain, she mentally squared her shoulders and stepped forward, dragging a reluctant Levet with her.
She unconsciously grimaced, as always unnerved by the sensation that she was stepping through a nasty shroud of cobwebs. It felt so tangible that it was always a shock when she tried to brush them away and found nothing.
And then there was the pain. Tiny pinpricks that bit into her as if trying to flay the flesh from her bones.
One thing was certain, she acknowledged grimly, shadow walking would never replace airplanes and cruise ships.
Hell, riding a donkey had to be preferable.
The inane thought barely crossed her mind when the pinpricks abruptly became a deluge of agony.
She grabbed Levet close, screaming as they were roughly jerked through the barrier. Gods, she felt as if someone was attempting to jerk her inside out.
After a hellacious journey that ended with a jarring landing that left her splayed across a hard ground hidden by the thick, silvery mist, Laylah took a much needed moment to catch her breath.
WTF?
Not even her first fumbling forage through the barrier that separated dimensions had been so harrowing. Or brutal. A good thing. She’d never have tried it again.
Grimacing as her body struggled to heal her crushed ribs and several internal injuries that she didn’t even want to think about, she battled to push herself into a sitting position, her eyes widening with furious disbelief at the sight of the vampire crouched at her feet.