“And I have always had a desire to be a grandmother,” Riley said. “So make damn sure you’re around to make me one.”
Tears stung my eyes. “I will.”
She pushed upright. “Then we had better get moving.”
I rose, moved around the table, and hugged her. “Thank you.”
She grunted and wrapped her arms around me fiercely but briefly. “Just keep safe, and keep in contact.”
“I will.”
“Then go, so I can call the tribe and get everyone moving.” She hesitated, frowning. “Rhoan won’t go. You know that, don’t you?”
I did, but I had to at least try. “I’ll talk to him.”
She half smiled. “Good luck with that.”
“Thanks. And be safe—all of you.”
With that, I stepped back and placed my hand in Azriel’s. A heartbeat later we were standing in the middle of a rather luxurious bedroom. It wasn’t one I recognized.
I frowned and looked around. “Where are we?” But recognition stirred even as I asked the question. He’d brought me to my favorite hotel.
“We are at the Langham,” he confirmed. “You need to rest, and you enjoy this place, do you not?”
“Yes, but you just can’t pop in and take over a room like this. They’re a business. Hell, they might have already rented the room out to someone—”
“I will go down to reception and ensure that cannot happen,” he said. “In the meantime, you should sleep. You cannot continue to go on as you are.”
“But the sorceress—”
“May yet be locked in hell, for all that we know.” He placed his hands on my shoulders and gently but firmly pushed me toward the bed. “If you care nothing for your own health, then at least think about the health of our child. Please, get some rest.”
“That’s not playing fair, reaper,” I muttered, as my butt hit the bed. “Besides, we did that whole energize-through-sex thing not too long ago. If you can go on without any other rest and sustenance, I should be able to.”
“When you are full energy, yes, you will be able to.” There was little inflection in his voice, but more than a little impatience in his thoughts. “But you are not that yet. Rest.”
Tiredness washed through me at his words, and I had to wonder if perhaps he was subtly forcing me to obey.
“No,” he said, the impatience evident in his voice this time. “I cannot. It was one of the more unfortunate effects of sharing my life force.”
I raised an eyebrow. “I’d hardly call it unfortunate.”
“It is when you are being unreasonably stubborn.”
I touched his arm lightly, my fingers cool against his more heated skin. “Azriel, I’m not being stubborn. It’s just that we’ve been three steps behind the sorceress up until now. We have a chance—and possibly only a brief chance—to get ahead of her and find the key, and we need to grab it.”
“A few hours will not make a great deal of difference to our chances of finding the key,” he said grimly. “But it might well make a vast difference to our chances of surviving whatever fights the fates have in store for us.”
“Fair enough,” I muttered. “But if you’re going to nag me like this for the rest of eternity, I won’t be a happy woman.”
“If we survive the next few days, then I promise, I will do all in my power to ensure your happiness.”
He was half smiling as he said it, but there was a seriousness—a darkness—in his eyes that had my stomach churning. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“Nothing—”
“Damn it, Azriel, you agreed to stop that. You said you’d be honest—”