Read Online Blood of an Ancient by Rinda Elliott - Free Book Online

damned painful, I felt nearly faint with it. I clutched him, opened my mouth and felt his big body trembling with need and his effort to hold back. I didn’t want him to.
    A metal clanking noise echoed into the room. Nikolos pulled away, eyes flaring wide, and it wasn’t my imagination…something bled red around his pupils.
    My sense of self-preservation kicked in and I scrambled back off his lap. I didn’t know whether I was about to face something bad coming down those stairs or if I was about to see a change in Nikolos. He cocked his head, staring at me as if he suddenly didn’t know who I was. His nostrils flared, then he shut his eyes tight and made the most horrible sound of anguish—a growl and cry mixed together that stabbed into my heart like a barbed needle.
    “Go!” he roared.
    “I don’t know how!” I yelled back. “Who’s coming? Tell me!”
    The red bleeding into his eyes made him look like a monster. He came at me and I flinched when his hands wrapped around my throat. But he’d forgotten how strong I was. I shoved him away and as he staggered back, recognition came back to him. He shook his head, then came again.
    “Just let me see who has you,” I said, keeping my voice low because now I could hear footsteps coming down those stairs. A long set of stairs apparently. Something else sounded. A sort of swish and scraping noise on walls.
    “You can’t see her. If you do, you can never leave. And when she’s with me, I become something I don’t want you to see.” He picked up my hand and wrapped it around the two ankhs. “I love you, Beri. Don’t come back.”
    The hot, liquid metal sensation came back and I screamed at the fiery pain as it poured through my veins. Then it felt like something reached out and squashed me into particles before sucking me out of that room.
    I came to in Nikolos’s bed. Sat up, gasping. Every single muscle in my body complained, but the scar on my leg felt like someone had set it on fire. I ripped off the covers and shoved down my black sweatpants, my hands shaking so hard I whimpered in frustration. Faint lines of black spiderwebbing crawled out from the scar in every direction. About an inch. Fear sent me to my feet and I nearly tripped on the sagging sweats. I caught myself on the bed, shock making me touch the streaks of dirt on the white sheets.
    “Beri!” Phro was suddenly there next to me, wearing the white toga she resorted to more and more often these days. I think it reminded her of home. I blinked at her, wincing because of the fire in my leg.
    “You scared me to death. You weren’t here. You weren’t anywhere.”
    “My body wasn’t here?”
    She shook her head, her dark hair wispy and ghostlike because she grew translucent when upset. “I was watching you because I didn’t want you to do that damned dream spell. You started thrashing about, then grabbed your ankhs and disappeared.”
    “I went to Nikolos. He said he’s in the Realm of the Discarded.”
    She shrank back, going so ghosty I could barely see her. “You were physically there? Did you see anyone there? Did any of the creatures see you?”
    “I only saw him.”
    Phro slumped. “Oh, Bergdis,” she whispered. “You don’t know what you’ve done.”
    “I didn’t do anything but try to bring the man I love into my dreams. I didn’t purposely travel into the realm of the whatever. This isn’t entirely my fault here.”
    She started to fade out even more. All I could see was a shimmer of white and gray.
    “Tell me what I’ve done then.”
    But she disappeared completely. I closed my fingers into fists so tight my nails scraped my palms. If I had a way to tie her down and force answers out of her, I would. She always did this. Left me hanging with lots of questions.
    I walked out of the room, feet cold on the marble tile of the hall. It was time to find Blythe and get the show on the road. The faster we left, the faster I got Nikolos. I stopped at the room I thought she’d