Everything hurt, even her eyes felt dry as a desert as if she’d been staring straight into a light bulb without blinking.

She only stopped because one of her legs had given out. Her knee bowed out and sent her crumpling the grassy ground. So she just stayed that way, cheeks in the grass, finger swirling in the dirt.

He would come after her.

How far away was he? God, she hated that she wanted to know but she did, badly. She didn’t want to know out of fear of being caught but at the hope that she might see him.

Pathetic.

She’d been running on anger and high emotions. After the rogue demons started to follow her, she remembered to cloak herself. Surprisingly, it’d worked. Not even seconds after they started off in the wrong directions, talking amongst themselves and trying to figure what had happened to her. It was eerie watching as they started to run in the wrong direction, talking amongst themselves, and trying to figure out what had happened to her.

Abby had learned that little spell from her mom.

Back when she used to practice magic, her mom used to tell her stories. One story was about a witch who could cloak herself completely, turn herself invisible with only a thought and a burst of magic. A witch could even lose her scent, but that required a potion with special herbs that Abby would likely not find in the rift.

So, instead she’d cloaked her body. Did demons have a powerful sense of smell? Probably not, or at least, she hoped not. She was relying on the fact that aside from Alrik’s incredible strength, which was far greater than a human’s and his ability to wield magic, that he didn’t have the nose of a hound. Still she couldn’t be sure so she had just kept walking. After a while, even her stomach stopped its annoying growling.

Damn she was tired. Each time her eyelids drooped it became harder and harder to pull them back up. However, sleep never came. She tried to no avail. Something was wrong with her.

Yeah, it’s called paranoia!

True enough. She was paranoid because she really didn’t want to get caught. Not by Alrik, the vampire, or the demons. She just wanted to be left alone with no more thoughts and worries. She wanted to go home and get back to her job, if she still had one. She wanted to look up her half-sisters, the Bellums, and see if a friendship could be found there. Heck, she even wanted to tell her mom she was sorry and that she understood why she’d done what she did.

Abby curled up along a tree. While walking, she’d tried to find a hiding place but she’d found nothing but long rolling hills and mountains in the distance. There’d been nothing, nada. Of course that’d be her luck. She just knew that if Alrik had been with her he’d probably have found some secret cave that was perfectly safe and much warmer than out here in the open.

Whatever, this spot on the ground was just as good as any. Maybe if she just slept for a little while she’d feel better, the tightness in her throat and chest would ease.

The real question was: could she keep up the cloaking spell while sleeping? She had no clue, but she was about to find out.

Abby’s eyes drifted closed.

Her thoughts refused to slow. Her mind didn’t want to stop thinking about Alrik. Her heart wanted to keep reminding her of how badly it hurt.

Well I don’t want to think about it, she wanted to scream.

Tears pooled in her eyes. She didn’t want to think about how much it hurt to leave or how much it hurt to know he’d been hiding something huge from her. She sniffled and wiped the tears off her face.

As she did, a strange feeling came over her. One of those little sensations you got at the back of your neck when you were being watched. Her eyes popped opened, straining in the darkness as she kept her body still. Something was here. From her view, she saw nothing but more grass at the level of her head with great mighty trees flowering pretty red and pink flowers from above. She hadn’t even lit a fire so she had no light.

That was the thing in this rift. No sun, and no moon. So when the daylight came out it wasn’t nearly as bright as it should be and when it got dark it got really dark. No luminous moon lit the way for her. Her human eyes could only adjust so much and still they left her squinting hard into the night.

Nothing strange stood waiting for her. That left only one other option, which was the worse one.

Moving with agility that surged from a rush of adrenaline, Abby spun around and let a spell fly from her fingertips. The spell was weak, a cloud of fog at best.

Alrik stood there.

Her breath caught, lodged in her throat with so much emotion: happiness, anger, pain. Her chest squeezed tight like being wrapped in a painful bear hug.

With a flick of his wrist, he deflected her spell as if shooing away a fly. She must be weaker than she’d imagined if he could deflect her spell so easily.

Abby gazed up at him. She’d been away from him for little over a day and yet he looked taller than she remembered.

That’s only because you’re sitting on the ground below him, idiot.

Not true, she corrected. He also looked even stronger and more gorgeous than she remembered. His eyes looked brighter and not as dark as they’d been. They were inky black recesses that she could lose herself in but somehow they were lighter than before. How did he do that? How did his eyes change colors like that or was it just a trick of light? Maybe his dark black eyes had never changed at all.

“You thought to leave me?” he asked.

Anguish coated his words and the sound took her back. Out of all things she might have expected if he caught her, the sound of pain wasn’t one. That sound grabbed her by the heart and squeezed until she gasped. God, she did love him.

So stupid, Abby.

Abbigail pushed herself to her knees then slowly stood. There, she felt more in control and more on level with him even though he still stood more than a foot and a half taller than she did.

“Yes.” She had to swallow over the knot in her voice because it took her two tries to speak, and even then her voice came out throaty.

“Tell me why.”

Her eyes traced to the grass. That was easier to look at.

She countered with her own question. “Who is Arianna?”

She watched him from the corner of her eyes and saw his eyes flare with surprise.

“How do you know that name?” he demanded.

Abby met his gaze as her own anger rose. How dare he take that tone with her. After she saved his butt nearly twice if you included the jaheera attack and she was.

He came towards her. Each step sent her heart beat pounding faster and faster. He kept coming until he grabbed her by the shoulders. “How do you know that name? Answer me!”

She looked up into his eyes. What she saw there broke down her anger. He looked panicked, uncertain. God, she hated seeing that look on his face. She wanted to help him, to make him feel better, and to maybe even make him happy. She didn’t want things to be like this.

“You said her name in your sleep,” Abby said, pain masking her voice. “Why don’t you tell me who she is and then maybe you can explain why she sounds so important to you?”

Let it be his sister’s name.

He released his grip on her and started building a fire.

Just like that. Back to work, and back to ignoring her questions.

“Alrik, I swear that if you don’t start really answering my questions, I’m leaving.”

His jaw clenched, and he slammed the wood in his arms down to the ground. She jumped at the violent action. “You threaten me now?” he growled.

“I don’t see it that way, but I guess...in a way, yes, I am.”

He shook his head in disbelief. With a rushed spell and a flick of his fingers, a spark caught and the wood started burning.