Page 30 of Demon's Beauty

“So,” he says, watching as the first of the guards portals away, carrying a chest of supplies on his back. The first guard is followed by a second, then a third, as everyone moves out on Glenson’s orders. “Are you ready?”

“How does this… how does this… work, exactly? I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”

I am really not looking forward to portalling again, is what I want to say. Especially considering how unbalanced and nauseous coming here with Allie made me.

But I signed up for this, and I knew portalling would be part of the deal.

“I’ll open a portal and take you along with me. Giving me your hand should work,” Finn says evenly, extending one to me.

The magick in my chest nearly purrs at the opportunity to touch him again, but I make myself focus.

“Should?”

We’re about to go bouncing around this realm on a bit of demon magick and a prayer. I don’t like the sound ofshould.

“Putting my arms around you would be better.”

My demon mate is a flirt.

A shameless flirt, as he holds his arms wide like he expects me to step into them.

“One arm,” I allow, holding my own out so he can loop his through it.

“I’ll take what I can get,” he murmurs, and steps closer.

He smells… incredible.

Like mountain air and pines, fresh snow on a crisp winter morning.

And just being here, next to him,smellinghim, does something to me.

Damn it.

“We’ll take the journey in a couple of stages,” he explains, and a rush of magick surrounds us as he opens a portal when Glenson gives us the signal. “That will make it a little easier. Does that sound good?”

Overtaken by a wave of nerves, I just give him a single, curt nod.

And then we step through.

It’s so much worse than it was with Allie.

Still not as bad as the Veil, but we must be traveling a lot further than she took me, because it feels like I’ve been thrown onto one of those awful spinny rides at the county fair.

One that’s diabolically designed for maximum nausea.

I’ve barely got my feet under me when we make it to the first spot. Others land beside and around us, pausing for a moment before more portals open and they disappear.

In the distance, more mountains, but the forest is thinner here on the leeward side. The sloping terrain leads into a broad plain, but I barely have my head on straight enough to get a good look at it before Finn squeezes my arm.

“Ready for the next one?”

“Yeah,” I breathe. “Sure.”

He opens another portal.

This one spits us out in the middle of a huge, grassy plain that stretches nearly from horizon to horizon. There’s another mountain range in the far distance, but I really have no idea if it’s the same one we just left, or a new one entirely.

“Just one more,” Finn says with another squeeze of my arm.