I skooched closer until my knees were six inches from the inlay. “Put your hand against the barrier.”

He pressed his right palm flat against the invisible dome and shimmers spread outward like ripples on a pond. My heart climbed into my throat, where it continued its frantic beating. I swallowed it down and lifted my hand. My arm quivered. I hesitated, my body so tense it hurt.

I touched two fingertips to the heel of his hand.

His skin was disconcertingly cool. Cautiously, I slid my fingertips up to the center of his palm and pressed, feeling the give of living flesh. As I traced his index finger to the top, wonder ballooned inside me, pushing my fear aside.

I followed the line of his thumb, then warily curled my finger around to feel the bony knuckle below his first finger. The back of his hand was firm and taut, his skin different from anything I’d felt before—tougher, with less give and stretch than a human’s, yet soft and smooth.

Tipping each finger was a dark nail, its curved point resting flush against his fingertip. It wasn’t razor sharp and seemed too short to be dangerous, but that didn’t lessen the thrill in my center.

With the barrier rippling like liquid light, I spread my fingers and pressed my palm to his, my small hand dwarfed, my slender fingers so fragile in comparison, my fair skin white against his reddish-brown tone.

I raised my eyes, wide with awe, to his dark ones. He watched me, his expression unreadable.

It happened in an instant.

He pulled his hand back—and because I was pressing my palm to his, my hand moved too, dipping forward. It crossed that invisible line and the strong fingers I had traced snapped tight around mine.

Adrenaline flooded my body. Panic screeched in my head, but I couldn’t move. Frozen like a rabbit in the wolf’s teeth, I stared at him in horror.

He held my fingers in a tight grip, then pulled.

I had lamented his obvious weakness—but he wasn’t weak. Not compared to my pathetic strength. I locked my limbs but my knees slid across the floor. My wrist crossed the invisible line, then my forearm, then my elbow.

Tears flooded my cheeks. Why was I so stupid? Why had I gotten so close? Why had I put myself within his reach? He would drag me in and tear me apart—the perfect finale to his long imprisonment. A demon’s most exhilarating send-off—murdering a helpless human girl.

His other hand closed around my wrist. I expected him to wrench me the rest of the way into the circle. Expected him to tear into my flesh, to sink his predator’s fangs into my throat and rip it out.

Instead, he flipped my hand over and pressed two fingers to my palm.

Between one hammering beat and the next, my tremoring heart threatened to stop.

He examined my palm, then each finger. He brushed the pad of his finger across my thumbnail, feeling the texture, then flicked his claw against it to test its strength. He felt the bumps of my knuckles, then stroked the back of my hand.

I trembled violently, scarcely breathing, not understanding.

He pinched my skin, his head tilting as he pulled. It hurt but I kept quiet. Pushing my sleeve up, he studied my inner wrist, then lightly traced the shadows of veins under my pale skin. His head dipped and his nostrils flared as he inhaled my scent. Inhaling again, he licked my racing pulse. His tongue was warmer than his cool skin.

His black, starving, dying eyes lifted to mine.

Then he tightened his hold and dragged me into the circle.

My paralysis broke. I gasped wildly and scrambled for purchase on the smooth hardwood floor, but he hauled me easily across it. I crumpled inward, instinct driving me into a protective ball before he could strike.

He yanked on my arm, pulling me straight, and his other hand caught my jaw. Forcing my head up, he leaned down, his face filling my blurring vision. My breath wheezed from my lungs too fast and my head spun.

A low, husky laugh rumbled from his throat, his breath brushing across my tear-streaked cheeks, and he whispered, “What does your blood look like, payilas?”

My limbs turned to liquid. A sob shook my torso.

His head snapped up, his gaze flashing to the library door. In the brief second his attention shot away from me, his hand on my wrist loosened.

With strength I didn’t know I had, I wrenched backward and threw myself out of the circle. My butt hit the floor as darkness flashed through the dome and the demon vanished from sight. I shoved away from the silver line.

“Robin?”

I jerked toward the door. Travis stood in the threshold, gaping.

Another sob burst from me, and trembling too badly to stand, I twisted onto my hands and knees to crawl away. Travis rushed across the room and knelt beside me, touching my shoulder.

“Robin, are you okay? Are you hurt?”

I shook my head. My voice had deserted me when Zylas caught my hand, and I still couldn’t find it.

“Did the demon grab you? Why would you get that close?”

I drew in a shuddering breath. “I—” The word was a feathery croak. “I didn’t …”

He put his arm around my waist and pulled me to my feet. I couldn’t support myself, the adrenaline having reduced my muscles to quivering jelly. He propped me against his side.

“Dad mentioned you’d come down here to get a book,” Travis muttered as he scanned the black dome. “Robin … the demon lured you over, didn’t it? It tricked you into getting so close.”

My lower lip quivered. Ducking my head, I pushed my glasses above my eyes and wiped my face with my sleeve to hide my humiliation.

“Did it talk to you? What did it say?” His voice sharpened with urgency and I cowered away from him. He tightened his arm around me. “It’s not your fault. You didn’t know any better. Demons can be very manipulative.”

I nodded numbly, staring at my feet as the trembling subsided.

He drew me toward the door. “Come on. Let’s get you out of here before Dad gets back.”

I forced my head up. “You won’t tell him?”

“No, I won’t tell Dad or Claude, but … Robin, if the demon spoke, I need to know what it said.”

Cold prickles washed over me. How could I tell him anything about my conversations with Zylas? Not that I cared to protect the demon—not anymore—but I didn’t want to incriminate myself. Travis waited expectantly for my reply.

“I heard … whispering,” I invented. “I went over to try to hear, but the words … weren’t English.”

Pursing his lips, Travis led me up the stairs. “The demon should be able to speak English. The language rite was the first thing we did.” At my blank look, he added, “A series of spells that imparts the basics of our language to the demon. Without it, negotiations would be impossible.”

So that was how Zylas knew English.

“Maybe it was?” I revised hastily. “I couldn’t really hear.”

“Huh.” He walked me to my room. At the door, he smiled wanly. “You’re lucky you got out of there in one piece.”

So, so lucky. Lucky that Travis had come down when he had. Lucky that Zylas had hesitated and he’d loosened his grip. Lucky that I’d reacted fast enough to escape.

“But,” he added, “how many times have you been in the library? Has the demon tried to get your attention before? Have you ever—”

“No,” I cut in, too shaken for politeness. “That was the only time. Thanks for your help.”

Shoving away a flash of embarrassment over my rudeness, I closed the door on him. Weak and cold, I walked woodenly to my bed and sat on the edge, staring at the wall.

Zylas was a demon. He was famished, dying, isolated, and ten weeks into torturous confinement. He had a day or two left to live—and I’d offered myself on a silver platter. I’d given him the chance to get me, and he’d taken it. I shouldn’t have expected anything different.

He was a demon. He’d obeyed his nature. Profoundly immoral and wicked … an apt description of the demonic psyche.

I knew that. I understood it.

I still felt betrayed.

Most of all, I felt like the biggest fool on the planet. A bleeding heart, like Amalia had said. I’d thought, in his own demony way, Zylas saw me as an ally, or at least an odd, annoying cohort in his lonely imprisonment.

So unbelievably na?ve.

I flopped onto my bed, exhausted and wrung dry. As my eyelids grew heavy, I lifted my hand and stared at it, remembering Zylas’s clawed fingers sliding so carefully across my delicate skin.

What does your blood look like, payilas?

Shuddering, I rolled onto my face and hoped, cruelly, selfishly, that Zylas wouldn’t survive the night. If he died before morning, I would never have to think about him again.

Chapter Twelve

At a knock on my door, I closed the self-help book I was reading in the hopes of learning not to be an impulsive, na?ve idiot. So far, it wasn’t helping.

The knock sounded again and I sat up in my bed. “Yes?”

My door cracked open. Travis stuck his head in. “Hey.”