When Rhianna awoke the next morning, she’d seen enough of golden eyes throughout the night in her dreams to predict that staying on the island wouldn’t work. She knew it was just her brains working while she slept, but it felt like more. Could he have some special power over her? She shivered. Or was it her imagination working overtime? Even her curiosity couldn’t sustain her for an entire three-quarters of a month under his watchful stare. Really, she must have been delusional last night when she’d proposed the idea.

Aidan was sitting in the living room when she entered. “Do you want to eat something before we leave?” he asked.

“No. Just coffee,” she mumbled. She rolled her sleepy eyes. Evidently he was the chipper sort in the morning.

She plopped into a chair, and he delivered a piping hot cup to her. She took a sip. It was just right. “How did you know how I take my coffee?”

“I watched you last night. Plus, my keen sense of smell helps.”

She angled her head, lifting a brow. “Is that because of your tiger?”

“Yes. Good guess.”

She chewed on her fingernail for a moment. “It’s still hard to believe . . . shape-shifting, I mean.”

He nodded. “I imagine it seems impossible . . . Now how can you contact your team?”

His focus on getting her out of there stung, but she tried to ignore it. “I have satellite phone. The director and some other members of the crew are stationed on a ship not far away.”

“After you finish your coffee, we’ll go topside and call.”

With a nod of agreement, she closed her eyes and drank. The warmth touching her mouth reminded her of his kiss last night. When she opened her eyes again, the same eyes that had haunted her sleep were watching her. She finished the last of her coffee in one more gulp and stood. “I’m ready,” she announced.

A sadness pressed on her heart as she collected her satchel and met him at the entrance. They didn’t speak as he led the way. She noted as they went the beauty of his home and everything he’d accomplished. She admired him for that. Which made her departure weigh heavier on her.

The next thing she knew, they were aboveground near the great tree. She still didn’t know the whole story about the tree. “You know,” she said, “if you chat on the ham radio or the Internet, perhaps we can keep in touch.” Then one day he’d share everything with her, she thought.

“Uh, sure,” he said.

But his response was without conviction. And it certainly wasn’t filled with any of the passion she’d felt in his kiss. There she was again, back to that inescapable moment. She wondered now if she’d merely imagined the exchange or perhaps attributed more significance to the act than he’d intended. She decided it must be the latter.

Aidan stopped in a clearing up ahead. “You should have better reception here without the trees for interference.”

She dug in her bag, pulled out the sat phone, powered it up, and dialed. She paced while it rang. He stood off to one side, waiting. No one picked up, so she ended the call and tried again. “Nope. I’m not sure it’s going through.”

“Let me see.” He accepted the phone that she handed him and stared at its screen, reading the information there. “The signal strength seems okay. Sometimes the satellites go down, though, and an entire area is taken out.”

“I don’t know much about them,” she admitted. But given his remote location, she guessed that’s what he used on a regular basis.

He moved farther away from her and climbed a rocky bank, pointing the phone’s antenna toward the sky. “I’m going to text them. Sometimes that gets through when a call doesn’t.”

“Okay.” Rhianna hugged her arms around her middle. She watched as he manipulated the device, and she thought of all the gadgets and machines he had in his workshop.

Without warning, something lifted her feet off the ground and floated her forward. A scream ripped from her throat and the unnatural sensation made her feel as if she as enveloped in something, inside some kind of bubble. She turned her head to search out Aidan, but his attention was still on the phone.

“Help!” she yelled.

“It’s too late,” an icy voice sounded from within a haze.

Rhianna snapped her head around to find the sorceress, dressed in black, fitted garb with a flowing midnight-blue robe layered on top. An ornate warrior’s breastplate showed beneath as well as a decoration of some kind of spiked armor over her left shoulder. In her right hand, she extended a scepter that was emitting a florescent blue-green glow. Her power source, Rhia guessed.

They were both moving into a swirl of blackness. Rhianna tried to tug free, straining in the opposite direction.

It was as if rock and dirt and trees created a funnel and she was about to be sucked into the whirlpool.

Again, Rhianna screamed for help. She looked toward Aidan. Finally, she appealed to him with her mind instead of her voice.

His eyes lifted and widened. His lips curled into an agonizing grimace, and he called her name. His feet raced forward as he tried to close the distance. His fist cut through the air, and then he transformed into a tiger and ate up the distance.

It was a futile effort, though. Both Theodora and Rhianna were traveling too quickly to be stopped. They passed into the darkness and the swirl of earthly hues closed in, smaller and smaller behind them.

The roar of a great cat shook her, even inside the bubble.

She was thrown from side to side like a marble being shaken within a cup. And then she was tossed unto the solid, dusty ground, landing hard and rolling to her knees. She glanced backward and up.

A porthole whirled shut.

The last thing Rhianna saw was the horror reflected in a pair of tiger’s eyes.

In shock, she sat on the ground staring up at Theodora. That old saying from The Wizard of Oz echoed in her head: we’re not in Kansas anymore. Her eyes darted around. Everything was a colorless gray with a heavy dose of barren and stark.

“That’s right, sweetheart. Get a good look at your new home,” Theodora said, seeming totally pleased with herself.

Rhianna stood. Instinctively she knew that it wasn’t a good idea to aggravate her abductor, but she couldn’t help saying, “You’ve made a mistake. I need to go back.” She heard the panic rise in her own voice.

Theodora laughed. “They all say that.”

Rhianna wondered how many people “they” were. She swallowed hard. The place smelled like dust, stale and old. Abruptly, like a cat who wasn’t finished playing with a new toy, Theodora swished her scepter, floating Rhianna over the ground. She moved like a tumbleweed as Theodora flicked her around. When she finally released her, Rhianna was so disoriented she staggered, then halted, then staggered some more.

As the dizziness subsided, she noticed people entering the streets. Maybe this was just a ghost town movie set or something. It seemed that way. Maybe this was all a hoax. Maybe she was losing her mind.

She inhaled deeply and coughed on the stale air.

“Rhianna!”

She heard her name and turned. Dillon Savage ran into the street, Steve and Sean right behind him.

Oh god. The only people who knew exactly where she was were in this hellhole with her? She grabbed her stomach. Her lunch was threatening to spill.

“Now,” Theodora remarked, “go join the other new recruits. The next war game is at five, so you’d best prepare.”

Rhianna was about to ask what a war game was, but the sorceress vanished in a puff of smoke. Stunned, Rhia moved toward Savage and the men. She glanced along the street as she walked. Dozens and dozens of people were staring at her with empty eyes and sad faces.

Savage tugged her into the closest building. It was sparsely furnished inside—just an old sofa and some chairs. Again, she thought of a movie set. She’d watched programs on filming; she’d even considered film as a profession in her youth.

Rhianna wrapped her arms around her middle. None of this seemed real. It couldn’t be real.

* * *

Aidan’s roar did nothing to stop it. Theodora had been silent in her attack. He’d had no warning, no way to catch them, no way to leap through to the other side.

Without hesitation, he turned and sprinted toward the Divine Tree. He had only one chance to bring her back. That was, if Custos would give him the key to crossing.

He would go to the catacombs and appeal to the Divine Tree. He would even call upon Seth to guard the tree in Aidan’s absence.

Changing into his human form, Aidan halted outside a space between the rocks. There, he slid into a hidden entrance that led to an underground passageway. “Seth! Seth!” He glanced up to the heavens, as if that would help summon the archangel. “Get your ass down here.”

He didn’t actually know if Seth was in heaven or hanging someplace else right now. He only knew that when he called the angel, somehow the angel showed up. Just as he did for all the Hearst brothers ever since he’d made them Guardians.

Inside the tunnel, he made his way to the roots of the tree. He paused at the threshold of golden knots of wood in the shapes of tiger and eagle. He held his wrist beneath a pointed root and waited for the drip of sap, the anointing ritual that joined him with his tree. In his impatience, it seemed to take forever, but at last, Custos recognized Aidan with a drop of amber sap onto his tattoo.

“Benison,” he whispered, feeling the power of the oak.

“Benison,” the tree replied.

It hadn’t been long ago that he’d conferred with his brothers over the changing tide of the Dark Realm. Since the one hundred days before the Age of Atonement had begun, all evil forces were scrambling for change, to find the best position from which to win redemption they didn’t deserve. Theodora was one of those forces. He knew he should’ve told his brothers what happened as soon as Theodora had appeared again, but since Rhianna had shown up, he’d been a bit preoccupied. He didn’t even want to think about the earful they would give him. Maybe if he could fix it before they found out, they would take it easier on him.

He wound his way through the intricate halls of roots, down into the catacomb of knowledge. If there was a way to get to Riam without Theodora’s “help,” Custos would know.

Aidan sat on slab of polished wood. “I need your help, my friend,” he said to the tree. “We need to bring Rhianna back to this dimension.”

“That may not be possible. However, Theodora must be stopped,” the tree’s voice echoed, mixing with the sound of leaves rustling in the wind.

“You have knowledge of all the universe,” Aidan said. “What can you tell be about Riam? How can I get there? How can I bring Rhianna back?”

Custos sighed. Aidan sensed the tree’s hesitation, but he didn’t know if it was the tree searching for the answer or trying to decide whether to help or not. One thing Aidan had learned over the years, though, was that one didn’t rush a Divine Tree. So he waited as calmly as he could, hoping that Rhianna was unharmed and that he could soon find her.

It had seemed like hours had passed when the Divine Tree finally spoke. “Guardian, there is only one way to enter this universe, and that is to have Theodora transport you there, just as she does all her targets.”

Ah shit. He scrubbed his face with his hand. “Why would she take me, though? How can I make her?”

Custos gave a dry laugh. “You must use cunning with her, not force.”

Aidan growled low in his throat. “And to return?” he asked.

“You must relieve her of her power sources,” Custos said. “What Theodora wants is more people and more property. Although the latter she can’t actually do anything about. She’s driven by greed and power. It bothers her that her world is so small compared to life on earth.”

Aidan closed his eyes and examined his heart to determine if this woman was truly worth this journey.

Yes. Dammit. Yes.

“You rang?” Seth asked from behind Aidan.

Aidan flinched and spun around. “Must you sneak up on people?”

Seth chuckled, shrugged, and tucked his wings to his sides. “It’s fun.” His dreadlocks flipped forward over his shoulder.

“Right.” Aidan stared at him, catching a whiff of garlic. “Geez, where have you been? You reek.”

A smile split Seth’s lips. “Brandt was having a party. That Brazilian food?” He kissed his fingertips and let them fly from his lips. “Mmm, so good. Now what’s up?”

“I have a sorceress who’s getting too big for her britches. Will you guard the tree while I get her back under control?”

“Well, I don’t know. I have a manicure scheduled on Tuesday.” He made a clicking sound in his cheek.

Aidan’s glare bore into the angel. “I’m serious.”

Seth crossed his arms. “Why now?”

“With the AOA upon us, we need to keep evil being under control, don’t we?” Aidan said, not wanting to admit the truth.

“There’s also a woman,” Custos added with a raspy laugh.

Okay, so Aidan wouldn’t have to admit it himself.

Seth gawked at Aidan. “Not you too.”

“No, it’s not like that,” Aidan said with conviction. His brothers Venn and Ian had recently taken mates so he understood Seth’s reference, but his situation was entirely different. This woman was in danger because of his island.

Holding up both hands, Seth backed up a few steps. “Okay. I’ll watch the tree while you’re away. Just don’t be too long.”

Aidan nodded. “Gotcha.”

Seth raised a brow. “Gotcha? Really? You’ve been watching too many movies.”

Waving off Seth, Aidan asked the tree, “Custos, is there anything else you can tell me about Riam?”

A rustle of leaves and branches rippled through the tree as if Custos were searching for something deep within. “You already know all you need to know.”

* * *

Thirty minutes later, Aidan stood at the very spot where Rhianna had disappeared. He figured proximity may work in his favor. He wanted Theodora to think he was vulnerable and ripe for the picking.

Of course, he was. His emotions had become entangled with Rhianna somehow. He swallowed. What if he wasn’t good enough, strong enough, or smart enough to bring her back? What if Theodora figured out that Rhianna was his Achilles’ heel?

But first things first. He had to summon her. He didn’t know how she knew where to appear and when, but maybe that orb on her scepter was like a crystal ball that helped her find the right place at the right time.

He said her name ever so softly, almost seductively, hoping she would hear him. “Theodora.”

The ground and rocks shifted and churned, as if earth mover machinery was turning up the soil and trees in a continual motion. Theodora floated through the roiling mess, stopping in front of him.

“How can you help me?” she asked, a sneer of a smile pulling her lips to the side at her twist of words.

“Exactly,” Aidan said. “I have some information I’m willing to exchange for—”

“I’m not bringing her back,” she bit out.

“I’m not asking you to. I’m offering to go to your universe. You and I are not so different. We’re both confined to our own small spaces. Me, to my tree and island. You, to Riam.”

He was playing a game of poker right now, of course, and he had a good hand but not a perfect one. It was not an unbeatable hand; she could still best him. So he needed to be prepared to bluff really well.

Her eyes narrowed, suspicious. “Why? Why would you want to come with me?”

He shrugged. “I’ve been a Guardian for over eight hundred years. It’s time for a change. Like you, I want more. I want more excitement. More than sitting by the tree and watching the years pass.”

She smirked. “That pretty face got to you.”

He didn’t think the sorceress was capable of true feelings, but if she thought she could manipulate him, that might work in his favor. So he appealed to the instinct she would understand: greed.

“Perhaps,” he said.

“What’s in it for me?”

He lifted his chin and stared straight at her. “I have a secret of the Divine Tree I’m willing to share if you take me to Riam.”

She shifted her stance. He could tell she was going to take the bait.

“Give it to me now,” she purred.

He shook his head. “Oh no. I get there in one piece first.”

Instead of being insulted, she smiled. With a swirl of her scepter, a porthole opened. Next, she locked him in a bubble, and for a second, panic rose within him as he tested his prison. The more he pushed, the tighter the confines became, so he relaxed and went with it. He only had one chance to get this right.