Kingdom of Ash

shield us from any who might try to return to
this world again.”
They emerged into their room, and a swipe
of Maeve’s hand had the portal fading.
“Quickly now,” she ordered him. “We depart.
The wyvern awaits.”
Dorian halted in the middle of the
chamber. “Don’t you think it’s rude to leave
without a note?”
Maeve twisted toward him, but too late.
Too damn late, as the claws she’d hooked
into his mind became mired in it. As flame,
white-hot and sizzling, closed upon the piece
of her she’d unwittingly laid bare in trying to
trap him.
A trap within a trap. One he had formed
from the moment he’d seen her. It had been a
simple trick. To shift his mind, as if he were
shifting his body. To make her see one thing
when she glimpsed inside it.