She blinked away the messed up thought and focused on him. He seemed so real, so solid, yet he wasn’t possible. He didn’t fit with anything she knew of as reality, and she recognized that even if she didn’t know why she felt she recognized him.
“I’m pretty far from religious, yet my question wasn’t about me.” His lips curled in an almost smile and he cupped her face. “What if I told you that you were mine? That, once upon a time, you knew me and I knew you?”
“Oh, in the biblical sense, you mean?” Moving closer to him, she dragged her face up his chest, breathing deep the warm cookie scent which seemed to radiate off him. “That I could believe.”
“Being near you is driving me to distraction.” His voice was little more than a growl, and it pleased her—flattered her—that this beautiful man was so interested in her. That he might feel what she was feeling.
Biting his chest, she then backed up enough to meet his red gaze. “Likewise.”
With a groan, he twisted, slamming her into the wall and trapping her hands. She should’ve been scared, but she wasn’t. If anything, his aggressiveness only turned her on more. “Answers. I need answers and I need them fast.”
She remembered Cammie, and she hadn’t found signal. She might want to simply forget her friends and explore this mysterious man, but she had a responsibility to them. If they couldn’t call for help, they’d have to rig up a way to get Cammie out of this place. Dawn would break soon, so the clock was ticking.
“The Bible,” he began again. “Tells a story of a woman named Mary who was filled with seven demons. One of the demons was so famous, a whole city was named after her. Magdala, so dark she earned her demonhood from the Big Bad. That demon, she was my mate. My intended. My all.”
She blinked at him. He was so beautiful, it almost made her eyes ache and it certainly made her body throb. Too bad he was bonkers.
“You’re suggesting that I’m her. I’m this demon,” she sputtered. Although being this dude’s mate would be wonderful, it seemed a stretch that she’d be some evil creature from the very bowels of hell itself and not remember it. Not to mention…
“I work at a gas station,” she admitted. “I’m pretty damned ordinary. I admit it, I’ve jaywalked. I’ve speeded in my car. I’ve even been an ass and not called home for the holidays, but I think I’m still a pretty good way from being evil enough to be a demon. And if I was a demon, I’m pretty sure I’d have more interesting things to do with my day than work at, again I mention, a gas station.”
Madeline hadn’t even noticed that he’d cloaked the room in some kind of magic again, changing it from ruins to something more majestic, but she did notice when the illusion seemed to shatter into sparkling glitter to fall around them and vanish.
“You are her. I recognize you.” His fingers tightened on her wrists, but instead of being sexy, it kind of pissed her off.
“Get lost, ghost boy or whatever you are. I need to help my friends.” With that, she shook free of him. Even if he appeared larger and stronger than her, she found it wasn’t hard to break away. Jogging down the hall, she was surprised to find herself almost mourning the loss, which was ridiculous.
She’d just met him. He wasn’t anything, probably nothing more than a hallucination her mind would forget as easily as it did any other dream. There was nothing to be sad about and it wasn’t like she’d actually discarded something real. He was pretend, not real, an idiotic fantasy.
So why was she blinking back tears for rejecting him and what he’d offered?
*
Getting back out of the mansion proved a much slower and more cumbersome task than hiking the short distance from the car to the building had been on their way in. They managed to carry Cammie out, between the three of them, but the jostling journey wasn’t fun for anyone and doors kept slamming and things being hurled at them as if the ghosts weren’t willing to give up their playthings. Madeline encouraged the others, who were terrified, and they managed to make it, nonetheless, although they were all shaken by the experience.
Madeline more than the others, although they praised her for keeping her cool. The man… there was something about him. No matter how much she tried to convince herself she’d imagined the whole thing, he seemed so real.