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this was still in the house. Beth’s heart lurched against her ribcage and pounded in her ears. She turned for the door. Which one was closest! The front? No, the back. A cracker crunched under her heel as she sprinted to the exit.
    She didn’t make it to the door.

Chapter 6
Atrocious Adjustments
    A shudder shook Calum as he sucked a blast of hot air into his lungs. His eyes squinted against the sun; he planted his feet to the ground and scanned his surroundings. Heat blazed the crater–pitted terrain that stretched in every direction. Not a shred of colour broke the barren landscape. Sweat beaded instantly on his forehead, and his back began to itch under his woolen shirt. He pushed his sleeves up to his elbows.
    Where the hell was he?
    Not the Upper World. Not the Middle World. Every muscle tightened as he contemplated his surroundings.
    Had the trickster yanked him from Ashbury? Or had the Old Ones done it?
    Legions of guilt invaded his gut. He hung his head. His place in this world didn’t matter. He’d failed Bethia.
    A mounting inferno burned in his boots. A rising anxiety burned in his blood. A picture of the black satchel burned in his brain. His woman needed him.
    Yes, he’d interfered a wee bit with her will. Yes, Finn had warned against it. Yet when he’d spied the satchel on her table, the instrument of her destruction, he’d acted on the immediate urge to snatch it from her and be away with it.
    Little good he’d be to her now.
    By all that was holy, the sight of her in the flesh had aroused him fervently. He had wanted to lay her in the grass and have her there blanketed by nothing more than clear blue sky. He still retained the ache of wanting her, the images of her soft curves, her fresh, familiar, feminine scent. Instantly, he’d felt overwhelmed by a need to remind Bethia how splendorous it was to make love with a thousand–year bond between them that was pure rapture.
    The heat from his own breath felt cool passing over his lips. Before nightfall, he’d be roasted. If there was a nightfall. Bloody hell. Better use his mind while he still had one.
    Focusing his thoughts on Finn, he visualized the trickster and sang the calling chant.
    The air around him remained dead. No buzz of an insect, no twill of a bird, no rustle of a breeze. And no whoosh of the Alfar.
    Nothing moved. From this devastating dimension, could his plea even reach Finn?
    “You have the lasting power of a flea.”
    Calum started at the voice that sounded behind him. The tone cut like barbed wire. Every nerve tightened under his skin as he turned.
    Finn’s gaze swept the bleak landscape then landed on Calum. “Not so pretty, is it? Imagine an eternity here. At this moment, the Old Ones are considering exiling you from Seraphina.”
    Permanent exile? The sun’s oppressiveness increased tenfold. Heat drew the energy from his bones. He resisted the urge to yank his shirt off over his head and expose his skin to the blistering sun.
    “You broke their precious covenant by forcing your will upon Bethia. I did warn against it.”
    Force was too strong a word. For Bethia’s greater good, he’d asserted his will, but the Old Ones would be too stubborn to see it. Using his shirt sleeve, he sopped up sweat from his face. Finn appeared unaffected by the heat. Calum had yet to attain such detached composure. He’d yet to achieve a number of attributes, of aspirations, of ambitions. But Bethia had the potential of a life ahead of her. An unjust prison term would torture her spirit and take lifetimes to heal.
    “I beg one favour of you, Finn, if the Old Ones find me unworthy to protect Bethia, then watch over her in my stead. You must understand that she’s not like other women. That lass is a magnet for disaster like you’ve not seen.”
    Finn scoffed. “You’re not hopeless, I’ll give you that. Look around you, warrior, and be concerned for your soul. Formidable as you are, you will not suffer this world well. Most lose their