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black mist, and the next, tiny shreds of an oily substance were dripping off the nearby stalagmites.
    She barely had time to admire the stunning results of her curse when Uriel was scooping her off her feet and tossing her over his shoulder.
    “Hey . . .” Her head bounced against the hard muscles of his back as he leaped over pools of boiling lava and hurried toward the side of the cavern. “Stop. Put me down.”
    He ignored her protests, ducking through a hidden opening into another cavern. This one similar to the previous one, but with enough differences to comfort her with the thought they weren’t going in endless circles.
    Not that she had much of a chance to admire the passing scenery.
    Uriel charged from one cavern to the next, not halting until she began to pummel his back with small fists. Swaying upside down was making her queasy.
    “Dammit, I told you to put me down,” she rasped.
    Muttering his opinion of women who didn’t have the sense of a Flandra demon, Uriel set her onto a path that ran between two sheer cliffs. Kata refused to peer over the edge. She didn’t want to know if there was a bottom far below. Or what might be lurking down there.
    Things were bad enough.
    Uriel seemed to agree.
    “Satisfied?” he demanded, his gaze never straying from her pale face.
    She licked her dry lips. “Maybe we should split up.”
    He blinked, studying her as if she’d grown a second head.
    “Split up?”
    “You know, you go one way and I go another.” She waved her hand. “It’s a fairly simple concept.”
    “I understand the concept,” he growled, “I just don’t understand why you would be so idiotic as to suggest it. You wouldn’t last five minutes without my protection.”
    It was true.
    Although her curse had worked against the phantom, she wouldn’t be able to conjure another one until she’d had a chance to rest. And she very much doubted that phantoms were the only nasties that were waiting to crawl out of the shadows.
    But she’d been stripped of her pride and dignity by Marika. She wasn’t going to let it happen again.
    She wasn’t this vampire’s charity case.
    “What does it matter to you?”
    “I think the better question is why you’re trying to get rid of me?” He narrowed his eyes in suspicion, his face bathed in the reddish glow that filled the cavern. He should have appeared . . . frightening, even sinister, standing there with his big sword and flashing fangs. Instead his male beauty was so ethereal it made her heart ache. “Do you and Yannah have a gateway hidden to escape through once you’ve managed to get rid of me?”
    She clenched her hands. Beautiful or not, she wanted to punch him in the nose.
    She was trying to do this for him, the jerk.
    “Yes, this is all some elaborate trap that I invented with Yannah just on the off chance an annoying vampire was forced to come to my rescue,” she mocked. “Ingenious, is it not?”
    “The trap wasn’t meant for me, it was meant for Laylah.”
    Kata sucked in a shocked breath, raw fury racing through her at the unjust accusation.
    She’d endured endless years of being held captive and unbearable torture to protect her daughter. And she would endure centuries more if necessary.
    “You bastard.” Without thought she launched herself toward the aggravating vampire, wildly pounding her fists on his solid chest. “I have sacrificed everything to keep my daughter safe. Everything.”
    Uriel hastily sheathed his sword, wrapping his arms around her trembling body and pulling her close.
    “Easy, Kata.”
    She tilted back her head to stab him with a warning glare. “Don’t ever say I would try to harm her again.”
    “Fine.” He lifted a hand to gently smooth her hair from her face, his expression guarded. “If this isn’t a trap, then why are you trying to get rid of me?”
    “Maybe I don’t like you,” she muttered.
    His eyes flared with a heat that could rival the lava that spilled over the cliff just a few feet