Golden Stair by Jennifer Blackstream Page B

do.”
     
    Stiffness seized Adonis’ shoulders. “I know—your mother told you,” he said tersely.
     
    Ivy flinched, but Adonis didn’t apologize. For whatever reason, and he saw no reason to dwell on that now, Ivy’s words stung. Incubi as a race suffered from a horrible reputation fed by jealous husbands and guilt-ridden women, and he was used to it. That didn’t mean he wanted to hear that garbage from her.
     
    He half expected Ivy to defend her mother, but she just cleared her throat.
     
    “Are you telling me that incubi travel through mirrors to get into their lovers’ bedrooms?”
     
    “Yes. And if you trust me, I’ll help you to use the mirror to travel to the astral plane.”
     
    Ivy toyed with the edge of her robe, squeezing the soft white cotton between her fingers. “The astral plane? But…I can’t. Humans can’t travel to the astral plane.”
     
    Adonis shoved a hand through his hair. Another pearl of wisdom from Mother, no doubt. “First of all, yes they can. Any creature with a spirit can project that spirit to the astral plane, it just takes knowledge and in some cases, guidance. Second of all…you’re not human.”
     
    “Yes, I am,” Ivy insisted. “I know I seem otherwise because of the—”
     
    “Intense solar energy that courses through your veins?”
     
    “Magic,” Ivy finished with a frown. “My mother is a witch. I inherited some of her magic, that’s all. She’s much more powerful than I am.”
     
    “I doubt it,” Adonis said dryly. “And I know an elemental when I see one. You’re too solid to be a pureblood elemental, but believe me when I say that someone in your family tree lives in a beam of sunlight.” He raised a hand, halting Ivy’s protest. “But let’s not argue about that right now. You want to see the world, but you don’t want to leave the tower. I’m going to help you.”
     
    Ivy allowed him to take her hands. Adonis held the mirror up in front of her and propped the painting next to it.
     
    “Look at the painting. Soak up the emotion of the landscape, feel my yearning to go back. Then look into the mirror and imagine you can see the landscape. Focus on it, concentrate. Lean into the mirror and feel yourself falling through.”
     
    “I won’t fit through that mirror,” Ivy protested.
     
    “Well then it’s a good thing you’re just projecting your spirit, isn’t it? Now focus, concentrate.” Adonis talked on and on, keeping his voice soothing and low. Ivy’s eyes drifted closed, her body swaying toward the mirror. Energy trickled between her flesh and the shining silver surface as her spirit flowed into the mirror.
     
    Adonis’ heart twisted in his chest, a stab of pain so sharp and unexpected that it took his breath away. He turned the mirror to watch Ivy’s form appear on the image of the astral plane in the reflection. Oh, how he wanted to follow her. He wanted to breathe the air of his homeland, to feel the energy unique to the plane of his birth. Before he’d possessed the dying prince’s body, he’d truly had no idea what it would mean to be bound to a physical form. It was so…limiting.
     
    Adonis gritted his teeth and turned his cheek from the mirror. He’d been young and far too cocky when he’d accepted Aphrodite’s offer. No doubt the goddess had known that and that’s why she’d chosen him. He’d heard the goddess’ tale of the king and queen’s plight and agreed without a second thought. He hadn’t thought of what it would mean for an astral being to maintain a physical form. What it would mean to possess the dying prince’s body and then stay there, bound by the energy needs that came with maintaining that connection.
     
    The astral plane was nothing but energy, easily manipulated by its inhabitants. For him to work magic here, on the physical plane, took so much effort, so much energy, that he very nearly had to take a woman to bed within hours of any strenuous magic.
     
    It wasn’t a bad life.