Tempted

happened?”
    “They used me to trap you,” he said.
    “You wanted to trap me?” Her nausea was a little better, but Stevie Rae’s mind felt like it was working in slow motion.
    “No. What I wanted was to be left alone to heal and make my way back to my father. They gave me no choice.” He stood up, moving stiffly, bent at the waist because of the metal grate that made a low, false ceiling. “Move. You have little time. The sun is already rising.”
    Stevie Rae looked up at the sky and saw the soft pastels of pre-dawn that she used to think were so pretty. Now the lightening sky filled her with absolute terror. “Oh, Goddess! Help me get up.”
    Rephaim grabbed her hand and pulled her to her feet, where she stood unsteadily beside him, bent like he was. Drawing a deep breath, she raised her hands, gripped the cold metal of the grate, and pushed. It rattled a little, but didn’t really move.
    “How is it stuck up there?” she asked.
    “Chained. They hooked chains through the edges of the metal and then padlocked them to anything on the roof that couldn’t be pulled up.”
    Stevie Rae pushed against the grate again. Again it rattled, but held firm. She was trapped up on a roof and the sun was rising! Gathering all her strength, she pushed and pulled, gripping the metal and trying to slide it to one side so that maybe she could crawl through. With each second the sky got brighter. Stevie Rae’s skin shivered like a horse trying to twitch off a fly.
    “Break the metal,” Rephaim said urgently. “Your strength can do it.”
    “I might be able to if I was underground, or even standing on the earth,” she said between gasping breaths as she continued to struggle impotently against the caging metal. “But up here, a huge building away from my element, I’m just not strong enough.” She looked from the sky to his scarlet eyes. “You should probably stand back away from me. I’m gonna burn, and I don’t know how big the flames will be, but it could get pretty hot in here.”
    She watched Rephaim move away and, with a growing sense of hopelessness, went back to struggling with the immovable metal. Her fingers were starting to sizzle and Stevie Rae was biting her lip to keep from screaming and screaming and screaming . . .
    “Over here. The metal is rusted and thinner, weaker.”
    Stevie Rae pulled her hands down, automatically clutching them under her armpits and, bent backed, rushed to him. She saw the rusted metal and grabbed ahold of it with both hands, and then pulled with all her might. It gave a little, but her hands had started to smoke, as had her wrists.
    “Oh, Goddess!” she gasped. “I’m not gonna make it. Get back, Rephaim, I’m already startin’ to—”
    Instead of running from her, he moved as close to her as he could get, spreading his good wing so that it provided some shade. Then he raised his uninjured arm and took hold of the rusted grate. “Think of the earth. Concentrate. Do not think of the sun and the sky. Pull with me. Now!”
    In the shadow of his wing, Stevie Rae grabbed the grate on eitherside of his hand. She closed her eyes and ignored the burning of her fingers and the sensitivity of her skin that was screaming at her to run! Run anywhere, just get out of the sun! Instead she thought about the earth, cool and dark, waiting underneath her like a loving mama. Stevie Rae pulled.
    With a metallic snap the grate broke, leaving an opening just big enough for one person at a time to slip out of.
    Rephaim stepped back. “Go!” he said. “Quickly.”
    The instant Stevie Rae was no longer covered by his wing, her body flushed and, literally, began to smoke. Instinctively, she dropped to the floor and curled into a ball, trying to shield her face with her arms. “I can’t!” she cried, frozen with pain and panic. “I’ll burn up.”
    “You will burn if you stay here,” he said.
    Then he pulled himself up through the opening and was gone. He’d left her. Stevie Rae knew he was right. She had to get out of there, but she couldn’t push through the paralyzing fear. The pain was too much. It was like her blood was boiling in her body. Just when she thought she couldn’t bear it any longer, a small, cool shadow fell on her.
    “Take my hand!”
    Squinting against the cruel sun, Stevie Rae looked up. Rephaim was there, crouched on the grate, his good wing spread above her, blocking as much of the sun as possible, his uninjured arm reaching for her.
    “Now, Stevie