Leni shrieked, then dissolved into a fit of giggles as he took her down to the ground beneath him. With a battle cry, Riley piled on too, his own laughter joining hers and Knox’s.
Leni clung to the normalcy of it all. To the perfectness of a mundane morning spent with the two people who mattered most in her life.
She clung to Knox, and to the promise she felt through their bond that somehow, no matter what, they were going to find their way through whatever waited for them on the other side of tonight.
CHAPTER 24
Leni dozed beside him on the large sectional sofa in the great room, her head resting against his shoulder. Her fingers had been twined with his since they sat down a couple hours ago, as if she couldn’t bear to let go of him even in sleep.
Not that he was going to complain.
Leni’s presence brought him more peace than he’d ever dreamed he might know, and he was in no rush to let any part of their perfect day slip from his grasp.
“She’s missing the best part,” Riley whispered from the other side of Knox on the sofa.
The boy held a bowl of popcorn in his lap, his eyes glued to the superhero movie playing on the big screen TV above the fireplace.
The flames had begun to die down, but getting up to tend them meant disturbing Leni and Knox was more than content to let her relax against him for a while longer.
Forever, he thought, tilting his head to glance at the beauty of her freckle-sprinkled face as she slept.
Knox couldn’t keep his gaze from drifting to the tall grandfather clock that stood in the corner of the room. Night fell early this far north and this deep into winter. It had been nearly three hours since the sun set, which meant the team from the Order’s Boston command center was already en route. By now, they couldn’t be more than a few more hours away from the safe house.
He had avoided thinking about that for most of the day. As the time drew nearer, he could focus on little else.
As he stroked Leni’s arm, his preternatural senses picked up the low rumble of a vehicle’s engine somewhere outside. He shifted on the sofa, suspicion crackling through his veins even before the glow of twin high-beams sliced through the darkness.
A large SUV approached on the drive.
The headlights loomed closer, blindingly bright, as the dark vehicle rolled toward the house. “Wake up, baby.”
Leni moaned quietly, her head lifting off his shoulder. “Someone’s here? Is it the Order so soon?”
“No.” Gently, but firmly, he moved her off him. “It’s too early to be the Order. Stay put.”
She sat up at once, reaching for the remote to silence the movie. When Riley protested, she hushed him, asking him to be quiet for a minute. “Someone must’ve gotten lost on the roads, kiddo. Knox will handle it, and then we’ll go back to the movie, okay?”
But it wasn’t a lost driver.
Knox knew it, and so did she. He felt Leni’s trepidation—her bone-deep fear—as he walked toward the front door prepared to dispatch whoever had managed to find them from Parrish Falls.
Even if it meant using lethal means.
The vehicle’s engine idled just outside, those glaring lights shining into the great room through the front window, illuminating Leni’s anxious face.
Knox reached for the latch on the heavy front door.
His fingers hadn’t closed around it before the entire entrance exploded inward, the door blasted open by a force that knocked him backward off his feet.
A massive figure stepped inside, moving swiftly and certainly straight for Leni and Riley.
They didn’t see the Breed male.
He moved with inhuman speed, no more than a flash of dark, deadly motion.
But Knox saw him.
He saw enough to realize this was a Gen One like him. A fellow Hunter.
