“What do you want, Paxton?” she demanded.
“I want to know why you look exhausted and your arm still is in a cast.” He didn’t like that there was only one arm showing; the other one must have been against her body. He could smell the plaster, actual plaster, like for a human fracture. “You should take blood andjust heal it.”
“That concoction is still in my blood,” she admitted. “I dropped by Emma’s lab first thingthis morning.”
He took in the dark circles beneath her stunning eyes. Eyes shouldn’t be violet, but hers were. “You look tired.”
“Gee, thanks.” She turned to walk toward Realm headquarters.
“Let’s go by the lake.” He captured her hand and felt the snipers settle into firing positions.
She looked down at his hand enfolding hers over the mitten. “Whatare you doing?”
“We used to hold handsall the time.”
She sighed and tugged a small photo album from her bag. “This is yours. We found it when searching the stuff in storage that your father left behind.” She handed over athin blue book.
He stilled, then opened it to see a picture of his mother smiling at the camera with him on her lap. She’d been so beautiful. As a pure demon, she had white hair and black eyes, and she held him as if he mattered, tucking him close. There were three photos of the two of them, and she’d titled them: Our New Life, On to an Adventure, and The Two of Us. Pax’s heart ached.
Hope tightened her hold on his hand. “She loved you. A lot.”
“New Life?” Was it possible she’d been trying to leave the asshole? Maybe. Pax wondered what might’ve been. A hard rock in his gut started to unfold. He hadn’t even realized it was there. Leave it to Hope to help him, even when she was angry with him. “Thank you for this.” He secured the little book in his back pocket.
“Sure.” She was so sweet, even when she didn’t want to be. He lovedthat about her.
He started walking, heading around the building toward the long sidewalk that ran the length of the lake. “Come on, we used to walk hereall the time.”
She fell into step with him, surprisingly not yanking her hand away. It felt good to be connected to her. Sorrow hit him, and then fury. He would miss this. His body had been aroused around her since he’d become a teenager, so that wasn’t new. Neither was the feeling ofinevitability.
“What’s your plan now, Phoenix?” she asked, her voice holding a tone he couldn’tquite identify.
There was nothing wrong with going with the truth. Well, most of the truth. “I want to get my blood tested, and I figure nobody will shoot me if you walk into headquarters with me,” he admitted. “I need to know if the drugs are still in my blood, and Emma didn’t come chasing me with aneedle today.”
“Emma’s busy.” They walked in silence for a little while with the wind stinging their cheeks. Whitecaps rose on the lake, but with the bright blue sky, the area was stunningly beautiful. Somewhere in the distance, Christmas music lifted sweet notes into the sky. For the briefest of moments, he could pretend he was a normal soldier out for a walkwith his girl.
With the only girl he’d ever love. That was for sure. Even if he managed to live past the next week, which was highly doubtful, there would never be anyone but Hope Kayrs-Kyllwood for him. Whether she knew it or not, she lived in his heart and always would.
“Are you going to tell me what’s really goingon?” she asked.
He thought about it. He couldn’t. For a moment his vision wavered, and he caught himself. What was that? “We really do need to figure out what was in those darts,” he said. Whatever it was, it was messing with his head even worse than his head was normally messed with. If she only knew what he was dealing with. Well, she’d probably be furious, but she had every right to be.
“I had several nightmares last night,” she said. “And then couldn’t fall back to sleep.” So that explained the dark circlesunder her eyes.
He stiffened. Her nightmares should not be ignored. “Tell me about the dreams,” he said.
“No.”
He tightened his hold on her hand. “Tell me about the dreams, Hope. Now.”
“Fine,” shehissed. “Man.”
There was a time she would’ve told him automatically when she had a bad dream, before he’d been gone for the last year. He missed those times when communication was so free-flowing between them. When she came to him if she had a problem. He rubbed his free hand over his chest, whichsuddenly hurt.
“I dreamed about missiles and fire and blood and death,” she said slowly, her voice barely loud enough to be heard.
He stiffened. “Here?”
“I couldn’t see a location,” she whispered. “I still reported the dreams to my dad and Uncle Dage, but I don’t know. It could have been a battle from years ago, Paxton, or it could be an attack coming for us tomorrow.”
