“No,” I blurt. “I mean, I have. I just... I think we should be sure.” And I’m not sure of anything anymore. I’ve dreamed about this moment for years. But my dreams haven’t only been mine, my instincts haven’t only been mine. I’m not even sure my choices are my own. What if they’re not hers, either? What if—
“Open your eyes, Jack.”
My breath shudders out of me. When I open my eyes, she rests her forehead against mine, and her softly spoken words silence everything else. “This is what I want.” She presses a delicate kiss to my lips. Then another. Bolder. The same reassuring kiss she gave me before we started the storm early this morning. And this time, I give in.
My arms slide around her waist. Her mouth is warm, and the soft brush of her tongue sets my blood on fire. She backs me slowly against the wall. My nails dig into the thin towel around her hips as she slips her hands inside my shirt and pushes it over my shoulders.
My hand stills over the knot in her towel.
Her hand closes gently over mine, tugging it free. The towel falls down her hips to the floor. There’s a quiver in her breath and her eyes are wide on mine.
“We’re okay?” I ask, searching them.
“We’re okay,” she says, a little breathless.
I let her lead, careful and slow as I sink down with her onto the bed. I keep my eyes open, pushing everyone and everything else from my mind, because I don’t want to be anywhere else. Don’t want to share this moment with anyone but her. For the first time, in all my lives, I finally feel like I’m home.
39
The Lion’s Heart
JACK
A phone rings and I lurch awake.
The motel room is dimly lit, hazy sunlight filtering around the heavy curtains. Fleur stirs, burrowing deeper under the blankets and curling into my side when the phone rings again, shrill and insistent. It must be Amber. She’s probably anxious to get going. But Fleur’s breath is warm in the space between my shoulders, her soft legs tangled around mine, and I don’t want to leave. The phone rings a third time. I slip out of her arms with a muttered curse, groping for the receiver.
I rub my eyes. “Hello?”
“Jack.”
Lyon.
I sit up, the tousled sheets pooling around me. Fleur snuggles closer in her sleep. I grip the phone and swing my legs off the side of the bed. We were careful. We were so careful. How did he know we were here?
“What do you want?” I ask quietly.
“I know you’re resting. I won’t keep you long.”
“Who else knows we’re here?”
“No one, I hope.” He sounds sincere, if not convinced. “Chronos’s Guard has been greatly diminished. Only a handful of them remain in the region. Most of the others were sent back through the ley lines during your storm.”
“How many people were hurt?” We didn’t put on the news. Didn’t listen to the damage reports on the radio as we left the scene of the storm, all of us remembering Marie’s speech at Croatan Beach when Hunter died and she ordered us not to feel guilty about it. We did what we had to do to survive, same as before, but that doesn’t mean we didn’t wreck ourselves the whole way here thinking about it.
Lyon’s answer feels filtered, carefully watered-down. “Sometimes collateral damage is inevitable.”
I push the images of the tornado from my mind. We never intended to kill anyone when we started down this road. I’m not sure I can say the same about Lyon. “Where are you?”
“Not as close as I would like to be. I’ve lost contact with Gaia. I’m concerned she may have fled the Observatory. If so, you may not hear from me again.” I should be relieved. Grateful, even. But I can’t shake the feeling that I’m being abandoned. “Jack,” he says solemnly, “when all seems lost, when you and Fleur have traveled this road as far as you can alone, remember: You already possess all you need to survive this journey. Yours is the heart of a lion, and in it I’ve seen immeasurable courage.”
“How long?” I ask through gritted teeth. “How long have you been seeing inside my heart?”
Lyon’s silence tells me everything I need to know. I’m not sure which stings worse—that single truth, that he’s been manipulating me from the beginning, or that every affection he showed me was based on a lie. “Since the first time I found you,” he confesses, “hiding in the catacombs under the Winter wing, searching for a way out.”
I grip the receiver. “Hiding and running don’t exactly reek of courage.”
“It’s natural to feel afraid, Jack. Fear of death doesn’t make you any less of a man. If anything, it makes you more of one.”
