The Breaking

CHAPTER Thirty-One


Hailuoto, Finland

A few minutes earlier

There was an explosion, after which Cole thought he fell for an eternity. He’d traveled through Dryad bridges before, but those were jumps between cities, no more impressive than stepping from one room and landing in another. The trips had been more difficult after he acquired the broken, hungry tendrils that wrapped around his insides, but only in a dizzying, disoriented way. This was beyond any of that.

The bridge was wild and unfocused, filled with power that could only flow from one of nature’s opened arteries and set alight by raw human emotion. Plummeting through that was like being dropped down an elevator shaft. After a while, his brain didn’t expect his body to survive the impact of landing. Instead of slapping against terra firma, however, he reached the other side of the bridge and was spat into existence two feet above a patch of cold, desolate ground.

He hit the hard-packed dirt on his side, his arms jerking at an odd angle because of the spear he still gripped in both hands. The tug of thorns within his palms brought back his combat reflexes as well as recent memories of what was following him from Oklahoma. A fraction of a second after he rolled clear of the landing spot, the Full Blood impacted against the earth. The gargoyles hit the ground next, like wet blankets tossed out of a passing car. Before the creatures could flap into the air, Liam was shredding them and scattering their bodies. Once the others caught the scent of their decimated companions, they scraped their hooked talons against the ground and convulsed until they were able to get some air beneath them. The trip had been dizzying to human and flier alike, but Liam seemed energized by the voyage. He looked up, clear juices dripping from his claws, and let out a breath he might have been holding for the last thousand miles.

Cole gripped his spear as a harsh wind tore across his face. Tristan had told him they’d land on Finnish soil, but the sudden time difference was still jarring. The sky was colored with light purples and reds. The wind felt as if it had claws that tried to shred his skin off. That alone reminded him of dawn. Only mornings were that cruel.

“You’re not leaving this spot,” Cole promised the Full Blood.

Liam crouched down and roared loud enough for his voice to rip across the landscape in every direction. The grass beneath their feet was brittle and thin. In the pale colors reflected from the sky, every green blade seemed washed out and tired.

Hearing shrieks in the distance, Cole held his spear so the metallic end was pointed like a bayonet at the end of a soldier’s musket. He charged the Full Blood, unmindful of how badly the odds were stacked against him or how slim the chances that he would live to regret it. Liam’s eye caught light from the clear sky and shone it back at the Skinner in an excited gleam. When their bodies collided, it was accompanied by the revelry of dive-bombing gargoyles.

Cole’s weapon drilled into Liam’s chest, but was stopped by a steely, unmoving rib. The Full Blood splayed his arms out, reared his head back and howled at a moon that could still be seen in the early morning sky. When he was out of breath, he gripped Cole’s hand along with the spear and snarled, “That all you got?”

“Nope.”

Remembering his lesson, Cole didn’t bother looking over his shoulder or checking to see where the gargoyles might be. When he heard their cries clearly, he simply let go of the spear and jumped away. His chest hit the ground and he covered his head with both hands, as if expecting a bomb to go off. The fliers, attracted to the blood on Liam’s coat and claws, swooped down with their bodies outstretched so they could immediately sink their talons in.

The gargoyles clawed Liam’s arms, their excretion making it harder for him to move. In his haste to peel the creatures from his shoulder and back, he left the spear where it was. Cole seized the opportunity to grab the spear again and grind it within Liam’s torso until he could feel it slide against the Full Blood’s rib cage. After ripping one gargoyle away and cracking the stony crust that had begun to form on his upper arm, Liam clapped a hand over Cole’s face.

“All I gotta do is think it and I can put a human through the Breaking,” Liam snarled. “You can’t take that away from me or any of the others. The power we’ve soaked up tonight is part of us now. You may have stopped the flow, but you won’t be able to stop what we started.”

It took all of Cole’s strength along with some supernatural reserves, but he managed to grab Liam’s hand and pull it away from his face. But no matter how good it felt to gain less than an inch of breathing room, he knew he was only getting what the Full Blood gave to him.

“You . . . can’t break me,” he said. “I know you’ve tried but you just . . . can’t do it.”

“You’re going to tell me what I can do? You think you even know what I can’t do?”

Liam’s hand shifted within Cole’s grasp. The muscles beneath his skin swelled and expanded like boiling paste. Bones creaked and stretched until his fingers were things that could wrap around Cole’s head and grip it even tighter. Watching a shapeshifter’s body reform was one thing, but feeling the grisly mechanics at work was something that brought the Skinner closer to his prey than he’d thought possible. By the time calcified claws scraped behind Cole’s ears, he couldn’t decide whether to feel panic or awe.

“I don’t know where you dug up these bats,” Liam said in his guttural cockney brogue while slapping down the last gargoyle that had followed them through the bridge, “but they won’t be enough. And even if you kill me, the gears are already turnin’. The humans that don’t feel the Breaking will watch as the rest of the world is pulled over to our side of the fence . . . just the way it should be.” Pulling Cole closer, he moved his hand so he could see more of his reaction when he added, “God created his finest creatures in his image. Who’s to say the man upstairs don’t ’ave claws and a snout?”

Cole pulled in a breath while he had a chance. The coppery scent of blood filled his nose, but it wasn’t his. When Liam had grabbed the spear to remove it from his chest, the thorns must have ripped the Full Blood’s palm. Blood trickled from the werewolf’s hand thanks to a wound he probably didn’t notice. Cole took notice, however, as did the tendrils wrapped around his innards. Rather than fight the impulse that came next, he grabbed Liam’s wrist and sank his teeth into the minor wounds.

If he’d had fangs, he would have gotten much more than a trickle of Liam’s blood. He turned his head and wedged his canine teeth into the Full Blood’s palm as the wounds tried to close around him. The thirst wasn’t something his entire body craved, but the part that felt it most was determined to make the rest pay for being denied.

“Ain’t this a sight?” Liam mused while waving his free hand to keep the gargoyles at bay. His movements had become sluggish and were now accompanied by the dry crunch of stone being chipped or cracked. “I could smell the leech in you, but thought it was just from that shit you Skinners pump into yourselves. Gonna try to bite me now? That’s just precious.”

Cole had tasted more blood than he cared to admit. He’d tasted his own during fights both practiced and genuine. He’d tasted splashes of Nymar blood in Denver and even human blood in G7. Now he tasted the blood of a werewolf. It was sweet and alive, shifting into something that stung and burned as it went down.

“You’re feeding?” Liam gasped, finally noticing.

Although Cole could only feel the occasional drop on his lips, the tendrils were more than eager for more. He didn’t know how they were getting the blood, didn’t want to think about how they could be slicing into his digestive tract or poking into his throat so they could absorb what he drank. All he knew was that the pain of their clenching grasp was a constant thing, and when it faded, the absence was pure bliss.

Liam grabbed the back of Cole’s head with his other hand, the gargoyles still attached to him, sinking their talons in deeper and drawing tight against his body and limbs. “What is that? What are you doing?”

The same question had flashed through Cole’s mind when he felt the tickle deep in his throat as wet tendrils reached up like hungry, eager hands. When Liam pulled back, it was a cautious, tentative movement that drew the tendrils out far enough to make it feel like his intestines were being drawn out by a string. A crystalline eye shifted within the Full Blood’s skull as he tossed Cole aside, forcing the tendrils to snap back into him like juicy rubber bands.

“So Kawosa was right,” Liam growled as more gargoyles settled on his back. “The leeches truly have gotten a foothold into the Skinners. Perhaps we should have just left you to them.”

“You’re an arrogant bastard who doesn’t know when to run away.”

Struggling to stand up proudly while purposely leaving the gargoyles in place, Liam raised his chin and howled to the fading moon. That bellowing roar was still drifting across the Finnish landscape when he proclaimed, “Humans may have weathered the Black Plague, but that was nothing compared to what I’ve started! Even if you unleash your best weapons and set your finest machines upon us, you will only succeed in killing yourselves. Even these bats you’ve dredged up are useless!”

In the light of dawn, Cole could see the rocky shell forming around Liam’s body. Every move he made caused pieces of it to shatter and fall away. The gargoyles, either too focused or too ignorant to stop, quietly gnawed on him while continuing their attempts to grind him to a halt.

Before Liam grew tired of reveling in his dominion over lesser things, Cole dove for his spear and then stuck it into his abdomen after piercing the gargoyle that had attached itself there. Light blazed from over the Full Blood’s shoulders, illuminating Cole’s features. Wincing as the spearhead was driven deeper, Liam reached down to remove it. Unlike a few moments ago, he couldn’t take the weapon out so easily. Cole held on to the thorny grip with every ounce of strength at his disposal, and now that the tendrils had fed, he was stronger. He leaned against the weapon to push it between Liam’s grasping fingers.

The Full Blood tightened his grip until Cole’s hand felt like it was trapped within a vise. “You didn’t bring enough bats,” Liam said.

Gargoyles lay scattered on the ground like skins shed by a truckload of giant snakes.

“Don’t need them,” Cole said through gritted teeth.

Liam’s eyes widened, absorbing the sight of the Skinner before him as though witnessing the birth of a new species. The glow behind him shifted from brilliant white to green. “I can feel the humans nearby,” he wheezed. “Now . . . one of them feels me.”

The Breaking.

Even as Cole tried not to think about it, he swore he could hear the shocked cries of whatever random person was unlucky enough to receive the gift of Liam’s mental touch. Bones would snap, muscles would unravel, a Half Breed would be born. After that, a spot on the globe chosen for its relative calm would be dragged into the war.

Liam suddenly grunted and dropped to one knee. Cole could see the top of Paige’s head behind him. She swung her sickle again to cut the tendons behind Liam’s other knee with the same stroke she’d just used to sever the others. Knowing it wouldn’t take long for a Full Blood to recover, Cole pulled his spear back and drove it into Liam’s chest. Once again the fragment of the Blood Blade that had been melted into the spearhead’s metallic coating allowed it to puncture the werewolf’s hide, though it didn’t have the power inherent to the genuine Amriany artifact. Sacrificing quality for quantity, Cole stuck Liam again and again until he’d dug all the way down to a breastplate that felt more like the hull of a battleship.

Coughing up enough blood to make the tendrils inside of Cole shiver with anticipation, the Full Blood looked up at him and smiled. “You . . . don’t got what it takes to finish me, Skinner.”

Cole silenced him by jamming the spear through Liam’s throat. It went in easier than he’d thought, and emerged from the other side without making a mess. He grinned as he attempted to reshape the spearhead into something that could extend within the werewolf’s skull and pierce his brain. The smirk lasted until he realized the embedded portion of the weapon was coated in the metallic varnish that kept it from shifting so drastically. Realizing he was on borrowed time, Cole pulled the spear out.

Liam slumped over and grasped his throat. When the forked end of the spear came toward his neck again, the Full Blood batted it aside and swung at Cole’s face. Cole ducked under the claws, but just barely. Liam tried to slash him again, but his arm was restrained by the sickle blade that now snaked around his wrist like a meat hook.

Most of the Full Blood’s wounds had stopped bleeding. Not only did Liam have to contend with both Skinners, but the fluid the gargoyles had secreted was now hardening into stone on his body. Cole stuck both wooden ends of his spear into the Full Blood’s chest, focusing all of his will through his hands and into the weapon. The wood creaked in response, so he commanded it to snake within Liam’s chest to find the werewolf’s heart. First one tine scraped against solid bone and then the other hit a similar barrier. Even after he narrowed the wooden tendrils down to burrow deeper into Liam’s chest, he was unable to pierce his heart. The beast’s skeletal structure was moving to protect the thick, solid muscle that was strong and durable enough to fuel a force of nature through what some believed to be an eternity.

“He’s right, Cole,” Paige said while pulling Liam’s arm back. “We don’t have what we need to kill him.”

Peeling his eyes away from the point where he’d hit the Full Blood, Cole looked at a sight that he thought he’d never see. Liam was driven to his knees, silent. The werewolf’s powerful arms hung limply from his shoulders and his body twitched with every impact, internal and external, of the Skinners’ weapons. Still, the creature drew breath and the petulant spark in him refused to be dimmed. “We came too far to stop now!”

“The real Blood Blade could kill him, but this isn’t doing it. He’s slowed down for now, so we need to contain him with the gargoyles before we lose our chance.”

Clearly, the only thing holding Liam upright was the spear embedded in his chest. As sweat rolled down his twisted face, he glared at Cole with one crystalline eye as well as a bloody, partially formed orb at the bottom of the scarred pit of his right socket. Just as Cole’s pain allowed him to remain standing for this long, so too did Liam’s agony allow him to replace what was taken from him when Paige’s sickle had pierced his eye in Kansas City.

“Don’t feel bad, Skinner,” Liam wheezed. “This was never . . . your battle to lose.” When he pulled in another breath, it was even more labored than the last one.

Cole looked down to see some of the gargoyle fluid trickling down the Full Blood’s chest and entering the wound. He tried to pull the spear out but realized it was wedged in by a thin layer of rock that cracked like sandstone. The only reason he could move it at all was because the Full Blood’s healing process was slowed by the stone barrier forming inside him. When Cole jerked the spear from where it had been lodged, he made certain to do it in the most painful and messy way possible. Liam’s eye widened, his mouth opened, and his body fell.

“Keep hitting him, Paige,” he said. “This is the best chance we’ve ever had!”

As soon as Liam’s back hit the ground, she dropped her sickle blade into the gory pit in his chest. Cole dipped the metallic spearhead into some of the gargoyle fluids that had yet to solidify in Liam’s fur and waited for Paige to remove her sickle blade. Now that the gargoyle fluids coated the metallic end of his weapon, he gripped the spear in both hands and drove it straight down into Liam’s chest. A few seconds after the weapon had once again scraped against his breastbone, the Full Blood’s eye snapped open and he clawed at the ground. The gargoyle substance had formed a thicker layer that went deeper inside to hold muscle tissue back and prevent the wound from healing. Liam convulsed as his body responded to the toxic substance within him.

As soon as Cole withdrew the spear to reapply more of the stuff, Paige drove her sickle into the wound, placed her foot on the blunt end of the blade and stepped down on it to drive the metal-infused weapon in even farther. Tightening her grip with both hands, she leaned back and pulled the multiple shifting layers of the Full Blood’s muscle aside. Although Liam’s body struggled to heal or shift into another shape, the edges of the wound that had been petrified by the gargoyle fluid were too solid to respond to the werewolf’s desperate commands.

Cole gazed down at the gaping, horrific injury. After so many direct hits from weapons modified by the Blood Blade, a chipped, scraped, and ultimately cracked breastplate had been revealed. He looked into Liam’s eye, expecting to find fear. Instead, the Full Blood stared back at him with raw, unmerciful hate.

“Only . . . gets worse . . . from here,” Liam wheezed.

Unable to deny those words, Cole drove his weapon straight through the last bit of armor protecting the Full Blood’s heart. The spearhead stopped less than an inch past the layer of bone, Liam’s body becoming rigid, his claws sinking into the earth. Using every bit of muscle he’d built during Paige’s rigorous training sessions, as well as the jolt of power the tendrils in his body had given him, Cole forced the spear down still farther, until it drilled all the way out of Liam’s back.

The Full Blood’s mouth gaped open to allow his last breath to bellow outward like a curse dredged up from the deepest chasm of primordial bedrock. As bright as the fire in his eye might have been, Liam simply didn’t have anything left to back it up. More of the gargoyle substance dripped into the chest wound and was absorbed in the deeper layers of his body, to seal off even more layers of muscle and prevent vital arteries from resealing. He reached up to grab the spear and barely got his fingers to close before he lost his grip and the back of his head thumped against the ground.

Paige had to fight to retrieve her weapon but eventually pried it from the shifting layers of petrified muscle that had closed around the blade. She looked cautiously into Liam’s eye, nudged him with the sickle, and then dropped to one knee. When she stretched a hand out to his face, Cole said, “Be careful!”

Instead of touching the werewolf, she merely held her palm out to him. Slowly, the expression on her face shifted from battle-hardened intensity to disbelief. “He’s gone.” She looked up at Cole and jumped to her feet so she could grab his wrist. Holding his arm toward Liam, she said, “Feel for yourself, Cole!”

Cole’s scars were lukewarm but slowly cooling. “He’s dead?”

Paige nodded as a tired smile drifted onto her face. “We did it!”

Cole dropped his spear and wrapped both arms around her. She hopped up to wrap her legs around him and gleefully squirmed in his embrace. Before they could get too wrapped up in their celebration, however, Cole’s foot bumped against Liam’s arm. As soon as he looked down, the spell was broken.

“We have to find a way back home,” Paige said as she separated herself from him. “Tristan could barely get me here.”

Still looking down at Liam, Cole asked, “We’ve got to bring him with us, right? Do we need to . . . preserve him or anything?”

“I don’t know. First time I’ve ever killed one.” She smiled and shook her head. “I still can’t believe you pulled this off.”

“I know,” Cole sighed. “I’m pretty great.”

For the first and most likely only time, Paige didn’t say anything sarcastic in response. Instead, she started picking up the largest pieces of shredded gargoyle. “Let’s wrap him in this stuff and crack it open later. At least that way he won’t make such a mess during transport.”

Still reeling from what had just happened, Cole half expected the werewolf to sit up or laugh at them before bounding away. Whether that fear was real or just the product of too many Schwarzenegger movies, he was quick to lend a hand with the task Paige had assigned.

It wasn’t an easy job. Although there were plenty of gargoyle remains to be found, there were barely any in good enough shape to be of any use. Cole explained what Jessup had told him about the creatures as the two of them collected more bodies. They wrapped the partial gargoyle bodies around Liam and squeezed as much of the petrifying solution as they could from the tubes they’d collected. Once the gargoyles were in place and there was no more of the petrifying substance to be found, the Skinners had only to stand back and watch the magic shell harden.

Liam had shifted halfway between his upright werewolf form and human body. His fur was thick and his musculature thicker, giving him a primitive quality offset by the distinctly canine features of his face. His claws had the smooth texture of granite, while his coat, ears, and face looked more like clay that had been fired in a kiln for weeks on end.

Cole dropped to one knee and tapped the Full Blood’s snout, venturing so far as to slide his fingers along the points of Liam’s teeth. “What if he’s still alive?” he asked. “He survived KC.”

Placing her hands on her hips, Paige replied, “According to every animal expert or scientist out there, most of the things we fight shouldn’t even exist, so I don’t know how he survived KC. I’ve become an expert in dead things, though, and this thing’s definitely dead. All we need now is a ride back to the States.”

Cole reached into his pocket for his cell phone. When he tried to make a call, he cursed and shoved the device back into his pocket.

“Can’t get a signal?” she asked. “I told you not to keep splurging on those new ones before all the kinks are ironed out.”

“Okay, smartass. You try to call this number and ask for Tristan.” She punched in the number he gave, listened to the recording that followed, and calmly deactivated her phone. “Let me guess,” he said smugly. “No international calling plan?”

Paige nodded toward a pair of headlights that bounced through the tall, swaying grass. “Maybe we could use this guy’s phone.”

Following her line of sight, Cole picked out the headlights in the distance. The sound of the vehicle engine mingled with gusts of salty air brushing leisurely against the barren field. He closed his eyes, sampled the fragrances that had been carried in from the Gulf of Bothnia and smiled as he heard the distinctive creak of fur hardening into stone. After less than a minute the single live gargoyle flapped away from Liam’s shoulder and the others fell off like wet cloths sliding down a wall.

“I’ve read journal entries on gargoyles,” Paige said while bending down to take a closer look at one of the thin leathery bodies, “but never saw a real one. I thought they were wiped out.”

“So did Jessup. He said lots of things are getting flushed out from where they’ve been hiding. Gargoyles, Shunkaws, more Chupacabra. All sorts of good stuff like that.”

She shook her head and turned to watch the vehicle that ambled straight toward them. “It was bound to happen. Things had been balanced so precariously for so long that we got used to it being that way. Half Breeds sprouted up here and there and we hunted them down. Full Bloods were kept in check by thinking Nymar controlled the cities, and Nymar were kept in check by thinking we could enforce every law we laid down. Once Misonyk and Henry came along to upset that balance, it all crumbled.”

“We lived through this,” Cole pointed out. “That’s saying a lot.”

“We did more than live through it. We actually won. But the Breaking Moon hasn’t even fully risen yet,” she said while standing up and brushing off her hands. “What’s left in New Mexico?”

“Esteban is wrapped up but not dead. Randolph was wounded but he and Cecile got away.”

“You talk about her like she’s still the girl she pretends to be when she’s not covered in fur. That’s not smart,” Paige warned. “There’s a long way to go, and even though we’re short one Full Blood, the others are stronger than before.”

Since the sight of Liam’s petrified body had already lost its luster, Cole focused on Paige’s face. That was good enough for the moment.

The vehicle that had driven out to them was now arriving with the noisy rattle of an outdated engine. Cole allowed himself to catch his breath. He plastered on a friendly smile and returned the wave thrown at them by a skinny man with a round face who drove a strange little thing that looked like the front half of a compact car welded onto the flatbed of an old farmer’s truck.

“Hello?” the man said in a thick accent while climbing out of his vehicle. “You look like you are in trouble, yes?”

“You speak English?” Paige asked.

He nodded and squinted in the sunlight that had grown bright enough for him to kill his headlights. “Just a little. You are Americans?”

“Yeah,” Cole replied. “Does it show?”

“Oh yes, for certain. Americans come out to see the water and they like to wander. I saw the lights and heard the loud noises and knew more Americans were throwing a party. I come to tell you to stop. Now I see there is no party.”

“Not yet.”

Now that he didn’t have to run off a bunch of kids from his field, the man’s face creased into a tired smile. That faded when he got a look at the mess of shredded gargoyle bodies scattered around the petrified werewolf. “What . . . is this?” he asked.

“We’re artists,” Paige told him. “Sculptors.”

He leaned toward the werewolf, rubbed his chin and studied the roughly hewn rock while sniffing air that smelled of guano and bird guts.

Cole stepped on his spear to make sure it was hidden within the grass when he announced, “It’s called, ‘Beast Who Crawls Out to Sea.’ What do you think?”

“It is troubling. Will you be moving it?”

“Of course,” Paige said. “Just as soon as we can call some friends of ours. Do you think you could take us to a phone?”

“You have no phone?” the man asked. “Or car?”

“It was a beautiful night,” Cole said as he looked up at the sky. “The muse struck and we answered her call.”

“Ahh,” the man grumbled. “Artists. Come. I will take you to my lighthouse.”

“I’m Cole,” he said while extending a hand. “And this is Paige.”

“Vihtori,” the man replied while shaking Cole’s hand.

After collecting their weapons and quickly tucking them out of sight, Cole and Paige followed Vihtori back to his truck. Since the flatbed portion was barely large enough to hold a pair of duffel bags, Paige sat with her back against the cab, Cole with his legs dangling off the side and his hands locked onto the side of the vehicle.

“Should we leave him here?” Cole whispered as the man settled in behind his wheel.

“He should stay fresh for at least a week and maybe up to a few months. This is a first for me, so I’m kinda winging it here. All I know is that we need to get to a phone.” As the vehicle began trundling along, she asked, “So the whole gargoyle thing was your idea?”

“I didn’t find them, but yeah.”

“And Tristan?”

“She wanted to help and this is what she could do. She said there may be side effects with having to tap into the darker emotions, so we should probably keep an eye on her for a while. That was quite a jolt flying through a fear portal, huh? Lots of falling and tumbling through dark, empty space. Freaky.”

Paige’s trip across the Norwegian Sea had felt like she’d been tied to the back of an F-14. Screams filled her ears and there had been so much light that she wondered if she would be blind when she finally arrived at her destination. “Yeah. Freaky, but worth it.”

They watched each other without saying much of anything else for the remainder of their ride. Vihtori’s lighthouse was situated at the farthest edge of the field. Tall grass gave way to flat rock. The rustling of wind was soon overridden by the sound of water crashing against the shore. Cole’s pulse returned to something close to normal and hundreds of questions rolled through his head, but he kept his mouth shut. If one thing had become clear in his time as a Skinner, it was that he needed to enjoy the quiet moments when he could because they didn’t come around too often.

Hailuoto was much cooler than New Mexico and Oklahoma. Even though he’d never been to Finland before, there was something different in the air that made it clear he was far from where he’d started. The scents were different. The automobiles were different. The road was rougher. The fields were cleaner. Whatever it was, Cole liked it. Before he could settle into thoughts of early retirement, Vihtori turned onto a gravel road that led straight up to a silvery gray lighthouse. He parked the car/truck combo, hopped out and motioned for them to follow.

“If you make expensive call, I will know,” he warned. “I have food and water inside. Also, some bandages, yes?”

Cole was about to insist he was all right, but one glance down at himself was enough for him to realize he looked as if he’d been dropped from a plane and into a trash compactor. His clothes were ripped. His skin was dirty and scarred. He even smelled like war, which clung to the back of his nose as a mix of blood and fire. “Thank you,” he said. “I appreciate it.”

“Was there trouble?”

“No,” he said. “It was just a really rough night.”

Vihtori obviously didn’t believe him, but wasn’t suspicious enough to call the authorities. At least, that was his read on the man. If he did call the cops, Cole hoped the other man had the decency to let him sit down and have a glass of water first.

“We wrecked our car,” Paige said while climbing down. “We’re still fuzzy on the insurance, so . . . you know.”

Vihtori didn’t know, didn’t believe her or didn’t care. He unlocked the lighthouse and showed them to a room. “He will wait here,” he said to Cole. “She and I will go to a phone.”

“Sounds fair,” Paige replied.

Cole was left alone in a small room that had a few chairs, a beat-up little desk, and a black and white television set he would have sworn was just as extinct as a Brontosaurus. Sitting on that chair, listening to nothing other than the breeze and the waves, he felt better than he could have thought possible. He started drifting to sleep and snapped awake again when Paige came back.

“Feeling better?” she asked as he stood up and approached her.

He nodded and reached past her shoulder to shut the door. Remaining in his spot, he pressed his body against hers and looked down into Paige’s deep brown eyes.

“I talked to Jessup,” she said. “He said Cecile was gone but that he could track her. Can he really do that?”

Cole nodded.

“Esteban is still a statue. Randolph is in the wind and probably won’t come back to that place, since a couple tanks and a few gunships arrived to lock it down. Let’s just hope those guys are IRD. I’ve gotta call Adderson, but not until I can get to a safer . . . what are you doing?”

“Touching you,” Cole said as he ran one hand along the side of her face and the other against her hip. “It’s been a while since I was this close to you.”

“Yeah, but maybe this isn’t the best time.”

“I don’t care.”

“What was that?” she asked as her eyebrows perked up and she backed against the door. “Just because your blood’s running hot and you were locked up for a while, you think you can pull the whole macho hero thing on me?”

“Yeah. Pretty much.”

Paige meant to shoot something back at him, but was genuinely surprised when he kissed her. The moment their lips met, she embraced him and kissed him with as much aggression as she’d used to chop Minh or Liam down to size.

“I missed you, Paige.”

“Shut up. You’re spoiling the macho thing.”

Cole tugged at the straps holding the remains of her tactical vest in place and then pulled at the clothing underneath. When his hands finally found the smooth surface of her skin, he felt all his terror, hopelessness, and uncertainty drain away.

She smiled and unbuckled his pants with almost enough force to rip his belt in half. His hands continued to fumble with buttons and zippers before finally pulling her shirt open and working her jeans off her hips. She wriggled out of them and slid one leg up along his thigh. All he had to do from there was reach down to cup her backside in both hands and lift her when she hopped into his grasp. Paige’s legs wrapped around him and her shoulders knocked against the door. Their breaths were short and choppy until he finally entered her. Once he’d buried himself between her legs, both Skinners let out easy, relaxed sighs.

Cole stayed put for a few moments as everything else in his world faded away. It didn’t matter what country they were in, how they’d gotten there, or what remained for them to do. All he cared about was the smooth, familiar touch of her cheek resting against his and the miraculously gentle touch of Paige’s lips drifting along his neck. When he thrust into her, she sucked in a quick breath and held onto him tightly. There were no words to express how good it felt to be inside her again.

None were necessary.

“Pardon me, in there,” Vihtori said while tapping on the other side of the door.

Cole pushed all the way inside her and stopped. Judging by the faraway expression on her face, she wasn’t anywhere close to formulating an answer for their host. “Yeah?” he grunted. “What is it?”

“Someone called back for you. They say they are Meg somebody.”

Keeping her eyes closed, Paige started to laugh. It was barely a chuckle, but tensed her muscles in a way Cole could feel intimately. “Well?” she whispered while grinding her hips against him and digging her nails into his back. “Aren’t you going to answer him?”

“Okay to call them back?” he asked the door.

Judging by its voice, the door wasn’t happy. “They are on the phone now.”

Having laced her fingers behind his neck, Paige stared at him with a hungry, mischievous smile. Once again Cole’s entire world boiled down to one person. The tight curves of her bottom felt supremely perfect in his hands, and with just a little prompting, she pumped her hips as if riding him. Pressing his lips against hers in a hungry, desperate kiss, he pounded into her until her back thumped against the door. Paige leaned her head back and let out a long, contented moan.

“Artists,” Vihtori muttered before shuffling away.