“Not yet.” Zane appeared relaxed, but it was a deceptive pose Hope knew well. Her father could leap into action in a millisecond. “How did it go with Pax?”
She didn’t have a read on that situation, either. “I’m sure you already know.” Besides the snipers, there had been cameras and microphones aimed her way, no doubt.
“I do, but you know him better than anybody else. What’s going on?”
She tilted her head. “I’m still trying to figure out why you let him go.” In her heart, she somehow still trusted Paxton even though she knew that was probably insane, but as the king of the demon nation, her father wasn’t one to take risks. “Do you trust him?”
“Absolutely not,” Zane said. “Neither should you.”
“So you’re running a con on him. He’s got information you need, and you didn’t think you could torture it out of him?” She tilted her head. “That’s interesting.”
Zane looked briefly away and then back at her. “There’s always been a steel core in Paxton Phoenix, so torturing him would take a lot of time. Anybody can be broken, Hope. You know that.” He shifted his weight. “But yeah, I didn’t want to be the one to do it. Pax would do anything for you. Well, except tell you the truth.”
She shook her head. “Things have gotten so crazy.”
“They usually do,” Zane said soberly. “I want you to stay away from Paxton, because things are about to become very difficult for him, and I don’t want you caught up in it.”
It figured her father had a plan. There was no way he’d just let Paxton loose. “What’s going on with him? I can’t put the pieces together.” She was thought of as a strategic genius, and yet the puzzle of Pax eluded her.
Zane stood and stalked like a lazy panther around the sofa, then pressed a kiss to the top of her head while pulling a knife from his back pocket to place in her hand. A new Kurjan-designed knife that could split in three and slice off a head. “Keep this with you on missions.”
She’d wanted one of those. “Thanks.” The metal chilled her palm.
“Paxton is no longer your problem, honey. You need to go back to your main mission with your squad...and put some ice on that arm.” Without waiting for an answer, he strode out the door. “Lock this behind me,” he called out.
She rolled her eyes and locked the door. There were more guards around her home than at an international airport. If her father thought she wasn’t going to figure out what Paxton was up to, he had lost his mind. One of two things was certain: either Pax had gone dark and she would be the one to take him down, or something had gone horribly wrong and she had to be the one to save him.
Either way, she was all in.
Paxton’s head was killing him. Whatever had been in those darts had been meant to take him out for longer than it had. He couldn’t believe the Queen of the Realm hadn’t yet identified the exact mix of the compounds, but he had no doubt she would figure it out eventually. Hopefully it wasn’t something that could actually harm Hope. She appeared more fragile than ever, which just pissed him off.
He’d kicked the soldiers out of his house and then sat in the dark for two hours after Hope had gotten her sweet butt off his beloved truck. He didn’t have much time left, and if he got this next move wrong, he’d never forgive himself.
So he forced himself to turn on the lights and start a crossword puzzle, hating every second of it. When his eyes had gone blurry, he casually moved the papers out of sight and began to write. Then he stood and swiped the papers into his pocket.
Finally, when he was sure there was nobody still lurking outside, he walked down the stairs, through the basement, and slid open a panel that revealed a door in the concrete. He made quick work of the keypad before moving inside to find his uncle and his dog, two of the three beings on this planet he actually cared about.
Santino looked up, his curly white eyebrows out of control, his faded blue eyes worried. “Pax, you’re okay.” He stood up and rushed forward to hug him, his head not quite reaching Paxton’s chin. “I was worried about you.”
“I’m fine. Nothing to worry about,” Paxton said. “There was an attack squad in Nuremberg. I think they were after Hope, not me, but I’m not sure.” He leaned down to pet his dog. The collie had been with him since he’d moved in with his uncle, and a healthy diet and a little bit of vampire blood once in a while kept him young. It was a pretty cool way to keep a dog. “Thank you for not eating the soldiers.” He scrunched the dog’s ears. Gibson yipped and then ran around in a circle and darted out the concrete door. There was a doggy door upstairs, and no doubt he needed to go outside. “Did you hear them coming?” Pax asked.
“I did,” Santino said. “So I just brought the dog in here and waited them out. When we built this place, we built it right. Neither king knows this underground lab is here. I’m so sorry about this disaster.”
“Time for apologies is over,” Paxton said, walking into the next room, which held a computer bank almost as good as the one the Realm had. He had made a deal for additional components since his other lab had been taken out by Hope, and those would be available to him within the next week or so.
Santino pulled a chair up to the banks of monitors. “Three more enhanced women have gone missing in Prague. I was going to send you there while you were in the area, but then the attack happened.”
“Do we have anybody on it?” Pax stared at the monitor.
“We’re going to feed the info to the Realm and let them take care of it. Our forces are, well, nonexistent.” Santino threw back his head and laughed, the sound strained.
Every muscle in Paxton’s body felt as if it was stretched too tight. He’d been headed down this path for too long, and he hadn’t found an off-ramp. His head was killing him.
The door on the opposite side of the room opened, and Henric Jones walked in, followed by Charles Fralep. Their homes were connected via the tunnel.
Paxton instantly felt the hair rise on the back of his neck. He didn’t know when and he didn’t know how, but he was taking off Henric’s head the first chance he got. The male was a hybrid who looked more like a vampire than a demon. He had brown hair, metallic eyes, and a broad body.
“I heard you had some trouble in Nuremberg,” Henric said.
“I took care of it,” Paxton said shortly. His time was running out. His fists clenched at the thought, and he quickly relaxed them. Control. It was all he had.
The vampire glared. “Good, because the time’s coming near for the ritual, and you know what you have to do.”
Paxton kept silent but ground his back teeth together.
Santino looked from one to the other, his jaw slack. “When we started the Defenders, I really thought we were doing something good.”
“We are,” Henric snapped. “We’re saving the fucking world. Don’t you think that’s something good?”
“I don’t think you’re going to be able to save yourself,” Paxton said quietly.