“Sure.” She was so sweet, even when she didn’t want to be. He loved that 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 here all 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 of inevitability.
“What’s your plan now, Phoenix?” she asked, her voice holding a tone he couldn’t quite 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 a needle 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 walk with 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 going on?” 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 circles under 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,” she hissed. “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, which suddenly 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.”
It sucked that fate gave her visions but failed to add any context. It didn’t seem fair, but then life never really was.
“We’ve traced your activity for the past several years but can’t find what you were really doing,” she admitted. “I mean, you’ve managed to amass quite a fortune, and yet you’re not about money. I know that, Paxton. You also have hacked into many of the Realm’s computer systems and databases. Finally, your dossiers on the Seven and their mates and the three Keys are impressive.”
She looked at him squarely, still walking. “I could tell you’d compiled all of that data. Your fingerprints were all over it. We hacked into the files early this morning. You should know that.”
“I do,” he admitted. “I had safeguards in place that alerted me.”
“Why didn’t you wipe the files?”
He shrugged. “Who says I didn’t?”
The Realm computer experts were phenomenal, even better than he was. It had taken him a long time to figure out his strengths: he was a fighter, and he was a killer. He wasn’t a computer guru. Although he was pretty damn good.
She smiled. “I always thought that you would be a scientist, not some vigilante.”
He felt like a traitor. “I know. Me too.”
She turned back to watch the snow starting to fall in front of them, glancing at him sideways from time to time as if she wanted to see his face. “I also saw videos of the battles you undertook with the wolf shifters as well as the panthers down in Africa. You’re probably one of the fastest and most brutal fighters I’ve ever seen. You killed without hesitation or remorse.” She didn’t sound put off by his exploits. In fact, her tone had gone a little breathy.
Was she becoming chilled? He had to get her inside.
“I’d like to say I killed the bad guys,” he admitted. “But yeah, Hope, I didn’t go the way I thought either.”
There had never been a time he really wanted to study science, but he hadn’t had enough faith in himself to be an actual warrior or soldier. It had taken desperation and the prodding of his uncle’s cronies to make him into one. He didn’t like them, and he would probably kill them if he had the chance, but he was who he was because of them.
“Why don’t you take those skills and work for the Realm?” she asked softly.
He snorted. “After all this, you think the Realm will take me as a soldier?”
Her shoulders hunched. “No. But can’t you explain any of this? I mean, come on, Paxton, what is going on? The little that we know of the Defenders is that they want to prevent Ulric’s death. How can you want that?”
“No. They want to prevent the final ritual that is intended to kill Ulric. There’s something off about that ritual, and you know it, Hope. You know the Seven screwed up the laws of physics, and they changed this world. I should be able to teleport, and I can’t. Shifter kids are having psychic visions of things that happened long ago, and it’s screwing them up because they think those things are happening right now. Even the fairies can’t teleport to other worlds anymore.” He tightened his grip on her hand, needing her to understand. The crossword puzzle book felt heavy in his pocket as if in warning. “If we let the Seven actually perform the ritual in order to kill Ulric, we could destroy the entire world. All of the worlds.”
She was silent as they reached the rear of the main Realm headquarters building. “I have to trust that the Seven know what they’re doing.”
Pax shook his head. “That’s just stupid.”
Her eyes widened, and damn if she didn’t punch him in the throat. Hard.