Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 116263 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 581(@200wpm)___ 465(@250wpm)___ 388(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 116263 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 581(@200wpm)___ 465(@250wpm)___ 388(@300wpm)
It wasn’t a question.
Pax’s nod was clipped. “Yeah, they’re going to come for us.”
“Thank you.” It was out, hanging in the turbulence that rippled between us.
He didn’t respond to it; instead, he reached and squeezed my hand, something close to pain in his voice. “You should try to get some rest.”
I wavered, and his hold tightened. “Everyone will already be in Faydor, so you won’t have to explain anything to our family. Go. Rest. I’ll be here when you wake.”
I ran my hand up my arm, trying to chase away the thick dread that had settled into my marrow.
The consequence of what we’d done. While the other part of me rejoiced.
Unable to process that he’d come.
That he was there.
For the first time, I was next to the man whom I’d only imagined I could be with this way.
Real and alive and awake.
But that joy was short-lived. Because somewhere deep inside, I knew what it was going to cost.
Chapter Eighteen
Aria
I jostled awake when the car shook over a new terrain, to the wisping shadows that came with the earliest hour of the day. The horizon hinting the barest gray.
I blinked to try to orient myself. To catch up to where I was and what had happened, although the events of last night would be impossible to forget.
The tires ground over the dirt lot of an old motel, and Pax quickly pulled his car around in front of a single glass door stamped with the words Motel Registration. He came to a stop, the engine still purring while the jagged beats of his heart filled the cab.
A silent thunder that reverberated the space and pounded through my bloodstream.
“Where are we?” I mumbled as I sat forward, fighting for full coherency.
“We just passed the Pennsylvania state line. We’re in some blip of a town. Hoping no one will recognize us here.”
I looked out the window at the motel. It was as if it hailed from another time. It was a single-story building, painted blue, with a sign out front flashing Vacancy in a jaundiced light.
His hard gaze scanned, searching the area before he put the car into park but left it idling. “Stay here and lock the doors. Don’t open them until I come back.”
I nodded. “Okay.”
He hopped out, attention roving again, searching the shadows before he dipped through the entrance.
Unbuckling, I sat on the edge of the seat so I could better watch my surroundings.
Vigilance was the only thing that was going to save us, if that was even possible at all.
Five minutes passed before Pax came back out. He strode toward the car. There was no tearing my eyes from him as he wound around the front.
My heart panged with the forbidden love I’d always had for him, and my stomach twisted in the tiniest quiver of fear.
He was different here.
Of course he was. No doubt, I was different to him, too.
There was an unease that pulled between us, strangers drifting in that familiarity that would bind us for all our lives. A familiarity we were never meant to experience here.
He opened the door and slid back into the driver’s seat.
His movements were stealthy and smooth.
The man was tall, his body lean, though I could almost feel the sinewy muscle bristle with strength beneath his clothes. Could sense the darkness that edged him in sharp severity.
Another shiver rolled down my spine.
There was something about him that was almost menacing.
Predatory.
Again, I was struck by how I felt like I recognized him all the way down to his soul but knew so little about him here. The glimpses into our everyday lives were shallow. Scraps we’d thrown together to form a patchwork picture of who we were while awake. Which I knew was how he’d found me, likely from when we were young, when we’d spent time in the safety of Tearsith. Playing and talking before everything had changed the night Pax had first descended into Faydor.
He put the car in Drive and wound around the side of the building. There was a long row of doors, the entire length fronted by angled parking spots. He slipped into the one in front of Room 12.
He shut off the engine.
“Wait right there.”
He was out and around to my side in a blink, and he helped me out into the freezing cold. Dampness still saturated my clothes, my feet bare, and I felt him wince as he quickly ushered me to the door.
Metal scraped as he slid the old-style key into the lock, and once it gave, he reached in to flip on the light. He slunk inside, and I realized he had the gun drawn as he wove through the room, hugging the walls, checking every corner and niche.
I gulped.
Terrified it might be possible that the fiends had already found us here.
“It’s clear,” he rumbled.