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)
“Fuck,” Timothy spat beneath his breath. Worry lined his face as he stepped closer. “What happened?”
“I took care of it.” Pax lifted his chin, and Aria was sure there was no mistaking what that meant.
Dani choked a quiet sound of horror, and she hung on tighter to Aria, as if her touch could act as a shield and stop anyone else from getting to her. “Are you okay?”
Aria attempted to tamp down the emotion. It was both fear and joy that she felt, this gift a blessing and her biggest curse.
Likely her demise.
But it was what she’d been given.
“I am for now.”
She wouldn’t keep the truth from her friend. The truth that neither she nor Pax knew how long they could stay out ahead of. How far they could run.
Pax hovered beside her. A quivering, violent fortress.
A shield.
Both here and awake.
“Did anyone else find anything while you hunted?” Pax asked, his attention flitting between Timothy and Dani.
Bleakness filled Dani’s features. “No, none of our family heard it last night.”
Disappointment blew through Pax.
Timothy visibly warred; then his voice came out as grit when he spoke. “Let me come to you while awake. Maybe I can help.”
Surprise and gratitude filled Aria’s heart. Apparently, with his concern for her, he was also willing to take the chance of coming together.
“You know I can’t ask that of you,” she whispered.
“You’re our family,” he argued, his demeanor urgent as he angled his head.
An offering.
Supplication.
“I can’t stand aside and know someone is coming for you.”
Alarm pushed Pax forward a step. “Don’t do something foolish, Timothy. You know you can’t put yourself on the line like that.”
Disbelief puffed from Timothy’s nose. “Don’t do something foolish? Like you going for Aria? Like you taking care of some monster in the day? You are our family.”
Aria reached out, shaking as she took his hand. “You are my family. In my heart and my spirit.” She reached for Dani’s hand with her other. “And I love you both. But you know this isn’t something you can get involved in during the day. You have your lives, the people who rely on you. And we don’t know if all four of us together would make it even worse. If it would be even easier for the Ghorl to find us. They need you here, to fight in Faydor,” Aria added. “It’s what’s important. You know that.”
“You’re important.” Dani pleaded it.
Aria shook her head. She couldn’t imagine asking them to step into the danger that surrounded her. Dragging them into it the way she had Pax.
Pax’s spirit thrashed, a vibration that buzzed between them, and she knew there had been no option for him. Pax couldn’t have physically stayed away.
Dani went to say more, only the atmosphere shivered, as if the ground rolled as their Laven family parted and Ellis and Josephine slowly made their way across the meadow.
“If there is anything more we can do . . . please . . . just say it,” Timothy muttered under his breath.
“What we need to do is end that Ghorl,” Pax grated.
“Has there been danger?” Ellis’s voice was filled with caution, though Aria was certain of the awareness in his eyes. The weathered edges of the old man’s face deep and knowing, a chasm carved of alarm and misgivings.
“A man broke into our motel room. I saw him in Faydor, through the Ghorl’s mind. I was awakened before Aria and I were able to bind it,” Pax explained.
“Oh my God. What happened?” Ellis asked.
“I ended him,” Pax spat, venom on his tongue.
Surprise gripped Ellis in a fist of dismay, his pale, pale skin blanching to white. His nod was grim. “It was the only thing you could do. The energy will be greater with the two of you together. Everywhere you go, they will know you are there. They will be drawn to you.”
Pax’s head shook. “No. I don’t believe this is about us. It is about her. It wants her.”
“But why does it want her?” Dani asked, her voice hollow, needing answers to the questions they’d all asked themselves a million times that remained undiscovered.
“Because of this unfound power,” Pax said, completely sure. “It’s a threat to them.”
Timothy ran a hand down his face. “How did she develop it? Never once have we been told of it.”
Uncertainty cut through Ellis’s expression. “As I told Pax, I’d only heard of it happening once, many years ago, before our time. There is only one obscure mention of it in the great book, though it is a reference to a Laven with a greater gift, so I have to assume it is a most rare treasure.”
Treasure.
A blessing and a curse.
“There have to be more teachings on it,” Timothy mused. “Answers that can help. Why would Valeen leave her vulnerable like this without anything to go on?”