Page 148 of Visions of Darkness

White hair whipping in the wind, and that fierce, vicious face marred in his glory.

I wondered how anyone could look at him and see anything less than brutal perfection.

He slipped into the car and whipped a U-turn in the dirt lot and drove the short distance to park next to another car close to the stairway.

Immediately, he climbed out and went to the trunk to grab our things.

I followed, shuffling up to his side.

He glanced at me. “I don’t hear and feel anything off.”

I forced a grin, trying to find any lightness in the middle of a raging storm. “Now you’rehearingthings?”

The harsh, stony angles of his face curled into the semblance of a smirk. “What, you think you’re the only one around here with extra powers, Princess?”

My stomach quivered. God, I loved when he was like this. When it almost felt like we might have a chance at normalcy. Love and a life.

“Powers? You’re talking like I possess some kind of magic,” I told him.

Pax reached out and brushed his calloused fingers along my jaw. Shivers flashed. “I think everything about you is magic, Aria. I think you radiate it.”

My teeth clamped down on my bottom lip, and my stupid heart leaped.

A guttural noise rumbled in Pax’s chest, and he used his thumb to free my lip, his steely gaze flicking between my mouth and my eyes. “Like I said, magic, the way you hypnotize me.”

We got stuck there for a moment before he exhaled and grabbed our bags from the trunk. He shut it and clicked the locks.

“Upstairs. Room 2B,” he muttered, and he ushered me up in front of him. His presence enclosed me from behind, his breaths salient in the cold air that clung to the night.

Unlocking the door, he flipped on the light. We paused in the doorway to take it in.

It was the dreariest, most run-down of all the rooms we’d stayed in, the walls covered in wood paneling and the carpet worn and coming up at the edges.

An old TV sat atop a battered dresser on the wall closest to us, and one small bed was pushed longways against the far wall to the left to allow room to get through to the bathroom at the back.

“Sorry, Princess, but apparently this is the best the motel has to offer,” Pax grunted as he shut and dead-bolted the lock behind us, a hint of amusement gliding from his words. “Lap of fuckin’ luxury.”

“As long as it’s warm, I don’t care.”

“Not sure you’re even going to get that,” he mumbled as he moved to the thermostat and cranked up the heat. “It’s cold as fuck in here.”

I sensed the true chill as he mentioned it, and dread slithered, and I got another sense that there was something different in the air.

I swallowed it down. “It will be fine once we get under the blankets.”

Pax’s fingers brushed my arm over the sleeve of my sweater. “It will be. I promise you.”

There was far more meaning to it than us speaking of the temperature.

“Do you need to use the restroom?” he asked when he stepped back and dumped our bags onto the floor.

“No, I’m fine right now.”

“Okay. I’m going to get cleaned up then.”

“I’ll be right here.”

“You’d better be.” Another smirk.

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