Page 74 of Visions of Darkness

But there was a barrier between us here.

An invisible chasm that gaped.

Still, I couldn’t look at this man and ever believe that he could be a threat to me. That he could ever turn on me the way we’d been warned. That he could betray me the way Valeen had been scorned.

I came to the end of the bed, wavering where I stood.

His teeth gritted as he glanced up at me where I was a foot away. “How are you feeling?”

Uncertainty pinched my face. “I honestly don’t know. This feels impossible. Like it isn’t real. I keep thinking I’ve fallen into some strange dream.”

He scoffed. “As if what we fall into each night isn’t strange?”

My teeth gnawed at my bottom lip. “I know. The number of times I wondered if I really was crazy. If I’d made it all up. If you were real.”

Tension bound his shoulders, and he didn’t look at me as he continued pulling things from the bag.

“Do you regret coming for me?” I whispered. Trying to break through. God, how was I supposed to handle this? I’d ached to see him for so long, but I never could have imagined that it would feel like this.

“Why would you say that?” The question grated into the dense air.

“You seem angry.”

He shocked me by whirling to face me. “Of course I’m angry, Aria. They locked you away in that place. Left you vulnerable. Some monster almost got to you. And now—”

His teeth snapped as he stopped himself from saying whatever had been on his tongue, and he turned back to the supplies he had laid out on the bed.

A tremor rolled beneath the surface of my skin.

As if he’d felt it, he sighed in regret. “Please sit, Aria.”

My nod was slow as I sank onto the edge of the bed. “I’m going to be running for the rest of my life, aren’t I?”

As short as that was likely to be.

Because we both knew my time would run out.

Pax roughed his right hand, which was tattooed with the gruesome face of a Kruen, over his head. The action was something I’d seen him do in Tearsith when he was upset, and it clearly carried over to here. “We don’t know that.”

“Don’t we, though? I knew the second I bound that Kruen while awake that it set me apart. That the Kruen would take note and come after me. I’d never fathomed it could be a Ghorl. That they even really existed.” I looked at him, unashamed to offer him the truth. “I’m scared, Pax.”

I didn’t want to be.

I wanted to be brave. I wanted to find the courage that I had in Faydor.

To fight.

But what had already happened had been terrifying, and I wasn’t foolish enough not to know it was just the beginning.

Pax angled toward me, his raspy voice a murmur. “I know, Aria. It fucking scares me, too. But I’m here, and I’m not leaving you until I know you’re completely safe.”

“Ellis is going to—”

“You can’t worry about what Ellis says or thinks right now.” His words were shards of aggression, cutting me off. “Right now, the only thing that matters is getting you away from the dangers in Albany. We’ll figure the rest out later.”

Warily, I nodded, and he stood from the bed.

Towering.

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