Page 7 of Walking in Darkness

“He’s insane,” Kit whispered as he watched.

“More like obsessed.”

Another man hurried by, head bowed, and the asshole focused on him. With a few steps, he had his hand around the poor man’s neck. “Where is he? Where is Michail?”

Kit’s breath caught. Michail? The smaller guy was named Michail? Surely that was nothing more than a happy accident.

“Mother of all, I don’t know, Alpha! I promise!”

Kit stopped breathing. He’d heard only one other person use that phrase. Ever. From the corner of Kit’s eye, he saw somebody moving quickly toward the two men. Turning his head, Kit gasped. “No.No! It can’t be!”

Fear froze Kit to the spot. His heart pounded, and pain exploded in his head. No way. Not fucking again. That son of a bitch was dead, dammit. That simply couldn’t be Nox. But it was, only it wasn’t the Nox Kit remembered. Nox looked younger and was dressed as primitively as the rest of the villagers.

“Brother! He has run.”

Kit swallowed compulsively as the man he had been calling asshole released the villager he’d been choking and moved closer to where Kit and Gaura stood. For the first time, Kit got a good look at the other man’s face. “No. No. That… that can’t be him.”

It was Lennox.

Kit swayed on his feet.

Gaura quickly wrapped their arms around Kit’s waist. “You are safe. This is the past, remember? We’re not actually here, and he cannot see you.”

“Why? Why are you showing me this? Do you not know what they both have done to me?”

“You wanted answers. I’m giving you answers. Answers you need to protect yourself.”

Lennox threw his head back and roared.

Kit slapped his hands over his ears. The unhinged anger in that sound chilled him to the very core.

“Take my hand, dear.”

Gladly, Kit did as he was told. He wanted this to be over, dammit. Then he and Gaura were skimming along the ground. It was as if they were flying. That was unnerving, to say the least.

They passed through the trees and rocks effortlessly, which nearly gave Kit a heart attack the first time that happened. A little fucking warning would’ve been nice.

Off in the distance was an animal. It didn’t take long to figure out they were trailing it. As they drew closer, he realized it was a lynx. He figured it was that smaller shifter guy. Why else would they be trailing it?

The shifter was moving at a fast trot toward the setting sun.

As they watched, the lynx came to a fast-moving creek. The feline drank thirstily, then collapsed on the bank. After a brief rest, the shifter prowled around the nearby area until he caught some animal. After he finished dinner, the lynx returned to the creek.

The moon had come out from behind the clouds. The shifter stood in a beam of weak light that filtered through the trees. As Kit watched, the shifter changed into his human form.

The blood on the shifter’s mouth and chest wasn’t what made Kit cry out. It wasn’t the blood on his hands and arms, either. It was the fact that Kit’s papa, Michail, was the lynx shifter who stood in the moonlight, covered in blood.

“Lennox claimed your father all those years ago. Your father rejected that claim and ran. Lennox never forgot. He knows, Kit. He knows who Michail is to you, and who Michail is to your mother and your biological father.Thisis the reason Lennox is targeting you,” Gaura said. “Forcing a mating bite on you would destroy Michail. And your actual mates, Hudson and Connie.”

KIT JERKED up in bed, chest heaving, strangling on a sob. Saliva flooded his mouth. Knowing what that meant, Kit kicked the sheet off and hit the floor running. He barely got hishead over the commode before everything in his stomach came up.

Once he was done, Kit flushed the toilet. He hated vomiting. Simply hated it. Turning on the bathroom light, he grabbed a washcloth, wetted it, and wiped his face. Then he brushed his teeth, because yuck.

He stared into the mirror, wincing at how pale and sweaty he was, plus his hair was all over the place. He looked like death warmed over, and he felt like it too.

“Okay. That was nothing more than a dream. Just a dream. No damn dragon deity hijacked my body and took me to another realm.” He shuddered. “And fucking went back in time too. Nope.”

He rinsed the washcloth with more cool water and wiped his face again.

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