Page 97 of Between Passion and Revenge: Part Two

“Storm?” I whisper, my voice sounding too loud in the room. I feel alone, but somehow, I instinctively know I’m not.

It all rushes back. Storm showing up at Versailles. Our face-off outside my suite. My loss of sanity insidehissuite. Sending the kids with Yennifer, fleeing from the hotel, and….

I sit up quickly, grabbing the side of my head and putting all my strength into lifting my eyelids. I’m grateful the room is dark,but I get a sense that the dull headache in my temple should be much worse.

“Tempest? Raiden?” My voice sounds weird in the relative quiet. Squinting, I feel around the space next to the bed for a light switch.

“Leave the lights off.”

I freeze with my fingers pressed to the built-in nightstand. Storm is in the room with me, and when I breathe in a bit more deeply, I smell his cologne. His energy is all around me.

“The twins. Where are they?” Besides the mechanical noises, the plane is silent, too silent, and I strain to hear any movement from the space beyond the sliding bedroom door.

Instead of responding, there’s aflick-flicksound, and then the scent of marijuana smoke.

While he audibly inhales, I exhale, trying to lower my blood pressure so my head doesn’t pop off.

“Tempest and Raiden,” I press. “Where are they?”

Shifting on the bed, I finally spot his silhouette in the corner where he sits in a chair. The only reason I can identify him is because of the cherry on the end of the blunt.

“They’re safe,” he says, his voice so low.

“Okay, I want to see them,” I reply, standing, but Storm cuts me off.

“Sit the fuck down,” he grinds out, and I freeze. Part of me wants to collapse at the power in his voice, but the other part—the louder, enraged part of me—demands I stand up to him.

I straighten my spine.

“You have five seconds to tell me where my kids are, or I’m going apeshit on this plane.”

Storm releases an amused huff, and I stare at the lit end of his joint as he sucks in more smoke.

“They’re with Yennifer on King’s plane,” he says. I give him a hard look.

“And we’re not on King’s plane,” I confirm. Storm takes another hit.

“No,” he grinds out. “We’re not. We’re on my plane.”

Terror and anxiety make the sore vein in my temple throb, and I suck in a breath.

What is he—oh,fuckno.

“You’re separating me from my children,” I hiss, all my emotions morphing into rage. “You won’t get away with this, Storm Sandoval. I’ll kill you before I let you take my babies away from me.”

My hands shake as I start contemplating how to disarm Storm and get the cabin crew and pilots to take me…away from wherever the fuck Storm’s taking me.

I follow the burning blunt as he moves it from somewhere near his mouth toward where I imagine his armrest would be. There must be a table there, because he flicks some of the ash.

“Iwouldn’t separate children from their parent,” he says, and I want to smack him for his holier-than-thou attitude. “And you can relax. We’re heading back to Chicago, and so are they.”

I won’t give him the satisfaction of hearing the relief in my voice, so I suppress the emotion and cover it with a grunt.

“So why not put me on King’s plane?” I snap, completely over this conversation. All I want is to hug my babies, especially after….

“Did those people have something to do with you?” My throat hurts again, this time from unshed tears and the spike of adrenaline that comes with thinking about how I just faced certain death.

“I told you. This Keystone business is dangerous shit. But now thatIknow about the children, I’m sure our enemies do, too.”