Page 168 of Walking in Darkness

The scars written under it.

Painted in the gore that had been my life.

I looked terrifying. Like the dangerous freak my biological father had believed me to be. And yeah, I’d faced many terrors in my years.Had inflicted them in my own way. Had thought myself only worthy of imparting death and judgment to those who’d wielded their sins.

But now I saw something different reflected back. Saw something beneath the scars and disfigurement.

I saw the man I was destined to be.

The man who’d been brought here to stand beside the one who would save us all.

Aria caught my eye through the window. All that affection and goodness radiating out.

Together.

Giving her a soft tip of my chin, I blew out a sigh and scuffed a hand through the disarray of my hair as I strode toward the automatic lobby door.

It opened with my approach, and I walked inside to find three employees huddling around the registration counter.

The four flat-screen TVs that hung on the lobby walls were all tuned to a news station that was covering a local disaster.

A tornado that’d ripped through a small town and destroyed everything in its path. Emergency crews were just descending on the scene, but reports said the death toll was expected to be significant.

Footage from a helicopter played over the screen. The sheer devastation that had been wreaked—every building demolished. Rubble was piled high, and they tried to blur out what was clearly a slew of bodies strewn all over the streets.

In the scrolling text beneath it were reports of other calamities throughout the world. The rash of crimes that had befallen every city in every country. The terror that had run rampant.

Terror I had a hunch had gone silent.

The employees watched, rapt, their voices hushed as they whispered about the destruction.

A woman looked up when she heard me approach. Shock widened her eyes when she saw my state, her fear apparent as she inched back a step.

I cleared the roughness from my voice, forming the lie that had to be told. “I didn’t mean to startle you with my appearance. We just got in the middle of a really bad storm. Wind was so bad we got thrown off the road. Bashed myself pretty good.”

I gestured to a fresh cut on my forehead.

Another employee pointed at a television behind me. “Was a full-out tornado that destroyed an entire town. Looks like you got lucky.”

I swiveled around to look, heart gripped by the sight, by the number of Laven who’d been slaughtered. By the people of that town who’d been wiped out before we arrived.

My words were thick as I released them into the sticky air: “Yeah. Looks like we definitely were.”

Had the urge to place my hand over the wound I’d sustained. A wound that was almost healed because of my Nol. Because she’d always been my destination, where my soul belonged.

The one who’d led me back. Her spirit a call that I would forever heed.

Forcing it down, I spoke again. “I need a couple rooms, if you have them. We’d like to get cleaned up and rest before we take a chance of getting back on the road again.”

“Smart move. Who knows if some freak storm is going to come out of nowhere again. The whole sky was black. Freaked me out, if I’m going to be honest.” The desk clerk tapped into a computer as he rambled under his breath. “That was some apocalyptic shit.”

He glanced up at me. “Do you have a room-type preference?”

“Kings, if you have them.”

“You’re lucky again, my friend. I have two available.”

“Thank you.”