Page 55 of Walking in Darkness

None were without hopes and fears.

An elderly woman, her back hunched with a hump and her head permanently angled to one side.

A mother with three young children who was frazzled but still patient as she smiled.

A man who rushed in to grab a twelve-pack of beer.

The workers.

The patrons.

My spirit ached with what might happen if all Laven were erased. I couldn’t imagine that society would stand. It would mean complete and utter destruction.

It would be impossible for life to go on the way it was meant to.

The precarious balance we tiptoed tossed from its axis.

“Ah, here we go. Doughnuts.” Pax sent me a wry grin as he grabbed a plastic container from a display in the bakery.

A sad smile ridged my mouth. There was no stopping the melancholy. Finding proof of all the dead Laven earlier today had wrecked something inside me.

But I had to put one foot in front of the other and hope I could tap into whatever was trapped inside me, the way Pax had said. It just made it really difficult when I didn’t understand any of it.

The hardest part was that this was no longer about my survival only.

It was about survival for all of us.

For Laven.

And I knew, without question, that extended into humanity.

Pax felt my unease, and he reached out and tugged me toward him. “Come here, Princess.”

He tucked me between himself and the cart, and he started pushing it around the end of one aisle and up another, his mouth at the side of my neck as he murmured near my sensitive skin, “Remember when you told me we had to cherish every moment that we had? Make use of every minute of time that we’re given? I’m gonna hold you to that right now. We’ve got too much to be living for ... to be fighting for ... for you to give up on me now.”

I leaned against him, letting myself sink into the warmth he exuded. “I’d never give up on you, Pax.”

“Good, because I’m never giving up on you.” He let go of the handle with his left hand and splayed it across my belly, pulling me closer against the rippling strength of his body. “I have too much planned for you, Aria Rialta, for you to start looking like you’re ready to surrender.”

I turned in his hold, and he stopped moving. The two of us just stood in the middle of the cereal aisle, staring at each other. That energy wisped between us, the connection that bound.

“I’m not surrendering,” I promised.

“Good girl.” The words were a brush of air that he exhaled.

I fiddled with the collar of his tee as I gazed up at the ruthless beauty of his face. Heat danced just under the surface of my skin. “Are you trying to seduce me?”

“Is it working?”

“I think it might be,” I said, playing along.

His smile turned to greed. “Think we should get back to the motel and put some of this time to good use.”

He shifted me around so he had his left arm slung over my shoulders, hugging me to his side as he maneuvered the cart to the checkout.

More people were up front than in the rest of the store.

The voices crowding in and growing louder.