Page 66 of Walking in Darkness

“It’s early,” I whispered, twining my fingers in restlessness. “Our family won’t arrive for several more hours.”

Pax pulled me closer. Our bodies flush. Blood whooshed through our veins.

“I have an idea of how we can pass the time.” Innuendo threaded the words, and the slightest flicker of a smirk kissed the edge of his mouth.

“Are you trying to seduce me?” I asked, repeating what I’d said earlier, though the forlornness I’d felt then had no position.

Hope had sparked to life in the middle of me.

Possibility quickening into existence.

Just as desire did when Pax suddenly picked me up and tossed me onto the bed, that smirk in full force when he crawled over me. “You said yourself that you’re better when I’m touching you, Aria Rialta. Have a few different ways for us to try that out.”

And when he peeled me out of my sweats and burrowed his head between my thighs, I was sure I didn’t mind a bit.

Chapter Twenty-One

Aria—Tearsith

“Are you sure?” Ellis’s question was wrought with worry. With the age-old wisdom that had been passed down from his elders, which he’d then passed on to them.

He looked at the flock of Laven on the grass near the stream. Tonight, they didn’t sit and rest in peace. Tonight, they wandered in turmoil and roamed in their grief.

Two more of their Laven family had not come tonight, and their Nols paced the boundary of Tearsith, their souls pleading with them to show.

Except everyone there knew they would not.

Aria and Pax had told Ellis what they had found. That Laven from one end of the earth to the other had been slain, though it was doubtful that authorities would ever make the connection.

Not that it would matter.

Ellis had dropped to his knees at the news, and Aria had climbed down to hers in front of him and told him of the hope they’d found in the middle of it.

Her altercation with Ambrose and her belief that she and Pax being together had made them stronger, rather than weakened them the way they’d always believed.

Now he peered over her shoulder to the Laven who wandered the meadow.

Torn.

Racked and wavering with uncertainty.

She took his frail hands, and she pressed them together with hers as if she were issuing a prayer. “I can’t tell you with absolute certainty, Ellis, but I do believe it with all of me. Plus, I know what I’ve seen. What Pax and I have experienced. I have to believe that we’ve been led astray. Kept apart to keep us from reaching our full potential.”

Ellis’s attention traveled to Josephine, who tried to console Jeremy as he wailed for his missing Nol.

Aria didn’t miss the longing in his gaze. The wonder of what might have happened had he gone to her long ago. What their lives might have looked like if everything had been done differently.

Aria’s spirit moaned around Jeremy’s grief. The love that he’d forever tucked away. One she was sure he’d kept hidden.

“We have to try, Ellis.” Her plea sliced through his yearning. “We have to do something before it’s too late and every single one of us is gone.”

Sadness pooled in his hazy gray eyes as he turned his gaze to her. “And what if it only makes things worse? What if I send them on a path to destruction?”

Aria leaned in closer, her voice hushed. “They are already on a path to destruction.”

Aria could almost see the acceptance glide into his spirit, and he slowly stood, laboriously staggering to his feet. She was unsure if it was from the strain of what she’d told him or if it was his age that made his entire essence creak.

“Gather around, dear Laven,” he called.