Page 8 of Walking in Darkness

My fingers drifted, tracing over the deep scar that slashed down the right side of his face and down to the tattoos that climbed his throat.

Ink that spoke of the terrors we faced each day and night of our lives.

The man was my Nol, my soulmate, even though our Laven family believed it was forbidden for us to be together this way.

He gathered my hand and pressed my knuckles to his soft, plush lips. His words landed somewhere between an apology and a plea. “Thought I was going to steal you away from here forever. Thought you’d never have to return and face the judgment and disbelief you were subject to for your whole life growing up.”

My head shook. “What we are is unfathomable, Pax. I don’t blame them.”

Old wounds swam through those boundless eyes, and pain clutched my chest. I could see what he kept hidden there, beneath the hard layers that covered him whole. His own childhood traumas and scars.

“The only thing I want is to keep you safe. From everything,” he murmured.

I unwound my hand from his so I could cup his cheek. “You can’t do that, Pax—but you can stand by my side, and that’s the only thing I’m asking you to do.”

When we were running, he’d promised so many times that he would have to leave me once I was safe. He’d told me it could only be temporary. But we’d come to accept that we were destined for so much more than that.

Purposed.

Placed here in this perfect time.

He gave a slight nod, and the faintest smile pulled at the edge of his mouth. “Guess that’s good, because beside you is the only place I want to be.”

He set his palm on my face and brushed the pad of his thumb over my cheek.

Softly.

Tenderly.

Just staring across at me.

“Through it all, Aria. We’re going to get through it. Whatever is coming our way.”

“I know,” I promised.

He gave a slight nod, and I inhaled a steeling breath as I turned back to look out toward my mother, who waited. My hand flexed on the door handle, and I forced myself to open it and step out into the winter chill of Albany, New York.

My home for all my life.

Februarys here were always freezing. It was a different kind of cold from Faydor’s, though. Warm rays of sunlight rained down and caressed my face.

A promise that even though it might feel that way to me, this world wasn’t so desolate.

The soles of my shoes crunched on the long, dead grass as I made my way toward my mother.

She sat on the bench, her hair twisted in the same messy knot she so often wore, the grays interwoven in the browns now more profound.

I could feel the anxiety rolling off her.

Confounded waves that battered against me like an apology.

I stopped three feet away from her. My throat, still sore from the attack last night, grew so thick it was difficult to breathe.

I felt overwhelmed, looking at her like this.

The lines that had been carved so deep on her face, written in the horrors and the grief she’d found. Her entire world in shambles.

“Hi, Mom.” I could barely force it out.