Human? Daniel narrowed his eyes. “What the hell are you talking about.”
Blade got down on his haunches and stared through the flames. “Your woman says the lab under Deer Mountain is working on drugs to save your life. Is that true?”
Daniel put up a forefinger. “Can we not refer to her like that, thanks. And yes, it is.”
“But you haven’t taken them, why?”
“Too much to lose. Or so I thought.”
“You’re already dying.”
“Yeah, so time is really fucking important. Especially with the one I love—loved, I mean. Fuck.” Daniel rubbed his face. “You any closer to putting a gun to my head? If we could move that along, that would be great, thanks—”
“You should try the drugs, Daniel.”
“Like I’m taking advice from you about anything?”
“She’d be worth it. Time with a woman like her—it would be worth any risk.” Before Daniel cut in, the guy kept going: “Fight for her, Daniel. You need to fight. Do whatever you can to stay with her. It’ll be worth it.”
Daniel sat up, the crackling of the fire seeming to increase. Or maybe that was just his temper flaring.
“Don’t tell me what I need while you’re fucking the woman I love.”
Maybe if he repeated the words enough times, he could jam everything about her into his past, make her something in his rear view—so that it didn’t hurt as much.
“Look into my eyes,” Blade commanded.
“Fuck you—”
The instant Daniel’s stare was caught and held, the images started: He saw a progression of them, starting with the perspective of Lydia from a distance, through some trees—and Daniel felt an instant attraction, sure as if he were the one looking at her. Even though he wasn’t. These were someone else’s memories. Blade’s.
He saw it all. From when Blade had first seen her… to later, when he’d become transfixed by her and one of the biomechanical soldiers showed up… to when she had protected him… to the moment his sister, Xhex—
“Alex Hess is your sister,” Daniel breathed.
And then there were other memories. From inside the den with the hidden spring.
Of Lydia telling the guy she was happily married.
“Why are you doing this?” Daniel whispered as the man’s face came back into real-time view.
“I don’t know. It goes against my nature.”
Blade straightened back up. And then he looked to the heavens as if he were searching for meaning in the stars that shone, bright and cold, above them both.
“Maybe it’s because she was never mine to begin with. She’s yours, all the way. Always has been.”
“We’re not married,” Daniel whispered. “She lied about that.”
That cruelly intelligent face shifted back to him. “Strikes me as the kind of thing you should rectify before the Grim Reaper shows up on your doorstep, but that’s me. And I don’t care what you do with what I showed you. Destiny has always been subject to free will—so if you want to complicate this by distrusting me or my motives, that’s your prerogative. Frankly, I hope you do fuck it up. Because if you don’t? That extraordinary female will no doubt live out the rest of her life as some kind of recluse, forever pining for her one true love.”
Blade stepped back. “Be well, Daniel. Your business and mine end here tonight. I will not pursue any actions against that lab, providing they harm none of either of my kind. Or that of your wife’s. I protect what I once failed to defend. It is the only way I’ve been able to live with myself.”
With that, the man bowed—
And disappeared right into thin air.
Left on his own, Daniel stared into the darkness… and had to wonder whether or not he was dreaming.
THIRTY-NINE
TAP. TAP. TAP.
The sounds were muffled, and at first, Lydia dismissed them as the start of another dream, another descent into the madness that seemed to await her whenever her eyes closed.
But they continued.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Sitting up, she pushed her hair out of her eyes. Then she looked over to the glass sliding door. At first, the shape on the far side terrified her—another mechanical soldier, sent to kill them all!
Except no. She recognized the bald head.
“Daniel,” she cried out.
Scrambling through the messy blankets, she exploded across the room and fumbled with the lock. As she yanked open the plate glass panel, the cold air barged in as if it were sick of the great outdoors and looking to chill a new territory.
And there he was. Shivering, flushed—and looking at her as if he had been gone a lifetime.
It felt like he had been away that long.
“Daniel, you’re wrong about everything—”
“I know—”
“What?” She stepped back. “Wait, come inside, it’s freezing out there.”
His teeth were chattering and his lips blue, and she wrapped him in the duvet before he could argue he didn’t need it.
“Oh, God, Lydia… I’m such a fucking fool.” He captured her face in his hands. “I was a terrible, terrible fool and I’m so sorry—”
“Wait, I don’t understand—”
“Blade came to see me.” Daniel wrapped the comforter more tightly around himself, took her hand, and drew her over to the bed so they could sit down together. “I’m so sorry. When I walked into that cave, my emotions got the better of me. I should have listened to you, but I just… I wasn’t thinking straight. It’s pretty goddamn unforgivable—”
“I swear, that wasn’t what was going on. He’d been injured. Xhex brought a doctor to him, and I went there to see if he needed anything. I was naked under the robe because I traveled in wolven form out from this house for safety’s sake. There was nothing sexual in any of it.”
“I know.”
Lydia blinked. And prayed she wasn’t dreaming this all. But then she got pissed. “So he told you. And you believe him and not me—”
“He showed me.” Daniel touched his temple. “He let me see inside his brain somehow, I don’t know what he did or how. But you’re right, I should have just listened to you, and I go cold when I think what would have happened if he hadn’t come and found me.”
“Where were you,” she asked.
“At a campsite about fifty miles from here.”
“But… how did he find you?”
“He’s my former boss. He’s the head of the Federal Bureau of Genetics. And I need to find C.P. He has a message for her. He’s dropping her lab from his list of things to do.”
“Your boss?” she murmured.
“Former boss. That’s one of the reasons I jumped to the conclusion I did. It would be just in his wheelhouse to do something like that in retaliation for me not following through on my mission—not that it’s any excuse. I was an ass—”
“I lied to you.” She lowered her head. “So what you thought is not unreasonable. I lied first, Daniel. I shouldn’t have done that.”
“Yeah,” he said softly. “I still don’t really understand why you couldn’t tell me about everything.”