She kissed his neck.
Chapter Forty
Hope stirred restlessly in her sleep, her mind on how quickly her dad had left headquarters. Something had happened, but nobody would include her in the news. She had one little cold, with a slight fever, and now everyone was treating her like she was dying. She drifted off to sleep and instantly felt flickers of pain.
Serious pain. She forced her way to a dreamworld, taking comfort in the sun. A figure limped out of the pink trees. Why were the trees pink? Was this her usual world? She focused as Drake took form. She gasped and moved toward him. “What happened?”
“Just a little battle.” He grasped her hand and tugged them both to sit on the warm sand. Then he extended his legs. “Took a knife from an enemy.”
She held his hand with both of hers, noting his eyes had turned a darker green. “There’s a lot of that going around tonight. Tell me you weren’t in a battle with the demon nation.” She couldn’t stand the thought of Drake and her dad fighting.
“Nope. No demon nation in this one.” He grinned, looking normal again.
She smiled. “Good. We need to stay on the same side of things in this world, no matter what our people do.”
He nodded, his black hair moving around his shoulders. “We are on the same side, even if things get confusing for one or both of us. You understand our path was set long ago, right?” He flattened her hand over his thigh, warming her.
She blinked. “No. I think we make our own path, Drake.” She let herself brush his hair away from his angled face. “Who was your enemy today? Who stabbed you?”
He leaned into her touch, his face smooth against her palm. “Doesn’t matter. He won this time, but I’ll win when it counts.” He took a deep breath, and healing tingles wafted through the air around them. “I hadn’t realized this would be a drawn-out campaign, but it looks like that’s shaping up.”
She leaned back and set her hand in her lap. “The guy who stabbed you. You’re going after him?”
“Yeah,” Drake said softly. “Don’t know when or how, but he and I aren’t done. He wants to do something wrong, something seriously wrong, and I have to stop him. No matter the cost.”
“Then you will.” She smiled, letting the sun warm them and the ocean roll in. “Do you ever waver? I mean, do you ever worry that we don’t have it all right and that we’ll screw it up?” From day one, she’d felt a mantle of responsibility she wasn’t sure how to handle. Wasn’t sure if she’d do the right thing when the time came…or what that even meant. “Drake?”
“No.” He nudged her with his broad shoulder. “I don’t waver. I believe in Fate, and I adhere to the legends. It’s all we have, Hope. If we let go of that, of what we know deep inside, then what are we? Who are we?” He flipped his hand over and captured hers. “You’re going to have to trust me on that. Someday soon.” It was as if he actually saw the future.
Or did he just believe that strongly?
“I’ve heard rumors,” she said softly, looking up at a cutout in the nearest tree. Her book, the green and mysterious ancient book, lay open to the sun. She knew if she reached out and tried to take the book that it’d disappear. Someday she’d get to read it.
“What rumors?” Drake asked.
She glanced toward the rolling waves. “That Ulric wants to kill all Enhanced females.” Her father didn’t know she’d dug deep into computer files as well as into ancient books that had no names. “Nobody knows why but they say that’s his plan. Is it?” She wished she’d had time to really question Ulric in his dreamworld hell, but he’d refused to answer the few questions she’d had time to ask. Her role as the Lock clearly put them on opposite sides. She understood that. Her blood, combined with that of the three Keys, could kill him. “Drake?”
Drake shook his head. “I’m not privy to that information. I can’t believe that Ulric, the leader of our religious sect, would want to kill Enhanced human females. It just doesn’t make sense because we need them. The only ritual we’ve heard about, the only one we’re preparing to stop, is the one that is supposed to kill him.” Drake rubbed her jawline with his knuckle. “With your blood and the three Keys. How can that be all right?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “But he did do something horrible in killing those Enhanced females in order to become immortal.”
Drake nodded. “I agree. He’s spent more than a thousand years in a hell prison world paying for that crime. Even humans get out of prison at some point. If he gets out, if he’s done his time, why must he die?”
Hope swallowed. “What about the ritual he wants to perform?”
Drake shifted uneasily on the sand. “That might be a big lie. We discovered that our head Cyst, General Jaydon, was gathering Enhanced females for his own purpose, which has nothing to do with Ulric or bringing him home.”
Hope lifted her head. “To copy Ulric’s original ritual?”
“Yes. His actions were a travesty, and he’s dead. My father is a powerful leader, and not even he knew what General Jaydon was planning. You need to think. Maybe there is no future ritual, so long as your people don’t try to murder Ulric.” Drake sighed. “We need him. He made a terrible mistake, but he’s doing his penance and then will return to lead the Cyst. I think he might be the only one who can.”
Hope didn’t have an answer for that.
Drake held her hand tighter. “Enough with the gloom and doom. For now, I take it Paxton Phoenix is not sleeping in your room?”
She grinned. “No. It looks like I can create the dreamworlds myself again.”
“Good. A guy does get jealous,” he murmured, his gaze dropping to her mouth. “In a different world, Phoenix and I might be friends. But in this one? We both want you, and you’re made to be a queen. Not a mate to an irrelevant commoner who truly doesn’t matter.”
She reared back. “Pax matters. A lot.”
Drake smiled. “Not right here, he doesn’t. So—”
A loud bang propelled Hope right out of the dreamworld.
* * * *
Hope sat upright in her bed, her gaze on the hulking figure near her window. “Pax,” she hissed, her hair tumbling back from her face. “What in the world are you doing?”
He moved toward her, sitting next to her, his muscled bulk pressing the bed down. “I came to talk to you and knew instantly you were in a dreamworld. I can’t believe you keep doing this.” His large hand moved through his hair, ruffling it and giving him a wild look. “Drake is one of the bad guys. We caught one of the Cyst generals kidnapping a bunch of Enhanced females. What he had planned—”