Chapter Twenty-Nine Pax

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Pax

I tossed the bags into the trunk of the car, all while I warred with the need to turn around and march back inside. I fought for the respect that Aria deserved, but I was also unable to shake the cold dread that chugged through my veins.

My spirit screamed, the call inside that bonded me to Aria refusing to let go.

It didn’t just shout.

It gripped me by the motherfucking throat.

Something was wrong.

I could sense it, the way the energy had become cloudy and dark.

Scanning the lot, my attention returned to the door, praying to find Aria walking out of it. But another moment passed, then two, and there was nothing I could do but give in to the bands I could feel stretching between us.

Fierce and unrelenting.

Beckoning me forward and urging me into action.

At my approach, the door slid open, and I stepped into the chaotic energy that whipped and whirred. I started toward the restrooms, though the crackling against my flesh persuaded me to change course and drove me deeper into the store.

Mayhem suddenly broke out, and shouts sliced through the air as random people began to scramble toward the disturbance that I felt all the way to my spirit.

My heart jumped into my throat as terror pummeled through me, and I started to run, racing through the racks and following the commotion.

A crowd was gathered at the front of the dressing rooms, and I pushed through the people who were trying to get a peek at what was going down.

“Hey.” A middle-aged man scowled as I jostled past.

“My wife is in there,” I growled, knowing it was what would get me through, even though everyone parted once they shifted enough to look at me anyway.

But the only thing I could focus on was the girl who was crumpled in a ball on the floor just inside one of the dressing rooms.

“Aria,” I wheezed. I hurried the rest of the way to her and knelt at her side.

A woman was across from her, sitting on the floor with her back pressed to the wall, her face covered in a sheen of sweat, her arms shaking as she desperately held on to an infant who whimpered in her hold.

Awareness spun.

Sickness and fear and pride collided when I realized what Aria had done.

“Aria.” Slipping an arm under her back to support her, I brushed back a lock of hair matted to her forehead. My spirit cracked when I saw blood had begun to saturate the front of her shirt.

What the hell?

“Someone call an ambulance!” an attendant shouted.

“No, she’s fine,” I grunted. I prowled around my head to find a suitable excuse. “She just gets low blood sugar, and I need to get her something to eat.”

I scooped her into my arms, hoping no one would notice the pooling red on her chest. She hadn’t put her sweatshirt back on since she’d tried on the jacket, and the only thing that covered the trauma was the thin fabric of her tee.

“She’s fine,” I grated when someone tried to push up to check on her.

I prayed to God it was true, because this was something we hadn’t dealt with before. Something unfamiliar. Something I didn’t understand.

Our lives were already an impossibility.

But Aria?

She was beyond it all.

Rising high above.

Hope and light.

Her breaths were harsh and shallow, and her body was limp, even though I could feel her shaking at her core.

My gaze landed on the woman on the floor, who stared up at us.

Shocked.

Disoriented.

Confused.

A tear streaked down her cheek, and I could feel her confused gratitude soak the atmosphere.

In acknowledgment, I gave her a jut of my chin before I began to weave back through the people who were vying for a closer look.

No doubt, most of them had gathered for the entertainment. Morbid curiosity. I knocked my elbow into some chick who had grabbed her phone to record, making it topple to the floor, tossing out a quick “Sorry.” Acting as if it were an accident.

We were fucked if someone posted about this.

If someone stopped us and started asking questions.

If someone looked too closely.

I couldn’t take the chance that someone would recognize her.

I had to get her out of there.

Most of the crowd had broken up since it had turned out to be a simple medical emergency that wasn’t worthy of anyone’s time, and I strode through the store as quickly as I could, somehow managing to get out without anyone else stopping us, though there were plenty of heads turning our way, me carrying her out drawing more attention than I wanted.

Relief hit me when most seemed to go back to their day, though that relief didn’t last long, since Aria slumped into the front seat of my car when I carefully set her inside.

She moaned, and I brushed the hair back from her face, my voice clogged with dread. “It’s okay. It’s okay. I’m right here. Just rest.”

I was in the front seat and flying from the lot a second later, searching for a motel with exterior access at the light we came to, another dump where we might be able to go in unnoticed.

It took fifteen minutes to get there since it was on the outskirts of town, and I pulled into the covered area at the lobby. I hated leaving her for even a second, but I didn’t have much of a choice.

Leaving the car running, I clicked the locks as I ran inside. I drummed my fingers on the counter as I waited for someone to help me, agitation lighting me through. I kept glancing back through the windows, making sure no one got close to my car with Aria in it, not when she was at her most vulnerable.

An old man with a stained white beard and a bald head finally came shuffling out from a back office, shooting me one of those speculative glances I was accustomed to. Distrust roiled from him, though I was sure he saw plenty of seedy fucks rolling through here.

That was confirmed when I doled out the cost of the room and he didn’t ask questions when I tossed in an extra hundred.

Cash always bought you what you needed, people going tight-lipped when you paid them to do so.

Two minutes later, I was pulling into the spot reserved for Room 117.

Aria whimpered when I picked her up from the seat, so drained that she couldn’t get her arms around my neck.

A shattered breath left me as I curled her into mine.

I maneuvered her around so I could unlock the door and support her at the same time, and I managed to get the traditional key into the lock before I opened the door to the dingy room on the other side.

Heavy drapes covered the window, the room laden with a dusky gloom.

It only had one king bed, and I pulled back the covers and laid her in the middle.

Exhaustion rolled from her throat, though my name was woven in it: “Pax.”

“I know, Aria, I know.”

Except I didn’t. I didn’t fucking know how to handle this. Who she was. The power she wielded. The danger it put her in. I hated even more the way it wiped her out when she used it.

The way it stole a piece of her.

But right then, I was more worried about the wound that now soaked her shirt. I only noticed then that there was a hole in the fabric from where it’d been scorched.

I pulled the neck back enough to expose the gnarled wound seeping underneath, the skin flayed open and charred at the edges the way it always was when we sustained a burn in Faydor.

I exhaled a shaky breath.

What the fuck? How was this even possible?

“I need to take this off,” I muttered, giving the smallest tug to the tee.

Aria managed to nod, and she gasped against the pain of the fabric peeling away from the burn as I slowly drew it up and over her head.

I ignored the fact that she writhed on the bed, wearing nothing but her jeans and a plain white bra, and instead focused on the marred flesh that sat right in the middle of her chest.

My teeth ground with rage, and I murmured, “I’ll be right back.”

After jogging out of the room and to my car, I grabbed our things, then ran back inside. I tossed the bag of medical supplies to the floor beside the bed before I went into the bathroom and wet a washcloth at the sink.

On my knees beside her, I gently pressed the cloth to her wound, wiping up the clotted blood the best I could.

Then I poured hydrogen peroxide onto gauze, hesitating, because fuck, I hated the thought of causing her even an ounce of pain. But I knew I had to clean it.

“This is going to hurt.” I issued it through clenched teeth.

“I know,” she rasped.

It didn’t matter that she was prepared. Her face contorted in agony when I pressed it to the seared flesh.

Unfortunately, it was the only thing that killed the poison—at least, that’s what Timothy had told me right before I’d stepped into Faydor for the first time, when he’d put one hand on my shoulder and warned me that I was never going to be the same.

I’d never been told a greater truth.

The wound bubbled as I carefully dabbed the gauze to her skin.

Sickness billowed in my gut, nausea coiling at being the one to make her suffer more than she already was.

The pain was excruciating enough to jolt her from the stupor.

From the exhaustion that had sucked her under.

Pale, disoriented eyes flew open. Her gaze was riddled with torment and an apology.

“They needed me.” She barely managed to gasp it.

I set my palm on the side of her face, my thumb tracing the hollow beneath her eye before my lips were pressing to her forehead, to her temple. And I was murmuring it again, my mouth to her skin, “I know, baby. I know.”

Because she had no reason to apologize. She would do whatever it took to fulfill her duty. Just like I would do anything to fulfill mine to her.