He swal owed reflexively, feeling the raw skin pul at his neck. “I thought you fixed that.”
“I couldn’t remove it. I don’t think the heth wil kil you, but you’l need to stay in contact with me as we go through the gate.”
“You want to hold hands?”
That earned him a glance, brief and unsmiling. “I’m driving.
You’l have to hold on to my leg. I think . . . I hope that wil be enough.”
Enough to get them clear?
Enough that the damn cord or hex or whatever it was wouldn’t strangle him?
He didn’t ask. He could either trust her or they could turn back.
“Best damn offer I’ve had al day,” he said and laid his hand on her thigh.
She sucked in her breath. So did he. Even through the denim of her jeans, he got some crazy contact high from touching her. Not like the jolt in the bar this time—more a low-level hum, like the vibration of a ship’s motor through the soles of his feet or the tug of the wind in the lines.
Her eyes widened. Her lips parted—
“Here we go.” She lifted her foot from the brake.
Maybe it was his imagination. Maybe it was those tal iron pickets clustered like spears on either side of the road.
But as they approached, Justin could feel the barrier rushing up on them, closing in on him, tightening his throat.
F o r g o t t e n s e a 99
The gate quivered and retracted. Lara’s leg flexed under his hand. She stomped on the gas and the wheels spun, spitting up gravel. The car lurched forward. The cord around his neck burned like a whiplash.
“Hold on,” she shouted.
Energy seared his palm and charged his arm. Inside him, something swel ed and surged. The engine roared.
The car shook like a jet plane, and with a pop, a rush, a snap like the crack of a whip, they were free, speeding through the gate and into the night.
*
*
*
Zayin raised his head from Miriam’s smooth, scented shoulder, uneasy even in the act of coitus. “Jude?” His lover raised her hand to his cheek, her inner muscles clenching around him as if to prevent his withdrawal. “What is it?”
He did not answer her. He was hot and hard, deep inside her, poised on the brink of completion, in the grip of her wet heat. His blood pounded in his head, in his loins, drowning the faint warning tingle of his brain. He thrust once, twice, plunging like a runner at the end of his race, hard, fast, now.
Now.
She cried out, her fingers digging into his shoulders. He shuddered and flew, free of earth and the limitations of his human body.
For long seconds he lay on her while his heartbeat slowed.
His respiration evened. Rol ing off her, he reached for his pants.
“What is it?” she asked again from behind him. “A flyer?”
He shook his head. He had tagged three of the nephilim as primed to take off in the next few months or years. A 10 0
V i r g i n i a K a n t r a
quick mental check placed al three stil within the compound. Which left . . .
“Lara,” he said.
Miriam inhaled sharply, a sound of distress. “Does Simon know?”
Zayin stood to pul his pants over his hips. “He wil soon.”
He glanced at Miriam over his shoulder. “He wants her, you know.”
She exhaled on a sigh. “I know.” She sat, the sheet fal ing from her breasts. “She was so wounded when she came to us.
So young. He was waiting for her to heal. And to grow up.”
“He’s a fool,” Zayin said.
“But not a predator,” Miriam answered quietly.
Their eyes met. Held.
Zayin was the first to look away. “It’s the boy who concerns me. We stil don’t know what in creation he is.”
“He’s with her?”
“I’m sure of it.”
“Then you’l find them.”
