The white lane markers flashed and faded in the beam of their headlights.
Breathe, he told himself. In, out, in.
Jesus, he was dozing off. Or passing out. He clung to consciousness, fighting to snatch meaning from the conversation taking place over his head.
“Treat him at the infirmary,” Lara was saying.
“Assuming he survives the trip.” From the boyfriend.
Thanks, dipshit.
“Wow. I am so touched by your concern,” Lara said.
“You know what concerns me? Trying to explain to Axton what we’re doing with a dead body in the backseat.”
Justin felt Lara stiffen. “Would you rather explain why we left him behind to die?” she asked.
He wasn’t dying, he wanted to tel her. He was remarkably hard to kil.
“More lives than a fucking cat, ” the freighter captain had said when they pul ed him from the sea.
But her fierce concern made him feel good. For the first time in years, a woman had his back.
F o r g o t t e n s e a 29
Thankful y, he turned his face into her neck and slipped into the dark.
“Behind me,” he ordered, his mouth dry, his voice strained. “They attack from behind.”
The girl stumbled to obey, fil ing her hands with stones from the path.
He admired her courage. But it was his duty to protect her.
His responsibility.
He turned to face the wolf— Not a wolf, not a wolf, pounded his heart — blocking their way. It snarled, taunting.
Testing.
Tightening his grip on his knife, he braced to take its charge.
It sprang. The world exploded in a blur of heat, claws, teeth, eyes. He staggered, thrusting, thrusting, felt the blade sink in and the sickening thunk of iron on bone.
Pain ripped his arm. His vision blurred.
A hoarse cry. His? Hers? A flash. The air stank of scorched meat and burning hair and blood.
He struggled to tug his knife free, fought to breathe. He couldn’t move. Buggering hel, he couldn’t move his arm.
He groaned.
“It’s al right,” she said.
He struggled to warn her, but his cry was an incoherent croak.
Demons.
“Ssh,” she soothed. Her hair fel thick and pale as straw around her quiet face. “It’s just a dream.”
Justin opened his eyes to find Lara bending over him.
Shock momentarily robbed him of speech. His head
throbbed. His arm tingled with the pain of returning circulation.
He blinked at her, disoriented. “Not blond.”
Her lips curved. “Only in your dreams. Disappointed?”
“No.” He struggled to lift his arm, to touch the ends of her hair. “Pretty.”
“Thanks. How are you feeling?”
“No hospital,” he mumbled. Hospitals meant bureaucracy and forms and questions. The last thing he needed was Homeland Security inspecting his passport, demanding a copy of his birth certificate.
“Shh. We’re not going to the hospital. Try to get some rest, okay?”
He sighed and obeyed, weary and relieved. Pretty darkhaired Lara. Safe.
But a question niggled at the back of his brain and pursued him down into the dark.
Who was the woman in his dream?
3
Th e h i g h be a m o f t h e i r h e a d l i g h t s s c r a pe d the drive, throwing into sharp relief the marble eagles at the gate and the precepts of the Rule inscribed in stone: scire, servare, obtemperare. “To know, to save, to obey.”
rockhaven school, announced a discreet sign to the left of the entrance. est. 1749.
Lara’s heartbeat quickened.
The tires whispered to a stop in a pool of floodlight within range of the cameras: one mounted on the gate, two artful y hidden in the landscaping. The governors didn’t let respect for tradition interfere with the need for security.
Lara rol ed down her window, careful not to disturb Justin’s head on her lap.
A red light blinked. The mechanized iron gate swung silently open. Gideon drove through.
She let out a breath she hadn’t been aware of holding and settled back in her seat. Almost there. Almost home.
The first time she’d approached Rockhaven in the back of a car, she’d been a victim, a child, sick, sweaty, and scared half to death, with almost no memory of who she was or where she came from.
Her kind might live as humans, but they were not born as human infants. That status was reserved for the Most High.
Created as children of the air, the nephilim were sentenced to earth for overstepping the role dictated by Heaven. For intervening, always with the best of intentions, in human affairs. For violating humans’ free wil. The most powerful in Heaven — with the most to lose, the most to forget—
became the youngest on earth.
Lara was nine when she Fel.
She had always felt special — favored — because Simon Axton himself had found her. Not that she’d trusted him at the time, she recal ed rueful y. Her short, brutal, bewildering experience on earth had taught her to be wary of strangers, particularly men.
But something in her had recognized and responded to the tal, terrifying headmaster. And she had fal en in love with the school at first sight. To her child’s eyes, the four-story fieldstone building, with its gabled roof and uncompromising lines, had the appearance of a fortress.
Rockhaven represented order. Permanence.
Safety.
The school became the only home she remembered.
The only family she knew.
Moonlight gleamed on the rows of dark windows. The sky overhead pulsed with stars. Cool night air flowed through the open window.
Lara inhaled in relief. Her responsibility was almost over.
The consequences of her decision, good or bad, would be determined by the schoolmasters.
She smoothed the hair from Justin’s forehead, combing the matted strands with her fingers. His long body was crammed on the seat beside her, his neck and legs at awkward angles, one arm across his chest. Blood blackened the napkins stuck to his wound. She was afraid to disturb him, worried the bleeding would start again.
Terrified that this time when she tried to rouse him, he wouldn’t regain consciousness.
Yel ow light spil ed from the west portico. Not everyone at the school was sleeping. Somebody was waiting up for them.
She clasped Justin’s unresponsive hand. Al arriving nephilim were screened and welcomed by at least one of the governors. Often the rescued children needed medical attention. Most required a period of education and adjustment as they eased into their new bodies and community life.
She tightened her hold on Justin’s hand. His skin was warm. Feverish? He definitely needed a doctor. But he was not a child.
Lara swal owed against the constriction of her throat.
He wasn’t nephilim either.
She had overstepped — again — by bringing him here.
What would the consequences be this time?
Justin swayed as Lara and the Boyfriend supported him out of the car. Nothing wrong with his legs. It was his head that hurt. But the ground pitched under him like a ship’s deck in a squal. His stomach rol ed like a rookie sailor’s. He needed to pee. Preferably without help.
needed to pee. Preferably without help.
Gritting his teeth, he dragged his feet up the shal ow stone steps.
“One more,” Lara said. “You’re doing fine.”
He appreciated her concern. And the lie.