used to be able to teleport. What was it like?”
“Convenient,” he muttered, looking back at the heat signatures moving around the Cyst area. “For most of my life, it just was a way to travel. To close my eyes, imagine a place I’d been, and then fall into it.”
Grace had once asked Promise, a genius physicist now mated to Ivar, how in the world anybody could do that. Promise had said it was an application of string theory, whatever the heck that was, bending time and other dimensions to cross through and end up elsewhere. “Do you miss the ability?”
Adare nodded. “It’s like losing your sight or your hearing or any other sense.”
She rubbed her aching temple. “Kind of like my missing memories. I’d do anything to get those back and remember what put me into a coma.”
He lifted his chin. “We had the Realm guys look at all the evidence concerning what happened to you, you know. They concluded it was probably a burglar you caught in the act who attacked you in your apartment. A guy fitting that MO was caught several blocks away two months later. He turned on police and was shot.”
She nodded. “I read all the reports.” Even so, she didn’t remember what had happened to her that one fateful night. That sucked. It was much easier to focus on her mate than her blank memories. Perhaps Adare’s abilities would return the same way doctors assured her that memories could. “Maybe if Ulric makes it back, and if his prison bubble bursts, everything will align like it was before.”
“That’s doubtful.”
“Or everything could just blow up, including our world,” Grace whispered. Sometimes Promise didn’t sugarcoat the facts.
“Maybe.” He strode for the stairwell again. “Let’s get some sleep.”
Grace looked around the quiet room again. “Oh, this is definitely a lair. Benny has it right.” She told herself the trembling in her voice was because of the chilly space and not the fact they were about to share a bed again. Yeah, right.
Chapter 10
Apparently he had some work to do before he sent her off to the Realm in the morning. He didn’t think she’d tell them about the Seven, but she also didn’t seem to care much about her own well-being. Adare followed Grace into his bedroom and shut the door. “We don’t have a lot of time, but there are some promises I need from you before you go to sleep.”
She started, her head going back, before turning and once again sitting on his bed.
He kept his distance across the room, just to stop himself from reaching for her. Her scent was unique, and one he’d always wondered about. A mixture of sweet lilacs and spicy oranges with a hint of the sea thrown in. Calming and peaceful. How odd that the one woman he’d loved, years ago, had been anything but peaceful. This one, the one he’d mated, had a gentleness to her that he would’ve liked to have known. In a different life.
“Well?” She crossed her arms and his shirt swallowed her up. “I am not promising to run from a fight if I can help.”
“I’m going to try to survive our mission, but if I don’t, promise me you won’t take the virus from the queen for at least a hundred years,” he responded. So far, that seemed to be the earliest anybody had taken it safely. “I need to know that you’ll be safe if I’m gone.”
She frowned and cocked her head. “You’re totally confusing me. We’ve mainly lived apart these five years, and now you’re worried about my safety?”
His chest heated. “I’ve watched out for you for five years, and I thought you’d be able to manage on your own when I was gone.” The last thing he wanted was to sound as if he was lecturing a toddler. “At every second since our mating, I’ve known where you are and what you’re doing. Did you honestly think otherwise?” By the surprise on her pale face, she definitely had. “After being in a coma and then being thrown unwillingly into immortal life, you needed some freedom, Grace. I owed you that.”
“You took every mission you could to give me freedom?” Her incredulity was a little insulting.
“No. I took every mission I could because it’s my job, and I’m good at it.” He was the team expert in shock and awe, since he rarely lost his head in a fight. “I made a vow when I underwent the Seven ritual. I knew