Oh yes. Jecis’s downfall would have happened one way or another.
“A family reunion. How sweet.” The Targon chuckled, and in the next moment, the entire world stilled. The flames stopped crackling, the smoke stopped wafting. “Come on, little Vika. I told your man I would take care of you. Vowed it, in fact.”
How like Solo. “What did you demand from him in return?” She doubted the creature had been willing to help out of the goodness of his heart. Daddy Spanky wasn’t the type.
He tugged her to her feet. “Doesn’t matter. I didn’t really want what he was offering, just wanted to see how much he was willing to give up. By the way, he was willing to give up everything for you.”
Just like that, tears burned the backs of her eyes. She blinked them away—they were silly. X would bring him back, Solo would insist on it, if Solo wasn’t at the farm already, and she would have the opportunity to say thank you, to tell him of her love.
“Now, come on. I’m weak, and I know that’s not saying much. My weakness is actually the strength of ten men, but I’m not sure how much longer I can hold such a big group of people with the magnificent power of my mind. If we stay, they’ll question us. If they question us, they might decide to keep you. I don’t relish the thought of springing you from prison.”
“Yes. Let’s leave.”
They wound around the now-blackened tents, darted around the frozen bodies, the flickering fires, the wafts of smoke. “In case you’re wondering, I’m going to do you another solid,” the Targon said. “I’m going to take you anywhere you want to go. Anywhere in the world. I can’t open solar flares like your father, but I can drive and I can keep the cops off your tail. I doubt you’ll receive a better offer.”
“The farm,” she rushed out. “I want to go to Solo’s farm.” She rattled off the address Solo had forced her to memorize.
“That’s a few states away. If I buy a car, give you time to clean up and rest, I can have you there in three days. If I steal a police cruiser, I can have you there in two. If you ask me to drive all night, I can have you there in one.”
“Steal and drive all night,” she said. “You can mail the local PD a check.”
“Thought you’d say that,” he grumbled.
• • •
“There it is,” he said. The Targon stopped the car, put it in park, and emerged.
Vika opened the passenger door, warm air bathing her, amazingly fresh and clean, layered with scents she remembered from long ago. Animals. Fur, hay, pine.
The sun beat down on a white, two-story house, a picket fence around it. Beyond that, mountains formed the perfect backdrop. Trees stretched in every direction.
Her knees nearly buckled, but she managed to race forward, calling, “Solo! Solo!”
An older man with silver hair stepped out from behind the house. He wore dirt-stained gloves. “Can I help you, ma’am?” he asked.
“I’m looking for Solo.” She pounded up the porch steps, heart galloping in her chest. The front door was unlocked and she soared inside, leaving the Targon to handle the human. A lovely little living room greeted her.
A soft leather couch. A well-worn love seat. An oblong coffee table, with books scattered across. An unlit fireplace, a plain but soft-looking rug. The kitchen reminded her of the one in the log cabin, with an island counter and pots and pans hanging from the ceiling, only these were a lot higher up. She would never be able to reach them without a ladder—or Solo.
Two bedrooms were upstairs, and she had no trouble picking out Solo’s. It smelled like him, with a subtle hint of peat smoke. The bed was huge, the biggest she’d ever seen, and there were no covers, only a sheet. A sheet without a single wrinkle. The closet was filled with shirts, pants, and shoes, all black. But there was no sign of Solo.
And the other bedroom was empty.
He wasn’t here, she realized.
Shoulders slumped, she made her way down the stairs. The Targon leaned against the doorpost, his arms crossed over his middle.
“Didn’t find what you were looking for, I take it,” he said.
This was Solo’s farm. His home. But he wasn’t here.
She burst into tears.
Thirty-four
The path of life leads upward for the prudent to keep them from going down to the realm of the dead.
—PROVERBS 15:24
DR. E IS DECEASED. I killed him.” X leaned against a column, his arms crossed over his chest. He was still tall, still muscled.
Solo could hear him, but his voice—and all sounds, really—had been turned to a lower volume. “I wish you had done it sooner.”
“Had you told me to do so sooner, I would have. You had accepted him into your life, and I was never to interfere with your free will. But the moment you rejected him, I was able to act.”
All these years . . . all the torment . . . and the fault was all his own.
He was outside, lying atop an alabaster dais. A sheet was draped over his lower body, but the rest of him was bare, allowing rays from the three suns glowing in the white sky to stroke over him. Rays that were actually healing him. The cuffs were gone, thank the Lord.
He wanted to rise, but he didn’t yet have the energy. The three gaping holes in his chest were still in the process of closing.
“How are you so big?” he asked.
“In this realm, I am big. In your realm, I am small.”
“You were big in my realm, too. For a little while.”
“No. You saw into my realm.”
“Why haven’t I changed, then, now that I’m in yours?”
“You are not like me. And besides, this might be my realm, but it is not my world. It is yours. Alloris.”
He looked around with new eyes. Fresh green grass surrounded him. Flowers of every color bloomed in lush gardens, sweetly scenting the air. Men and women just like him strolled down a cobbled road. Each wore white. Each was smiling.
And behind every person was an even taller being with translucent skin.
No one seemed to care that Solo was out in the open, half-covered.
X grinned. “You will love it here, I promise you.”
“Not without Vika.” His sweet, darling Vika. With every second that passed, he was more determined to return to her.
Where was she? Not on the farm; he’d given that to the Targon. Or maybe she was there. The Targon had vowed to protect her, and the male would not renege. Not just because doing so would cause him pain but because he had the heart of a guardian underneath that irreverent exterior.