Aisling
“We’ll be back, and we’re not going far,” he said to Corson.
Corson nodded, and a couple of the hounds lifted their heads, but everyone else remained asleep as we walked into the forest. The moonlight barely penetrated through the trees but becoming a demon enhanced my vision, and I could see well enough to avoid walking into a tree or rock.
“Are you okay?” I asked him.
“Yes,” he said and nuzzled my hair.
When his warm breath tickled my neck, my thoughts went in a million different directions, but I refused to let him distract me. “You seem… stressed.”
He leaned back to look at me. “It’s not exactly fun times right now.”
“I know, but I want to make sure you’re okay.”
“Don’t worry about me.” He turned his attention back to the trees. “Tell me something about yourself, Aisling.”
I wasn’t expecting the shift in topic. “Like what?”
“Tell me something no one else knows.”
“Something no one else knows,” I murmured as I puzzled this. “I had a dog named Duke when I was a kid. He was a yellow lab, and I got him for Christmas.” He arrived a year after the Mary Lou fiasco. Although he wasn’t a puppy, he was the best gift I ever received.
“They adopted him from the local shelter, and he was sitting under the Christmas tree with a big red bow. We were always together, but after the gateway opened, herefusedto leave my side.EverywhereI went, Duke went with me, even to school. Eventually, my teachers gave up trying to chase him out of the building and would let him sit outside the classroom door. I didn’t know it at the time, but he must have sensed what happened with the gateway and was trying to protect me.”
“Sounds like he was a good dog.”
“He was agreatdog.”
“What happened to him?”
“Old age and bad hips; when I was seventeen, we had to put him down. I was so heartbroken.” I rested my hand over my heart as a familiar ache built in my chest. “Now, here’s the part no one else knows; Istillcry over him.”
Hawk’s arm tightened around me. “I never had an animal like that.”
I didn’t think I ever would again. “Tell me something about yourself.”
“I’m as intelligent as I am good looking.”
I gave him a sharp look, but when I saw the twinkle in his eyes, I laughed. “Then you must not be too bright.”
“Ouch,” he said and rested his hand over his heart. “That was a mortal wound.”
I was still laughing when we reached the bank of a small stream. I stared at the water as it flowed over rocks and meandered through the trees before vanishing around a bend. It was small enough that I could take a big step over it.
“I thought I was in love once,” he said. “I’ve never told anyone that; not even the girl I was sure I loved.”
I ignored the jab his words inflicted on my heart. “You thought?”
“I’ve realized it was an infatuation, but I would have done anything for her. However, I think most teenage boys will do almost anything for the first girl who lets them go all the way.”
“Who was she?”
“Cindy Wallis. We went to school together and hooked up one night at a party. I was fifteen, she was sixteen, and I believed we would get married and have babies.” He laughed as he ran a hand through his hair.
“Fifteen?” Thanks to the war, I wasn’t much of a child by then, but I was still more concerned with books than boys and sex.
“What can I say? I’ve always been irresistible.”
