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“I’ll need tonight to get the key,” Knox answered. “But after that, I’m good.”
“I’m ready whenever,” Wade answered.
“Tomorrow during the day, I’ll make my move. The transfer to the North Tower should happen right away, but I don’t know how long it’ll take me to get to communications after that.”It wasn’t as if I had a guidebook of how much time it took to get a shade into the North Tower, beforeI could slip my cell and get to communications. A few hours? A day or two?
“So how do we coordinate it? It isn’t like Brax can just wait at the generator for days until it’s time,” Knox said.
“I have an idea about that…”I admitted with a sigh.
Talk about a horrible idea…
* * * *
Knox
I peered around the roof as I frowned. I couldn’t recall the last time I’d been outside without a guard.
Sure, I sometimes had jobs that Larkwood sent me on, or otherwise was allowed in the yard area, but never without some musclehead watching me and waiting for a chance to pull his weapon.
Instead of that, I only had one human woman.
Yet I suspected I might have preferred the weapon over the scent of want that clung to Nisha, the Warden’s assistant.
A small hand slid over the expanse of my back, through the shirt that covered me. “You look good out here, under the stars.”
Her praise did nothing for me. I didn’t want to hear how good she thought I looked, how much she wanted me. The only reason I’d come here with her was for that key, so all her empty words and sickening touches did nothing for me.
Worse, where I’d hated this before, it had never felt quite as wrong as it did now. Was that because of Hera? Because after being with her and Wade, I’d finallytasted true passion? Now I fully understood how empty this all felt.
Still, I couldn’t let that get in the way of my plan. If I failed, if we had no way to escape Larkwood, then I had no future. No matter how much I hated this, I had to play along.
I tilted my face up to look at the expansive sky, the bright stars that dotted the darkness. “It’s been a long time since I’ve gotten to see the sky like this.”
She stroked over my back, then brought her other hand up as well. She moved those hands to my sides of my waist, her breath warming a spot between my shoulder blades. “I was surprised when you contacted me. I thought you’d turned me down.”
I had, but telling her I just needed to use her wouldn’t get me what I needed. Instead, I forced myself to play my part. “I guess I was nervous.”
“Nervous? Why?”
“I get hit on a lot by other shades, by guards, but never someone like you.”
“Like me?” The way she asked screamed ‘praise me.’
So I gave her what she wanted. “You’re a good woman—too good for me. I was surprised, and I kept thinking that it was a mistake, that it wasn’t a good idea. I just thought there was no way you really wanted me.”
She pressed her lips to my back in a soft kiss, then whispered against me. “You worry too much. I’m not that good of a woman, either. I’m married, you know?”
That surprised me. Few people who worked at Larkwood had families, given how far Larkwood sat from anything else. Most staff spent six weeks or so at Larkwood, took two weeks off, then repeated that process. Not many marriages survived hours like that.
She laughed softly, though it held pain. “He’s always worked a lot, which is why I took this job. It’s hard to be apart so much. I guess I got tired of sitting in an empty house waiting for a man who wasn’t coming home.”
“Do you love him?” The question surprised me as it left my lips. It was the last thing I should have said to her, but I couldn’t help it. The longer I spent with Hera, the more I found myself thinking about love, about how relationships worked.
That made her pause and pull back a bit. “Of course I do.”
I turned to face her, staring down into her eyes. My incubus snarled in my head with want, demanding I kiss her, that I take her in my arms and gorge myself on her. “How can you be here then?”
“Have you ever fallen in love?”
