She sucked in her breath. So did he. Even through the denim of her jeans, he got some crazy contact high from touching her. Not like the jolt in the bar this time—more a low-level hum, like the vibration of a ship’s motor through the soles of his feet or the tug of the wind in the lines.
Her eyes widened. Her lips parted—
“Here we go.” She lifted her foot from the brake.
Maybe it was his imagination. Maybe it was those tal iron pickets clustered like spears on either side of the road.
But as they approached, Justin could feel the barrier rushing up on them, closing in on him, tightening his throat.
F o r g o t t e n s e a 99
The gate quivered and retracted. Lara’s leg flexed under his hand. She stomped on the gas and the wheels spun, spitting up gravel. The car lurched forward. The cord around his neck burned like a whiplash.
“Hold on,” she shouted.
Energy seared his palm and charged his arm. Inside him, something swel ed and surged. The engine roared.
The car shook like a jet plane, and with a pop, a rush, a snap like the crack of a whip, they were free, speeding through the gate and into the night.
*
*
*
Zayin raised his head from Miriam’s smooth, scented shoulder, uneasy even in the act of coitus. “Jude?” His lover raised her hand to his cheek, her inner muscles clenching around him as if to prevent his withdrawal. “What is it?”
He did not answer her. He was hot and hard, deep inside her, poised on the brink of completion, in the grip of her wet heat. His blood pounded in his head, in his loins, drowning the faint warning tingle of his brain. He thrust once, twice, plunging like a runner at the end of his race, hard, fast, now.
Now.
She cried out, her fingers digging into his shoulders. He shuddered and flew, free of earth and the limitations of his human body.
For long seconds he lay on her while his heartbeat slowed.
His respiration evened. Rol ing off her, he reached for his pants.
“What is it?” she asked again from behind him. “A flyer?”
He shook his head. He had tagged three of the nephilim as primed to take off in the next few months or years. A 10 0
V i r g i n i a K a n t r a
quick mental check placed al three stil within the compound. Which left . . .
“Lara,” he said.
Miriam inhaled sharply, a sound of distress. “Does Simon know?”
Zayin stood to pul his pants over his hips. “He wil soon.”
He glanced at Miriam over his shoulder. “He wants her, you know.”
She exhaled on a sigh. “I know.” She sat, the sheet fal ing from her breasts. “She was so wounded when she came to us.
So young. He was waiting for her to heal. And to grow up.”
“He’s a fool,” Zayin said.
“But not a predator,” Miriam answered quietly.
Their eyes met. Held.
Zayin was the first to look away. “It’s the boy who concerns me. We stil don’t know what in creation he is.”
“He’s with her?”
“I’m sure of it.”
“Then you’l find them.”
“I’l kil him.”
They both knew what was at stake. The nephilim no longer possessed their ful angelic powers. Hunted by their ancient Adversary, they banded together for survival.
Every student learned that the gates, the wal s, the wards were there for their protection, forged to keep the demons at bay. Their continued existence depended on the strength of the community. Even those who chafed under the discipline of the Rule acknowledged the value of its precepts.
Yet every now and then—once or twice a year and then F o r g o t t e n s e a 101
not again for three years or five—Zayin would wake in the night to a feeling like a feather drawn across his neck.
He couldn’t save them al .
But he always went after them.
*
*
*
Ozone charged the air. Moisture spangled the windshield, gleaming like fish scales against the dark night. Justin lowered his window to feel the damp air against his face, his heart pumping with relief and adrenaline.
“You did it.”
“Not real y.” Lara flipped on the headlights.
He glanced across the seat, caught by her tone. In the blue glow of the dashboard, her face appeared tense and unhappy.
“You got us out. You saved my neck back there. Literal y.”
“It wasn’t me. Not only me. You got us through the barrier.”
Thunder cracked and rol ed. He could feel the swirling energy of the approaching storm cel .
He shook his head. “I didn’t do anything.”
“You have power.”
He had nothing.
Better for both of them to remember that. To believe it.
As soon as they reached the coast, he’d be gone, and she’d be going back to . . .
Axton.
The thought stuck in his gut.
“If you say so.”
“Don’t you care?”
