Page 103 of Forged in Deception

All at once, he’d swept her up against his chest again. She tilted her chin upward just in time to meet his lips as he leaned down to kiss her. Feeling his lips against hers spread warmth straight through to her toes, and she could sense that his longing went deeper than either of them would dare to say aloud. But there was a gentleness mingled with the hunger. A promise that a kiss would remain only a kiss. A promise that…

She felt her breath catch in her chest as she let the kiss come to an end, resting her head against his chest as he stroked her hair.

She realized she knew the words she wanted to share with him. They terrified her, but they were difficult to hold inside, all the same.

Ever since the day she’d first called him up on a Sunday afternoon, for better or for worse, she’d managed to show him all of her. All of her blame, bitterness, and ugliness. Perhaps most difficult of all, she’d shown him her weakness.

And none of it had phased him. All of it seemed to have only made him care about her even more.

It was hard to believe it could be true, but everything about his embrace made her want to believe.

“We need to go inside and warm up for a second, I think,” Axel said. She shivered a little as he got to his feet, taking her hand and guiding her up from the rock. “Before the fire goes out. The sun should be up soon, too.”

She followed him quietly, back down the steep rock and into the little cabin, still deep in the winding caverns of her thoughts. The fire had burned down somewhat, but it was still much warmer than being outside. Axel was right. Despite the moment they’d just shared, they were still in a precarious situation, and they had to be smart.

The two of them were lost in their own thoughts for several minutes as they curled up on the old couch, trying to soak in all of the heat they could from the smoldering flames.

Karlin’s mind kept wandering back to Lily, replaying everything she’d said over and over again. How could she have missed so much, even when the truth had been right in front of her?

Maybe she just didn’t want to believe it.

Maybe she’d been blind to Dana’s identity because, deep down, she wanted to be.

She didn’t want to face the tragedy of Amira’s death, to keep reliving that guilt. It was so much easier when her ghosts stayed dead and gone.

“We can’t get too comfortable,” Axel muttered next to her, already sounding half asleep. “Paul needs us–”

But a sound from somewhere outside interrupted him mid-sentence.

Karlin sat up straight, instantly on alert. “What was that?”

With a finger pressed to his lips, Axel got up and headed over to the door, opening it just a crack. The sound came again, louder this time.

“Look,” he said, gesturing for her to follow. She did so, and the two of them stepped out onto the rotting porch. She could see nothing but dark desert. For a long moment they listened to nothing but the rhythmic pattering of rain.

And then it came again.

Axel gave a nearly imperceptible nod.

There was no mistaking it this time. No convincing herself that it was coyotes or anything else.

The sound that had haunted her since she’d arrived at the retreat was louder now. And it was unmistakably and terrifyingly human.

CHAPTER

FORTY-THREE

ASHER

Asher had always thought that ‘bone chilling’ was a really weird way to describe something.

But now?

He couldn’t think of anything else that explained the way the sounds made him feel. It was something deeper than just fear. There was a wrongness to the human voices, as though they had somehow mingled with something else.

Something dark. Something evil.

He wanted to call the sound chanting, but the voices occasionally shifted into yelling and cheering before changing back again. How had he ever convinced himself that this was anything natural?

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