Free Through the Veil by Shiloh Walker Page B

substations, they had gone aboveground in the dead of the night, seeking out the ever-present nightlife and the ongoing flow of cars that rumbled even at three in the morning.
    A cool finger stroked down his cheek. “You look pretty glum, buddy.” Cutting his eyes to Lee’s face, he finally voiced the question that had been lurking inside his mind since he had seen her standing just beyond a shimmery mirage of light.
    “How did you come to be here, Lee?”
    Her lashes dropped, covering those pale blue eyes. Finally, she lifted her head and stared at him dead in the eye. “I really don’t know. But I kept hearing your voice. You wouldn’t leave me alone,” she said quietly.
    A slow smile crept across his lips as he continued to stride over the ground, his long legs eating up the distance between the clearing and home. Safety. “You haven’t left me alone for twenty years. High time, I’d say, that I returned the favor,” he drawled.
    “I was a kid twenty years ago. I didn’t start dreaming about this place until I was a teenager.” Her voice was quiet, her face averted.
    “You saved my life the first time when you were seven, Lee. You brought me food. Then you disappeared. A few days later, you freed me from where I was being held in some tiny little hellhole.” Eyes grim, he said quietly, “If you hadn’t freed me, and I still don’t know how you did it, but if you hadn’t, Raviners would have had a bloody party with my sorry ass.”

THREE

    Lee’s head was spinning. And it wasn’t just from the unbelievable pace he kept up as he carried her across the uneven, rock-strewn terrain. Too much had changed. Too many things that should have been impossible were actually happening—and what was most bizarre, she wasn’t even questioning that any of it could be real.
    She knew it was.
    Knew he was real, even though a man like him seemed to defy every law she had come across when it came to the opposite sex. He was drop-dead gorgeous, a body covered with rock-hard muscle, a warrior, yet it seemed she recalled him asking for her help, time and again. That was almost like men asking for directions . . . wasn’t it?
    She chewed nervously on her lip, staring as they rounded a bend of half-burned trees. In the distance, she could hear faint sounds, voices floating on the wind, a booming pulsation of sound that echoed in her belly, myriad weird sounds that she couldn’t place. “What is that?” Lee finally asked as the booming pulsation rippled through her chest one more time.
    “Ion cannon. We managed to get into a fallen military base and we . . . ah—liberated some badly needed supplies. The ion cannon is a bloody powerful weapon, but none of us were exactly sure how to use it. One of the older men was in the army when its predecessor came out, so he’s helping us work the kinks out. Before we have to use it.”
    “Oh,” she said faintly. An ion cannon, of course. I feel like I’m trapped in some weird science fiction movie. “Why am I so important to this?”
    “The ion cannon?” he asked, a smile curving that hard mouth. Her belly quivered as she imagined arching up and pressing her lips to his. His taste still lingered in her mouth and she wanted more. But bad enough she had been making out with a man she didn’t exactly know. She wasn’t going to kiss him when she suspected they would have company at any minute. “No, pet. We can figure the ion cannon out for ourselves.”
    Lee scowled at him, her brows drawing low over her eyes before she sniffed and averted her face. “Smart ass,” she muttered. “That wasn’t what I was talking about. And you know it.”
    Under the arm she had wrapped around one shoulder and his neck, she felt him shrug. “If I knew why you were so important, don’t you think I would have tried to do something about it before now? I’m a soldier, not a seer.”
    Her cheeks heated as she felt his eyes lingering on her face, the slow sweep of his thumb on the underside