Key of Valor
Page 82

“We’re each other’s.”
There was warmth as the ring slid onto her finger, a lovely jolt of it as it circled her flesh. “It fits. It’s so beautiful. I’ve never seen anything more beautiful.”
“I have.” His eyes held hers as he kissed her.
“Can I call you Dad now?” Simon tugged on Brad’s sleeve. “Can I, or do I have to wait?”
As Brad lifted Simon off his feet, Zoe’s already full heart overflowed. “You don’t have to wait. Neither do we.” With his free hand, Brad pulled Zoe into his arms and made the three of them a unit. “We don’t have to wait for anything.”
As cheers sounded from the house, Zoe looked over. Everyone was on the deck, applauding.
“I sort of told them,” Simon confessed. “When I went in to get the ring.”
“Get back here!” Dana shouted between her cupped hands. “We need champagne and we need it now.”
“I wanna watch it pop.” Wiggling down, Simon ran for the house.
It seemed to Zoe that everything glowed as if it had been washed with gold. With her hand clutched in Brad’s she took the first step down the path toward the house.
Simon leaped onto the deck. The pup missed a step and tumbled, and Moe raced in circles around him. She saw Flynn give Jordan a friendly punch on the arm. And watched as Malory slid her arm around Dana’s waist.
Brad’s hand was warm against hers as their fingers linked.
And she knew.
“Oh! Oh, of course. How simple.” The knowledge filled her like light, like that lovely gold light, had her spinning so her body pressed against Brad’s, laughing at the sheer joy of it. “How perfect, and how simple. Hurry.”
She ran, tugging him along the path. One she’d chosen, she thought, and that her child had chosen. One that changed everything, and led toward home.
“The key.” Tears sparkled on her lashes, and still she laughed as she stepped onto the deck with the man she loved, with her child, with her family. “I know where it is.”
She kept Brad’s hand in hers as she crossed toward the door.
The kitchen door, she thought. The one used for family, for friends, for those who lived inside. The everyday door that would never be locked against her.
Crouching, she lifted the mat. Beneath it, the key was a glint of gold on wood. “Welcome home,” she said softly, and picked it up.
“It’s my home now, you see?” With the key resting in her palm, she turned to Brad. “I had to believe it, expect it, accept it. All of that. I faced him here, last night, when I was so low, so afraid, so tired. But I faced him, and he couldn’t make me give up. And I found it because I fought for it. And for you, and for myself.”
She curled her fingers around it. “We’ve beaten him.”
The wind came up in one, long howl. It raged across the deck with enough force to hurl her back, to slam her down. Through the roar of it, she heard the shouts, the crash of glass.
She rolled, saw her friends scattered over the deck, saw Brad using his body to protect Simon from flying glass and debris. And saw the blue fog creeping over the ground toward them.
The key pulsed in her fist, a frantic heartbeat.
Kane would kill for it, she knew. He would destroy them all to stop that beat. Crawling on her belly, she reached Brad and Simon. “Is he hurt? Baby, are you hurt?”
“Mom!”
“He’s all right!” Brad shouted. “Get inside. Get in the house.”
Her home, she reminded herself grimly. The bastard wouldn’t get inside her home again, would never, never touch what was hers. She slid the key into Brad’s hand, closed his fingers tight around it.
“Protect them. Get Rowena. Dana and Malory can get Rowena.”
If she gave them the chance, Zoe thought, and bracing herself, she rolled away and off the deck. She kept her fist closed tight as if she held something precious in it. Ignoring the shouts from behind her, she pushed herself to her feet. Bent double against the fury of the wind, she lurched toward the trees.
He would come after her, and that would buy time. As long as he believed she had the key, he would focus on her. The others were nothing to him now. Bugs, she reminded herself as she wrapped her arms around a tree trunk to gain her balance. He wouldn’t waste time swatting bugs now.
Until the key was in the lock, the war wasn’t over, so she would take the battle with her.
The mists twined around her ankles, seemed to pinch and tug so she panicked enough to kick out and scream. When she fell to her knees again, the stench of it filled her mouth, her lungs. Choking, she dragged herself up and ran.
The wind wasn’t as fierce now, but the cold—oh, the cold was barbed and ate through the leather of Brad’s jacket, into her sweater, into her flesh. Snow began to fall in fat, dirty flakes.
He was taking her back to that first illusion. She pressed a hand to her belly half expecting to find it full of child. But she felt only the quiver of her own knotted muscles.
Kane was toying with her now, she decided. His ego would demand it. Entertaining himself. Certain that he could strike her down at any time, take the key, and win.
Disoriented, she stumbled through the snow, only praying that she wasn’t somehow circling back toward the house. They needed time. She’d found the key. If they could get it to the Box of Souls, Simon could open it. It had to be true. He was part of her. Her blood, her bone. Her soul.
Once the lock was open, they would all be safe. She had to keep Kane’s mind off the others until it was done.
Black lightning shot out of the sky and lanced fire at her feet. She screamed, hurling her body away from the burn of it, gagging on the stink of its smoke.
When she scrambled up again, he was standing in her path, his black robes swirling inches above the dingy snow.
“A coward, after all.” The marks from her nails still scored his cheek. “Leaving your own child, your friends, your lover, running like a rabbit to save yourself.”
She let the tears come, wanting him to see them, mistake them for a plea. And she put her fisted hand behind her back as if hiding something. “Don’t hurt me.”
“Only hours ago I offered you your heart’s desire. How did you repay me?”
“You frightened me.” She needed a weapon, but was afraid to take her eyes off his to search for one.
“You should fear. You should beg. Perhaps if you do, I’ll spare you.”