Cameron stood a few feet shy of the opening in the tent’s walls, watching the wind-driven snow. His jacket was draped over his shoulders rather than actually on, and his breath steamed in the air. His back was warm while his cheeks stung from the tendrils of wind that gusted in through the gap.
“Pretty nasty, huh?” Thom asked as he wandered up behind him.
Cameron nodded slowly. “Yeah. Glad I’m not out in it.” Flying, riding, or otherwise. His gaze slid sidelong to the other man. “Maybe it’ll delay whatever attack is coming.”
Thom shrugged. “We can hope, but I don’t think we’re going to be that lucky. All it’s really doing is hindering our final prep, if you ask me.” His breath steamed a little in the air. “Surprised to see you up. I didn’t even know you were awake.”
“I wasn’t up until an hour ago,” Cameron said, his gaze lingering on the steel-colored clouds above, just barely visible through the white of the snow. “Hate those things. They get a piece of you and you pay for it for weeks afterward.” His hand unconsciously drifted to the older wound, the one that was supposedly healed but still hurt sometimes—like now—with a deep, throbbing ache. He frowned slightly at Thom. “You were bleeding the other night, weren’t you? Didn’t they get a piece of you, too?”
“No, I was bleeding before the fight,” Thom said. “Was helping my brother-in-law with something and got sliced. You and J.T. got clipped. Rory caught a knife, not a claw, which I guess is good because they got his face.”
Cameron winced sympathetically. “Bad?”
“Two stitches. Matt took worse when he had a radio explode in his face a few months back.”
Cameron nodded, trying to pretend that he remembered who Thom was talking about. He knew he’d met a Matt, but there hadn’t been much time to get know much of anyone before things had gone sideways—again.
That’s got to stop happening eventually, right? I can’t be that unlucky.
I hope not, at least. He cleared his throat. “What about J.T.?” At least I remember him. He was helping Jacqueline take care of Neve.
“Bad, like you,” Thom said with a faint grimace. “He woke up today, too. Makes me feel a little better that you guys’ll have a conscious medic down in the tunnels.”
Cameron raised a brow. “Tunnels?”
“Yeah, there’re steam tunnels that run around here. We’ve got a section warded off from the rest where we’ve been sending Tala and Angie and Jac when things start to get rough. Jac doesn’t like it much, but we really can’t afford to risk her up top. She and J.T. are the only medics we’ve got.”
Cameron shivered at the memory of a faint glow surrounding the small woman’s hands as she worked on Neve. “She’s more than that, isn’t she? She’s got some kind of talent.”
“You noticed?” Thom said with an arched brow.
“I was there while she was working on Neve,” Cameron said. He swallowed at the memory. Caliburn had grown warm against his back, as if it recognized the power Jacqueline had been wielding. He hadn’t mentioned that to anyone yet and wasn’t sure that he would anytime soon.
Some things, his gut and better judgment said, were better left unsaid.
“Mm,” Thom said, not looking at him, instead following his gaze out at the snow, at the clouds. “We saw it for the first time a few months ago. She saved Kellin’s life.” He smiled wryly and motioned to his throat. “She’s the one that looks like she survived some kind of murder attempt.”
“I remember wondering about the scar,” Cameron said. Hell, I remember wondering how she lived. “What happened?”
“The last fight with Cariocecus,” Thom said, then shook his head slightly. “Be glad that you and Neve aren’t going to be involved in the fighting,” he said quietly. “He could’ve killed all of us that day. I’m still not sure how we managed to wiggle out of that noose. Fate smiled, I guess.”
“I suppose so,” Cameron said, staring at the sky. “Still, I wish we could help.”
“Someday you will,” Thom said. “I know it.”
Cameron looked askance at him. Thom smiled.
“Don’t ask questions you don’t want to know the answers to.”
“I hear that a lot,” Cameron said.
“Around here it’s true.” He paused. “Marin and I see things.”
“Things?”
“The future,” Thom elaborated. “Possibilities. So it’ll go easier on you if you don’t ask.”
“Right,” Cameron said, eyeing him sidelong. “You’ve seen me, then?”
“And your wife.”
Cameron swallowed. “She’s not—”
Thom met his gaze head-on, expression serious, eyes dark with certainty and pain. “She might as well be. She will be soon.” He looked away again. “And then there’s something about our sons.”
A shiver worked its way down Cameron’s spine. “Our sons?”
“Yeah,” Thom murmured. “I can’t quite see it, but there’s something. Enough to know.”
“Know what?”
Thom shook his head slowly. “That I wish I couldn’t see the future.”
Cameron shivered. “I don’t envy you, then.”
“You’re smarter than most, then.” A bitter little laugh escaped Thom’s list. “You’re smarter than most.”
