Hero Rising Read Online Free PDF

realized.
    Afterward, we put our clothes back on and we almost fell back to sleep, but the boys came tumbling into our giant bedroom.
    “Wake up!” Joshua said, poking his little knuckle into my face.
    “Yeah, wake up, Mommy, Daddy. Beach!” Jason asked. They had dressed themselves in their swimming trunks, and Jason playfully waved around a small beach shovel. It must have been weird to our children that their parents only went outside when it was dark. They couldn’t quite grasp that their mother and I were unable to go to the beach during the day.
    Lena and I looked at each other. “These boys never quit,” she said to me. I pulled Jason up to me and Lena grabbed Joshua and hugged and kissed him. “Maybe we can go to the beach later,” she said. “But I’m starving! Anyone else hungry?”
    We couldn’t exactly take our kids to the beach till night time anyway. Once the sun went down, we owned the beach, but as long as the sun was out, we had no alternative but to stay out of the deadly rays.
    “After that workout?” I joked, and stroked her hair.
    She smiled the smile of a well-satisfied woman. “I could eat a horse!”
    “Pancakes!” Joshua and Jason said in unison. As twins, they did a lot of things the same way at the same time.
    “Okay,” Lena said happily. “Mommy will make you pancakes. You boys go downstairs and let Mommy and Daddy get dressed. Also, I want to speak to your father privately.”
    “Uh-oh, Daddy is in trouble.” Joshua laughed.
    “Again?” said Jason.
    Then the twins giggled and raced out of the room. I could hear them scampering down the stone staircase. I sighed. “Another day in the life…”
    Lena looked at me, a little concern showing on her face. “So, what’s the plan?”
    “There is no plan,” I said, not too convincingly.
    “Don’t tell me there is no plan when I know you’ve been obsessing on it all night. Did you sleep?”
    “I got a couple of hours.” I looked into Lena’s eyes. Wasn’t I just going over in my mind what a wonderful life I had? I had everything a man could want, and more. Because I was more than just a man. I could be a vampire or a werewolf any time I wanted. Lena and I were still mortal—we aged at half the rate of the human race. So, if I had a plan…I was extremely conflicted. “I’m just…Lena, do you ever miss the old days?” I asked.
    “The old days?”
    “Like five years ago? Those old days?” I said.
    “Yeah, I remember them,” Lena answered. “Those memories are still pretty fresh. Some of them were pretty scary, too.”
    “I had a profession.”
    “A profession?”
    “Yes, my job was fighting for your love. It was fighting to save you and to keep my friendship with Tommy intact. Then my goal was fighting for the Mani.”
    “You noticed you used the words ‘fighting’ in each sentence. You see, Josiah, that is the part I don’t miss. Not one bit. The fighting, the wars, the saving each other’s lives, the not knowing how things would turn out? The constant worrying of whether you would live or die?”
    She got out of bed and started to dress for the day. I sensed conflict in the air, with our old relationship demons rising up to spew from her lips. “Or, what about how I felt last night when your little savior bit hit the Internet and was seen all around the world. Did you ask me how I felt then?”
    I knew this was a loaded question, so I said as heartfelt as I could. “I would hope you felt some sense of pride.”
    “Pride? Pride! Returning to all the nonsense we left behind? Again, Josiah? The Mani were delivered from all the violence. You came. You fought. You conquered. Finally, we settled down in peace and I started to feel a sense of security and bliss, especially after the boys came. Now you want to stir up things again and start a whole new venture? Or should I say, adventure? Is this because you are bored or because you have to always have danger in your life? You are a husband and a dad, so grow