Ax stayed a half-step behind me, just close enough in case I spun around and decided to finish what I’d started.
Control your environment…
Control your environment…
Control your damn environment.
My eyes landed on a gleaming apple-red Rolls Royce parked in the handicapped spot. Of course. Who else would drive a spotless, six-figure luxury car to a honky-tonk dive bar and park in the handicapped spot?
Josh Davis. In all his narcissistic glory.
I snapped.
I dropped to one knee, yanked the Ka-BAR from my boot, and stalked toward the car.
“Phoenix, no—don’t?—”
Ax’s voice was behind me, panicked, but it was too late.
I sent the blade deep into the tire with a clean, satisfyingthunk. The air hissed out in a high-pitched whine, as if the car itself was screaming.
“Dammit, Feen,” Ax muttered.
I sheathed the blade without a word, flipped Spirit’s reins over her back, and swung onto the saddle.
“Where you going?” he asked.
I gave the reins a sharp tug, but Ax caught the bridle before I could ride off. “You need togo home,brother.”
“Let go, brother.”
We locked eyes.
Something shifted in his face—worry maybe, maybe understanding—but he released the bridle.
“Go home, Feen,” he said quietly. “Home.”
I kicked Spirit into motion, the wind slicing across my face like knives. We moved fast, hooves pounding across gravel.
We both knew I wasn’t going home.
32
ROSE
My stomach knotted as I turned onto my driveway, a feeling that was becoming habit over the last few days. My eyes skirted the darkening woods around me, a sunless dusk that looked more like twilight.
It was 7:04 p.m., and had been another long day at work.
True to Stan the Weatherman’s prediction, the temperature had reached almost seventy that day, making the atmosphere ideal for severe weather. There was an electricity, an energy in the air that had more to do with the pending thunderstorms.
You could feel it in your skin. But the charge in the atmosphere wasn’t only from the pending thunderheads. It was something else.
Him.
The kiss. I was restless. Tight-wired. Off-center.
The moment Phoenix had walked out of my office, I’d spent ten full minutes just breathing, trying to calm the wild thrum of my heart. And trying even harder not to run after him and drag him back in by the collar.
