I shouldn’t have done what he asked.
I climbed the small hill and turned to hell.
Dawn did its best to push aside the moon; the ground glittered with blades of frost. My heart was a lump of snow by the time I ascended the front entrance.
It was the hardest thing to ask of me—to willingly go back.
I didn’t know if I’d ever be able to forgive him if he betrayed my trust.
If something happens...
I shook my head.
Nothing will happen.
Two days...it’s nothing.
Pausing on the stoop of the Hall, I glanced fleetingly behind me.
There, on the horizon, was the faint outline of a black horse and its rider disappearing into the woods.
Jethro was gone.
I should never have let him go.
I should’ve run in the opposite direction.
I obeyed because I trusted him.
I should never have trusted him.
Unfortunately, I was right.
Two days was too long.
In two days, my world would end.
Chapter Twenty
Jethro
MY NEW HOME.
For the next thirty or so hours.
I surveyed my camp. Wings stood tethered to a tree and my tent stood sentry in the small glen. It’d taken an hour or so to set up—it would’ve been less if my body wasn’t low on fuel and the pain from my wound hadn’t decided to make itself known.
Payback for ignoring the warning signs while proving to Nila that I was strong and capable and deserving of her trust.
Louille would have a fucking fit if he knew what I’d done only hours after checking myself out from the hospital.
I swore under my breath, prodding the fresh blood stain on my side. The stitches had done their job and knitted me together, but at the very edge the skin had torn slightly. A throb resonated from rib to lung.
Oh, well. It was a good test to judge what I’m able to do.
Not to mention, I would do it all over again even if my side burst open mid-thrust. Nila consumed my every thought, my every sense. I’d only been away from her for sixty minutes, yet I missed her as if it’d been sixty years.
Opening the front zipper on the duffel, I pulled out some extra strength painkillers. Popping a few, I swallowed them dry and returned to securing the last peg of the tent.
