Darling, how did the search go? Did you find Janika?Do text when you have some time.
Love you.
Oh, and do be careful. Keep those powers locked.People can be a little superstitious in those small villages.
Ash snorted.A little?
They were locked in the darn Stone Age.
She flopped on the bed and thumbed a quick reply that she was fine but hadn’t found Janika yet.
Even if she did locate the woman, she wasn’t about to rush home. She needed time away from the sympathetic smiles and oh-so-gentle questions about her broken engagement. Ugh.
Thornbury.Bloody Thornbury.A postcard town tucked in Hertfordshire, wherefriendlymeant everyone knew your darn business—a fact both suffocating and comforting all at once.
Her sudden abilities were the reason she was here in the first place. The night she ended things with Paul, pain and rage had welled in her chest—and her powers exploded.
Memories of that dreadful dinner flooded her…
“You cannot delay this, Paul,” Alice Ransome’s clipped voice carried as Ash returned from the bathroom. “Being a climatologist is well and good, but volunteering in that smelly shelter in her hometown, always in those dreadful clothes? That’s hardly a suitable look for the wife of a future MP.”
Ash froze.
“Mother, not now?—”
“Yes, now,” Alice’s tone sharpened. “Her parents live in that obscure little Thornbury. Quite frankly, Paul, do you even know herrealbackground? You don’t want any bloodline issue turning up in your future child, do you? Caroline is far more…proper.”
The words sliced Ash open as she listened.
Bad bloodline?Because she was adopted? Or because of her skin?
“Please, say something, Paul, anything,” she begged quietly.
His silence said it all.
Everything blurred afterward.
She’d left, he’d followed her. Trapped in her pain, she yelled, “I want someone who will always stand by me, regardless.”
She’d gone back to their flat in London, packed, left his ring behind, and moved in with a friend.
After their breakup, he’d hounded her at work—since she’d been part of his campaign for member of parliament, with climate change being his precious platform—so she quit her job and went home to her parents.
Then he’d blown up her phone with calls and texts. She ignored them and finally blocked him.
Ash rolled onto her back and draped an arm over her eyes, shutting out thoughts of her spineless ex, and waited for her would-be executioners to eat dinner, fall asleep, or whatever the bloody hell they did at night…
A creak echoed. Ash jerked awake, blinking away the haze of sleep.
Shit.She’d nodded off.
Still tangled in the covers, she groped for her mobile. The screen flared. 6:25 a.m. Brilliant. Now she would have to face that mad mob again.
A short while later, she tugged on her beanie, put on her parka, zipped it, and stepped out into the biting mountain air. The chill knifed through her clothes, carrying the sharp scent of cedar and the faint tang of woodsmoke from the morning fires.
Hands shoved in her pockets, she headed back into the village.
Narakhet transformed in the pre-dawn darkness. Stone cottages huddled along winding paths, faded prayer flags snapping in the bitter wind. Mist curled across the frozen ground while butter lamps flickered behind tiny windows like suspicious eyes watching from the dark.
