“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I thought—” Fuck. He’d thought she wanted him, which was stupid.Stupid. He knew better.
He shook his head, trying to clear the pounding headache growing behind his eyes as he staggered back the way he’d come. He didn’t want anything from the kitchen now. He wouldn’t keep it down.
“James.” Her soft voice halted him just before the door, and he stopped, his back to her.
“I just….” She didn’t complete the thought. She didn’t need to.
“You don’t have to explain,” he whispered to the door. “I know I’m a monster, and I know you don’t….” He swallowed the words. They’d never spoken of love before, and he wasn’t going to start now. “I won’t touch you again.”
He didn’t give her time to tell him just how much she hated him. He ripped the door open and fled.
ChapterEight
Elizabeth leaned back,resting her head as they flew down the motorway. Leaving Wales. Leaving her home. Leaving the life she’d built, brick by brick, moment by moment, for so many years.
Her chest ached. Not only with grief for the life she might never return to, but with the constant low thrum of dread she’d carried since the dreams had started.
The Sight teased at the corner of her mind. Not a vision of the future, but a sense of knowing. The awareness that someone she loved was in pain. She’d woken in the night, conscious that James was suffering even more than usual. Now the sun was rising, but the prickle of his misery hadn’t eased. And they were too far away to do anything to help.
David was driving. It had made sense to take his far more luxurious BMW than her tiny old Ford hatchback. Especially since Bryn, with his long legs, was sitting in the back, and all their most precious possessions were crammed into every other available space.
If they didn’t defeat Gordon, if the entire Order rose against them, they would be looking for new homes far away. If they even survived that long.
She watched the greenery flashing past her window, the distance still to travel weighing on her. They should have left with Kayleigh and the others rather than be separated. But she’d hoped to speak to the faculty at the college, to warn the Circles in Wales and ask them for support.
They were all people she’d worked with for years. People she knew well. She had eaten in their homes and babysat their children. Shared visions for them and held their hands at funerals. And yet, none of that had counted when she asked them to stand beside her against the Council.
The call had gone out from Gordon… and people were following it. Too many years of obedience. Too much secrecy. They believed the Order would protect them, that the Council cared for their wellbeing, and they had stopped thinking for themselves.
When visiting in person had failed, she’d tried to reach more people by phoning them. She’d spent the entire day making calls. But most didn’t even answer. And those few who picked up were clear: she, along with Bryn, David, and his Circle, had been denounced. Expelled. Sentenced to Shadow stripping.
The best her former friends could offer was not to immediately report—or capture—them as Gordon had demanded. She was expected to be grateful to be turned away.
But she wasn’t grateful. She wasenraged. And the truth was, the members of the Order who had made such a show of their benevolence almost certainly hadn’t done it out of the goodness of their hearts. They had been driven by their fear of her, David, and Bryn joining forces and fighting their way out of the hands of anyone brave—or stupid—enough to try to hold them.
So now she was furious. But it was a good thing. Her anger was clean and fresh. It was burning a new path for her. One she was finally ready for.
Everyone thought she’d been struggling since being kidnapped. They assumed she’d been traumatized because of what had happened with James and sad that David had left her again.
In some ways, they were right. She had been… irked by David. And she had felt deeply vulnerable. But it wasn’t being kidnapped that had shattered her confidence. It was that she hadn’t Seen it coming. Not at all.
She was a Seer! A good one, she liked to think. Things didn’t just happen to her. Not like that. Not for years. The last time she’d been blindsided by something, her husband had died. And having it happen again had brought back all that old anguish. All those scarred-over insecurities.
It was horrendous. The not knowing. The awareness of just how unpredictable life was.
And then, when David had walked away, going back to his work and his responsibilities, hiding in his Circle House as usual, another—new, but still truly horrible—thought had occurred to her. How much had she accepted because she’d Seen it?
She’d known David would break her heart when they were young. She’d known he would leave. Oh, it hadn’t stopped her loving him. Or from desperately trying to change his mind. Or her utter desolation when he’d gone.
But still, she’d known it, and she’d accepted it. She hadn’t packed up and gone to him, had she? And why not? She had fulfilled her own prophecy.
What a thing to realize.
She cast a sideways look at David as he drove. His focus was on the motorway, not on her, and she took her time appreciating the firm jaw and strong features that she had never forgotten. Noticing the newer lines of care and worry. The silver of his scruffy beard, his slightly too long hair, both so unlike his usually tidy grooming. He had rolled up his sleeves, and she was distracted for a moment by how powerful his forearms were. He shifted gear, and his muscles flexed before he wrapped his strong hand around the steering wheel once more.
What would it be like if he wrapped those thick fingers around her? She swallowed and looked away.
Damn. It had been a long time since anyone had touched her with any kind of heat, and it was definitely not a good time to be thinking about David putting his hands on her body.
