Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 116263 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 581(@200wpm)___ 465(@250wpm)___ 388(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 116263 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 581(@200wpm)___ 465(@250wpm)___ 388(@300wpm)
Without saying anything, he began to guide me through the shadows, keeping low as we slunk between the cars.
“What are we doing?” I whispered, my thoughts jumbled, feeling as if I were being pulled in every direction.
“Changing cars.”
My brow drew tight, and, as if he could feel the silent questions whirring through my mind, he murmured low, “This morning, I bought the car I came to get you in. Paid cash for it at a junk lot. I didn’t want to take mine to the facility. We can’t have them able to track us that way.”
Air heaved from my lungs as reality began to sink in. We were in very real trouble. Pax was going to be seen as the criminal, when he’d been the one to come rescue me.
To save me from a man who’d been compelled to hurt me.
New fears dumped into my brain, tumbling and twisting as Pax hurried us across the lot.
As we approached a white two-door Infiniti, he let go of my hand, reached into his pocket, and pulled out a set of keys. He pushed the fob, and the car lights flashed as the locks disengaged.
He opened the passenger door, his attention raking over the area to make sure we were in the clear. “Get in.”
I fumbled into the car and buckled, my entire being trembling as he climbed in on his side and started the engine. He turned the heat to high and reached over and turned on my seat heater.
A chill swept through me when the heat began to thaw my frozen flesh.
He pulled out of the lot and onto the road, keeping his pace controlled as he took a few turns before he got onto the freeway that would take us out of Albany, never letting his guard down as we traveled through the city where I’d grown up.
The place where my family lived.
The place I was leaving behind because I knew there would never be any way I could return to it.
It wasn’t until the lights of Albany faded behind us that I finally braved the single question that had been plaguing my mind.
“How did you know?” It scraped through the friction that sparked and shimmered in the air.
For a moment, he didn’t say anything before he blew out a rough sigh, a tattooed hand slanting through his hair in frustration. “You think I didn’t know you were in trouble, Aria? That I didn’t feel it?”
My chest squeezed. He’d heard me. Through time and space, he’d heard me. When no one else ever had, not even those surrounding me in the day.
Hesitation radiated from him, a quiet fury that bristled beneath his clothing. It made the leather appear to writhe over his body. His teeth gnashed before he spat, “Timothy saw the Ghorl. He saw its thoughts, Aria. He saw the truth of what that monster was sent to do. And I knew I had to come for you.”
“It’s forbidden for you to intervene.” It was a whisper, my gaze out the windshield as the world sped by in a slurry of the woods’ blackened greens that pressed close to the highway.
All the warnings we’d ever been given writhed in the space between us.
We would only bring ourselves danger.
Be more noticeable to the Ghorl and become targets.
Become vulnerable to their destructive thoughts.
Turn against one another.
A hand suddenly darted out to grab me by the side of the face. A gasp rocked up my throat, and I couldn’t do anything but turn to him, to the force of his hold and the weight of his eyes. “Make no mistake, I would break every fucking rule in this world and in that one to keep you safe.”
For a beat, we were locked on each other, the way we were in Tearsith.
Understanding passed through the connection.
A second later, Pax pried himself away and returned his attention to the road that blurred beneath us, the white lines whipping by as tension wound with his promise that continued to whisper in the cab.
My stomach twisted as I watched him.
The hard, harsh shape of him that was cut all the way down to his middle. To the darkest recesses where I could almost see his own demons play.
Trapped in a mystery of who we were and who we were supposed to be.
I fiddled with my fingers, then asked, “Where are we going?”
In pure agitation, he roughed a hand over his head again. “Away. Where I can keep you safe.”
No question, we both were wondering if that was even possible.
I lifted my gaze to him. “I hate what I’ve gotten you into.”
His head barely shook, and the tattoos on his throat rolled when he swallowed. “Don’t you dare apologize, Aria. I was already there.”
A sticky awareness climbed through my ribs and compressed my heart. “They’re going to call the cops, and they’re going to come for us.”