But her sister had Betty to look out for her now, and Griff, and all her other friends. None of them would ever accidentally put her in a coma due to a moment of carelessness. Hope was better off without her.
Everyone was better off without her.
A dark shape moved behind the cell window. Ivy snaked her neck out, straining to see through the dusky twilight. She had to be absolutely certain that she had the right target.
The man in the window turned his head, his profile silhoue
tted by the harsh cell light. There was something on his face—something far too bulky to be mere glasses. Some sort of visor was strapped to his head, completely covering his eyes.
Only one person could be wearing that.
Heart hammering, Ivy spread her wings. Her talons flexed on the tree branch. It was time.
Time to save her mate.
“IVY!”
Hugh’s shout shocked her so badly, she lost her grip on her branch. She fell out of the tree in a shower of twigs and snapped branches, too off-balance to be able to twist in mid-air and take flight. Her back hit the ground with a crash that knocked all the breath out of her.
She struggled to her feet just as four black hooves touched down in front of her. Hugh slid off the pegasus’s back, his hair and clothes windswept. He stepped toward her, holding out his hands.
Ivy recoiled, scrabbling awkwardly backward on her hind legs and clawed wing joints. She hissed in frantic warning.
Hugh stopped, though his hands stayed outstretched, as if he was trying to calm a wild beast. “I know what you’re planning, Ivy. You can’t go through with this. You aren’t a killer.”
Acid dripped from her jaws, scorching smoking black holes in the leaf litter. He was wrong. She was made for killing, from her deadly breath to her venomous tail. She’d fought her monstrous nature all her life, but now she was finally willing to embrace it.
“I know you’re trying to protect me,” Hugh said. His expression was intent and focused, his eyes fixed on her as if nothing else existed in the world. “The fact that you’re willing to do this proves that you were lying before, at the hospital. You said you didn’t want to be my mate, but we both know that isn’t true.”
Unable to speak mind-to-mind with him, Ivy could only swing her head from side to side in mute denial. She didn’t want to be his mate. She had brought him nothing but pain.
She could never undo the damage that she’d caused, but she could at least stop him from getting hurt again in the future.
Chase still had his black-feathered wings spread, blocking her way, and the oak branches above her head prevented her from simply leaping into the air. Although she was faster than the pegasus in flight, he was much more nimble on the ground. She’d never be able to get past him in this form.
She shifted. The moment that she was back in her human skin, she attempted to dodge around Hugh, but he was faster. She had to skip backward to avoid touching him.
“Please, Hugh.” She circled, trying to keep a wary eye on both him and Chase. “Let me go.”
“No.” His arms were spread wide, ready to catch her if she tried to make a break for it. “You can’t do this, Ivy. You don’t have to do this.”
“I do!” She jerked off her gloves, throwing them carelessly to the ground. She put up her hands, not in surrender, but to show him the venom slicking her skin. “Now get out of my way, or else!”
He stepped forward again. “You won’t hurt me.”
“I will!” she cried, her voice breaking in desperation. “If you don’t let me do this, I will hurt you, Hugh! Sooner or later, I’ll slip up, or I’ll give into temptation, and I’ll touch you!”
“Good,” he said softly. “Because you can. We can.”
“You don’t know that!”
“I feel it.” Hugh touched his heart. “Right here.”
She shook her head in denial. “You don’t. You can’t. You’re not a shifter, you don’t have an inner animal-“
“I don’t need an animal to know that I love you.” His mouth quirked. “And to know that you love me, for all that you try to deny it. Trust that love, Ivy. Trust yourself.”
“That’s not the problem!” Ivy stumbled backward, hands still upraised defensively. “I don’t trust my animal!”