Thea glared at him, waiting for the questions to come.
He shook his head as if reading her thoughts. “She didn’t pay me to ask questions. I just do the job. We’re dropping you off at Henderson Harbor where there’s a guy with a car waiting to take you where you want to go. Here.” He dumped a backpack at her feet. “This is yours.”
She was silent as the boat bounced across the water, trying to bury her grief over Amanda. She’d dig up that grief later, when she was far, far away from Ashforth.
“Where do you think you’ll go?” the guy with the gun asked.
She thought of England. Her dad’s parents were Irish, but they had raised him in London, while her mom had been raised in Cornwall. Growing up, Thea had seen photos of Cornwall and thought it looked beautiful.
But it would be the first place Ashforth would look.
Thea shrugged. “Somewhere that’s not here.”
The guy grunted. “Right.”
The man waiting at Henderson Harbor was human, but he was tall and muscular and looked like private security. Thea told him to take her to New York Harbor. It was a five-hour drive, and it felt like it took forever. There were two werewolves sniffing around the harbor when she got there and she knew Ashforth had sent them.
However, the ship leaving the harbor minutes after her arrival was bound for Southampton in England. Her driver was apparently paid to be more than just a chauffeur. He’d spotted the wolves too and told her he’d distract them while she boarded the ship.
Thea reluctantly used her mind trick to secure her way onto the ocean liner.
She stayed in her small cabin for much of the seven days it took to cross, wishing the goddamn ship would speed up. Thea had visions of Ashforth sending out cops to stop the ship, but she knew he’d rather let her get away for now if it meant leaving the authorities out of it. And he also knew she could make the police see whatever the hell she wanted them to see, including a girl who looked nothing like Thea Quinn.
Having cried herself to sleep most nights over Amanda, Thea landed in England with a renewed attitude. She’d keep her promise to her adoptive mother to never forget, but she was done crying.
She was alone now, and all that mattered was surviving and staying out of Ashforth’s hands.
The claustrophobia that had tightened her chest since she’d become Jasper Ashforth’s little science experiment all those years ago finally released as she stepped onto the cruise ship that would take her to Greece.
And from there … well, from there she could go anywhere.Conall wasn’t sure how much time had passed as he sat in the hotel room, listening to Thea’s melodic voice. Darkness had fallen but neither of them had moved to turn on the lights. She sat on the floor, her back to the wall, sometimes meeting his eyes, but mostly staring out the window at the darkening sky.
Conall heard the love and grief in her voice when she talked about her parents, of Amanda, and even of Devon, but there was more than hatred in her tone as she spoke of Ashforth. The musky, coppery scent of fear filled the room and made Conall’s gut twist. Thea was possibly the most powerful being he’d met, and yet she was afraid of a human man because of the abuse he’d perpetrated on her.
Processing her tale, disgusted with Ashforth, awed by Thea, he realized with great regret that desperation had caused him to make a deal with the devil.
Putting all the pieces of the puzzle together from Thea’s story and from what he knew in his gut, Conall believed her.
Jasper Ashforth was a piece of shit.
As Thea fell silent, looking out the window, Conall’s eyes drank her in. Her lips were parted, carefully relaxed, no tension in her jaw. But when his gaze traveled down her body, he found her inner anxiety reflected in the tight fists her hands made in her lap.
She was waiting on his disbelief.
Conall returned his study to her face. He hadn’t looked away from her for hours and he willed her to finally turn her eyes upon him. As if she’d heard the thought, Thea met his stare with that neutral countenance she often donned as a mask. She’d never mastered the art of a blank expression. She thought she had. But those cognac eyes were soulful. More often than not he didn’t know what she was thinking, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t see who she was in their fiery depths. They were dark pools of experience and of all the empathy and compassion the world—Ashforth—had tried to rip out of her.
He thought of her demanding that he turn the car around so she could save that bairn and her father.