AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She swayed against the influx of data pieces swirling up in an incriminating storm.
Rose being out at night a lot…doing who knew what with who knew whom…her dodgy behavior, her evasive answers…
Rose coming home the night of the murder—with blood on her clothes.
Hazel’s pulse pounded in her ears, her breath too fast. The room wobbled, or maybe that was her legs. The light flickered as her magic thickened in the air, pressing outward with the storm building inside her.
It can’t be…
“What are you doing in my room?”
Hazel whipped around at the voice, then staggered.
Rose hovered in the doorway, dressed in dark shorts and artfully ripped black tights, her leather jacket pulled on over her midriff-baring blood-red top. She glared at Hazel as she gripped the doorjamb.
“Why do you have this book?” Hazel’s voice shook as much as the hand holding the damning volume.
Rose’s expression hardened, and she crossed her arms. “You broke in here and searched my room?”
“The door was open. Your light was on. I just came in to turn off the lamp. This.” She raised the book, her breath catching. “Why do you have it? What have you been doing with it?”
Rose curled her lip, her power pulsing in the air, its potent force a buzz against Hazel’s senses. “You said you are different. You lied. You’re like her. The fae who kept me. All you care about is how to control me.”
Hazel gasped at the verbal blow. And yet, the pain of it paled against the panic riding her, the sheer terror infusing her blood, making thoughts and reason skitter away on ghostly feet until all that remained was a swirling vortex of fear.
“Have you been using the sigils in this book?” She took a step toward Rose. Her voice trembled, her skin cold. “Did you murder that man? Use his blood for power?”
Rose jerked back as if slapped. Indigo eyes wide, she stared at Hazel. “Is that what you think of me?”
“I don’t know what to think of you!” Hazel shouted. “How am I supposed to know you? You never even talk to me!”
Chest rising and falling with her rapid breaths, Rose was silent for a moment while the tension between them was a palpable force in the air. Then she bared her teeth, a hard glint in her eyes. “I don’t need this.”
Turning on her heel, she stormed off.
“Wait!” Hazel hurried after her, slivers of regret already piercing the haze of terror in her mind. “Rose, I’m—”
Rose whirled around, her expression that of a feral thing backed into a corner. “Stay away from me!” The air around her shimmered with her barely checked power. “If you think me capable of murder, you should leave me the fuck alone.”
She all but ran down the stairs.
A chasm of pain tore open inside Hazel, and she sank to the floor, right there at the top of the stairs, that damn book still clutched in her hand. The maelstrom of emotions in her built and built, pulling her under. Icy fear, acidic pain, piercing regret, it all mingled into a combustive mixture that erupted in hot tears and heavy sobs that shook her entire body.
Everything hurt. Everything was utterly wrong.
She felt lost, and so, so small.
Sitting on the topmost step, she curled into herself, her face buried in her arms on her knees. All she wanted was to crawl into a hole somewhere and stay there, but she couldn’t even muster the strength to move.
Still crying, her body unable to shut off the surge of feelings, she didn’t even hear the front door open and shut. Didn’t notice who came up the stairs until dark energy brushed her senses, its power a near-aggressive vibration amid the familiar signature.
Lungs burning from her weeping, she looked up, blinked away her tears to focus on eyes of amber that glowed like hot coals.
No, not him. Anyone but him. She couldn’t deal with him now, not with her heart shredded and bleeding. He shouldn’t see her like this, raw and vulnerable.
Sniffing, she tried to surreptitiously wipe the tears from her cheeks, turning away to hide the devastated state she was in.
He didn’t let her.
