War of Hearts

by S. Young

Amanda slipped her arm through Thea’s and huddled close. “How are you feeling?”

  “Still weak,” she admitted. “The effects of the room take time to wear off.”

  “About an hour, right?”

  Thea fought to stay relaxed. “Yes, about an hour.”

  “We’re going to walk around the grounds for an hour,” Amanda said, lowering her voice. “And then we’ll take a walk on the beach. Jack and Sarah are my personal guards, Thea.”

  She looked into Amanda’s eyes. “How?”

  “There’s a boat,” she whispered. “Jasper is in Australia on business, and I’ve told about a hundred lies to get guards out of the way for the exact moment when the boat will arrive. You have to be on it at exactly one fifteen or we could get caught.”

  “What will he do to you?” Thea asked, fear for Amanda stalling the anticipation of flight.

  “I’m his wife. He won’t hurt me. He’ll be furious with me, but he won’t hurt me.”

  Thea cut her a dark look. “He’s a bad person, Amanda.”

  Her green eyes filled with tears. “I know,” she whispered bleakly. “And I’m … stuck … but I can’t let you be. I loved your mother. She was my best friend.”

  Tears momentarily blinded Thea. “Come with me.”

  “I can’t leave Devon.”

  “He’s at school. He’s grown up.”

  Amanda smiled sadly. “He’ll be fifty and I’ll still think of him as my little boy. I can’t leave him alone with Jasper. I just … I can’t.”

  They fell into silence as they walked by the pool, not acknowledging the guard placed at the entrance to the lounge area.

  When they were finally out of earshot, Amanda whispered, “There’s a backpack with a change of clothes and ten thousand dollars on that boat. You can’t use a passport or he’ll find you …” She tightened her hold on Thea. “You’re going to have to use your gift.”

  Thea shook her head. “No.”

  Ashforth had made her use it on people and his experiments had brought the realization she couldn’t use it on supernaturals. But she could mind warp the hell out of humans, and it was awful.

  The first time she’d become aware of the gift was when she was just a kid. She’d broken one of her mom’s favorite vases and had unintentionally wished her mom wouldn’t see it. And then her mom couldn’t. Her dad, however, could, and he thought Thea’s mom was going crazy until they realized their special daughter might be even more special than they’d thought. After testing the gift among the three of them, they’d discovered Thea could make people see anything she wanted them to see.

  William and Laura Quinn had forbidden her from ever using it again.

  As a child, she hadn’t understood what a violation the “gift” was, and her parents never knew she’d continued to use it.

  It was only now she understood that it wasn’t a gift. It was a terrible power she did not want to use ever again.

  “I can’t.” The thought of stripping someone of their free will disgusted her after her imprisonment.

  “Darling girl.” Amanda suddenly looked fierce. “You will have to give up a few morals to survive. My husband has almost unlimited resources and he will use them to find you. So you need to be as far from here as possible. The boat will take you to New York. You can’t get on a plane, so you need to find a ship that’s sailing far away. And to get on that ship you’re going to need the right people to think you have a passport.”

  Although the thought made her sick, Thea nodded.

  The tension thickened between them as time moved on and Amanda led them toward the beach. “I can never repay you for saving my son’s life and I will never forgive myself for not taking the risk to help you sooner. I will live with that regret to my dying day.” She turned to Thea and took her face in her hands. “So much has happened to you. You have the kind of strength that is awe-inspiring, Thea. Never forget that. I know horrible things have been done to you and I have no doubt that out there alone, you’ll come across more bad things this world has to offer. But don’t ever forget that there’s love and kindness in this world too. Your parents loved you. I love you. Remember that. Don’t forget … because if you forget, you’ll forget to love.” She gripped Thea’s arms now. “Power like yours in the hands of someone who no longer cares or loves beyond themselves is a dangerous thing. Promise me you won’t forget. Even if it hurts to remember Will and Laura. Even if it hurts to remember me. Promise you won’t forget.”

  Thea nodded, holding back the tears. “I promise.”

  Satisfied, Amanda hugged her hard.

  They stood there so long, a throat cleared behind them. “Mrs. Ashforth,” Jack interrupted. “It’s time.”

  From there they let go of one another and hurried down to the beach. Anticipation caused a mad flutter of butterflies in Thea’s belly when she saw the speedboat, manned by a guy with an automatic rifle and another who was steering the boat.

  Amanda followed her down onto the private jetty with the guards at their backs. Thea gave her one last hug. “Thank you,” she whispered. “I won’t forget.”

  Shouts rang out just as Thea stepped into the boat. She turned around as the sound of bullets ripping through the air filled her ears.

  “Go, go, go!” the guy with the automatic rifle shouted as he fired back.

  Thea huddled, peering over the edge of the boat when the water sprayed up out the back as it peeled away from the dock. Sarah was down and Jack was guarding Amanda with his body.

  Bullets pinged off the stern and Thea gave a muffled shout as she saw Jack’s body jerk several times before he fell off the dock. Her heart in her throat, Thea watched as Amanda went to stand up, empty hands raised, and her body jolted, blood spraying out the back of her head.

  She fell like an anchor into the water.

  “No,” Thea whispered, choking on sobs as she turned, cowering in the boat as it tore across the river to safety. “No.”

  “Hey.”

  She looked up to see the guy with the rifle bending down on his haunches to peer at her.

  “You hurt?”

  She shook her head.

  His features softened with concern. “Sorry about the lady. She paid real well.”

  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, bu
t 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.

  15

  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.

  Of the way she’d saved Conall from the silver bullets.

  All the lies he’d believed about her seemed ridiculous now. Feeling his chest ache with a strength of emotion that surprised him, his heart beating a wee bit faster than usual, Conall cleared his throat. “There was a shopkeeper in Budapest.”

  Thea narrowed her eyes and nodded.

  “Did you kill him?”

  Disbelief slackened her features. “What? No.” She shook her head. “I liked the old guy. He was always lecturing me about walking around by myself at night. Strangers rarely care about other strangers, but he seemed genuinely concerned for me. That night someone came in to rob the store while I was there. I got that feeling I told you about … my internal alarm system that warns me of danger. The gunman was going to harm the shopkeeper, so I stupidly stepped in, even though I knew my kind of activity sends up a flare in the supernatural community. Ashforth has eyes and ears everywhere, apparently. The gunman shot me and seeing me react inhumanly caused the old man to flee. The gunman fled too.”

  She shrugged, her tone defensive. “I knew I had to leave the country after that, but I didn’t have enough money, so I stole from the cash register. I’m not proud of that but I considered it payment for saving the shopkeeper’s life.”

  Fuck.

  Conall sighed, hating to impart the news. “He’s dead, Thea. The shopkeeper’s dead. Ashforth showed me photographs. Of him and of others. And he told me they were your victims.”

  He watched the color drain from her face as she pushed up onto her feet, giving him her back. The shadowy room filled with static and then the lights flickered on before blazing to life.

  Conall bit back a curse at the show of power and studied Thea’s slender back, remembering the scars he’d seen beneath her shirt. That ache in his chest flared, the knot in his gut tightened again, and he wished Ashforth was in front of him so he could rip his fucking heart out.

  The intensity of the feeling was overwhelming.

  She turned to him, desolate. “I’ve never intentionally harmed a human. Not since that guard back at Ashforth’s island house. He’s lying. About all of them. I would never hurt an innocent or someone who can’t fight back.”

  Conall nodded, thinking of the atrocities Ashforth had committed to keep Thea’s existence a secret. “He’s killing witnesses to cover your trail.”

  She pressed a hand to her mouth. “Oh my God.” She looked sick as the magnitude of Ashforth’s crimes set in. Her hand dropped limply to her side, her expression stark. “Maybe I should have stayed with him. All those people would be alive. They died for my freedom.”

  Angry at her self-directed and misplaced guilt, Conall stood and glowered down at her. “No. Their deaths are not on you. You’re not responsible for Ashforth’s actions. He’s a psychopath.”

  She made a harsh sound of strangled laughter. “Actually, I don’t know if he is. I looked up the definition of psychopath and Ashforth isn’t emotionally shallow or without conscience. He has the ability to love, to care. He loved his family. But, ultimately, he loves power more. Ashforth is a megalomaniac. And that unnatural drive to obtain power has warped him. It’s an obsession. It makes him justify all the bad things he’s done. And somewhere along the way, I think it just became easier for him to stop seeing me as a person, as Thea, and more as an object of power. Killing innocent people”—she shook her head—“he’s so far gone now. I can only imagine Amanda’s death was a catalyst. Something’s snapped in his mind.”

  Conall thought that made sense. He nodded. “He needs to achieve what he set out to achieve, otherwise her death was for nothing.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m sorry I believed you killed Amanda.”

  He saw the harsh grief mar her face before she hid it beneath her rage. “The first hunter he sent after me was a mercenary for hire, armed with a dart gun and Ashforth’s drug. He said he didn’t know why Ashforth wanted me back alive, that if I had killed his wife, he’d take his revenge on the spot. And that’s when I knew he probably told Devon that I murdered Amanda. I wanted to kill Ashforth for that. Everything he’d done to me … and somehow,” she said, her jaw tensing as she blinked, fighting back tears, “somehow that was the worst.”

  His throat thickened, watching her battle her emotions and win. There was a part of him relieved that she won. Conall wasn’t sure how he’d cope with Thea crying.

  “Thea, what is the weapon he used against you?” He sounded gruff, impatient. However, his frustration wasn’t just with her. He was frustrated with himself for believing Ashforth’s lies. And he wanted Thea to trust him.

  Wrong.

  He needed her to trust him.

  “I can’t tell you.” Her tone brooked no argument.

  A fury the situation hardly warranted rushed like a burning heat through his blood and he felt his gums and fingertips tingle with the shift. Jesus fuck. He took a calming, slow exhalation. Thea’s eyes narrowed on him.

  “Are you okay?”

  No, he was far from okay. He was disappointed and angered beyond measure by her lack of trust in him and yet how could he blame the lass? Hadn’t he spent the last few days holding her captive, to return her to a man who had brutalized he
r?

  Still, she knew his weakness, and he was giving her his trust by believing her over Ashforth. “You know I’m weakened by silver. What’s the difference?”

  Thea crossed her arms under her chest, drawing his attention. The heat within him changed in an instant before he fought it and dragged his gaze back to her face. If she noticed his wandering eyes, she didn’t acknowledge it. “Every supernatural on the planet knows silver is poison to a werewolf, the same way every supernatural knows a wooden stake to the heart will turn a vampire to dust. But no one knows my weakness except Ashforth, and that’s as big as I want to make that circle of death.”

  Conall’s frustration mounted. “If you tell me,” he bit out sharply, “maybe I can help you find out what you are, why you have the abilities you have.”

  “I’m not interested in knowing.”

  He raised an eyebrow at her mulish expression. “Ashforth knows, Thea. If we know what he knows, we’ll have a better chance of understanding what is driving him.”

  “Power. I told you that. Absolute power.” She sneered. “Do you know before he found out about me, he was gearing up to run for president? Of the United States. President. So he could be immortalized forever in world history. But then I came along.” She took a step toward him, her intoxicating mix of fresh, floral, heady, sweet scent thickening in the air between them. “Why be immortalized in history when you can be immortal? He thinks I’m a true immortal. Whatever that means.”

  Ashforth’s voice filled Conall’s mind. “Well, they’re not true immortals. They can still be killed.” “He thinks you’re indestructible.”

  She slumped down on the twin bed next to her. She was the perfect image of youthful weariness, like a thousand-year-old vampire that had stopped aging at twenty. “The vampire who punched me in the chest …”

  Conall sat on the other bed. “Aye?”

  “My heart wouldn’t budge, Conall.”

  His heart raced a little harder at the sound of his name on her tongue. He forced himself to concentrate on the words that had come before it.

  “He couldn’t pull it out of my chest, and he couldn’t crush it.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I don’t want to be immortal. I don’t want to live forever.”