Jane The Nymph: The Boxed Set (The Circle Series Book 2)

by Naomi L Scudder

  "How did you know?" she asked, car door and mouth ajar.

  "I'm sensitive to that sort of thing," I said, trying to avoid her eyes but not missing her "What does that mean?" look.

  I didn't actually know what it meant. The last few weeks I'd developed a weird sense for pregnant women. Amari said it was another aspect of my magic awakening, but the compulsion to engage new people was becoming annoying.

  And dangerous. I couldn't afford another energy suck.

  I needed to get out of here, and away from this woman. "When are you due?" I asked, uncomfortable with continuing the conversation but wanting to shift her focus off me.

  "July," she said.

  Wrong. End of June.

  We stood silent and awkward, her rearranging grocery bags to shut the car door, and me pushing the black curls off my face, trying not-so-subtly to inch closer to my own car. If I could just get out of here before she opened up.

  No such luck.

  Like clockwork, her face lit up as she caved. "It's a girl and we're so excited!" she blubbered. "This is our first, and we're having so much fun with the clothes and rearranging and painting. Everything's happening so fast! We weren't really trying, but we weren't not trying either, ya know?" she said in one breath, head bobbing with excitement.

  She'd been holding it in a while.

  "Outside of immediate family, you're the first I've told!"

  Her excitement was so contagious, I found myself smiling back at her. "Congratulations," I said and moved toward my car.

  If that was the brunt of it, I might get away from this unscathed. Only a few more steps and I'd be safely in the car.

  I really couldn't handle another energy drain.

  "Um, Zora? It is Zora, right? Zora Joutsen?" I nodded and swallowed a sigh of resignation. This was exactly why I tried not to talk to people. She took half a step toward me, body leaning forward desperate to close the distance. "I know we don't talk but, um, maybe we could?"

  "I'm really busy," I said, and got in my car. I didn't look back. I didn't need to. I knew the exact look on her face. I'd put it on many others.

  She didn’t know why I was so appealing, only that I was. She didn’t know that my magic called to her, or that if I allowed it, she’d drain me dry of every bit of it.

  I wouldn’t let it happen again. Not to me. Not to anyone.

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