Page 38 of Witchy Woman

My breaths come in heavy pants, but my mind has cleared enough that panic has seeped in. I don’t break our connection, liquid-emerald pools watching me as if I’m both the bane of his existence and his redemption.

“I have...” I swallow, my mouth suddenly dry as desert sand. “I have dinner with my family. I have to go.”

Annoyance flickers across his eyes before he takes a deep breath. “We have to talk about this.”

“We will. We will, I just have to go. I have to.”

My heart speeds up as anxiety threatens to swallow me. I can’t be here.

“There’s no air in here!” I exclaim, breaking out of his hold. I run to the tent flap and throw it open, taking in deep breaths of the outside world.

He stands there, his arms still up in the same position, as if my reaction has surprised him so much he can’t move. It probably has.

I’m fully aware I’m acting absolutely illogically. I’m erratic and panic-ridden and I have to get out of here.

I can’t stand the way he’s staring at me, the way I’ve done exactly what I promised myself I wouldn’t.

And the way most of me doesn’t regret it. Most of me wants to run back to his arms.

“Laura,” he says, all the pain and misery in the world in one single word. In the name he never uses.

My knees wobble as I stare out at the market, not truly seeing anything. I can’t imagine what I must look like to everyone.

“Please,” I say, turning to him. “Please, Ash.”

“After dinner? After dinner with your family can we talk?”

I should say no. But I crossed the line today, and he deserves some sort of explanation as to why this can’t continue. Why I have to be stronger now, despite knowing it’ll be that much harder.

I nod. “I’ll text you.”

“Will you really?”

The doubt is fair, but it hurts nonetheless.

“Yes, I promise. I don’t go back on promises.”

My skin aches in each spot he touched me as we simply watch each other from opposite sides of the tent. I wish his soulmate could’ve been someone safer for him.

“I’ll find you even if you do.”

Despite everything, the corner of my mouth lifts in a half smile. “I know you will.”

From the way that man looks at me, I know he would follow me into the depths of Hell and back. And that’s what terrifies me.

Chapter 19

Shot to Kill

“What in theactual fuck, Hazel?” I scream the moment I get home. The house goes silent for a moment as the door slams shut behind me. I can’t believe she opened her big, fat mouth and spilled the soulmate beans.

All through the drive home, anger toward my sister built and built—and now I swear I’m like a volcano about to erupt. Hot lava roils in my belly.

She ruined everything. She took away my life, she changed everything, and now she’s torn down all my carefully crafted plans to keep Ash away from all this bullshit. Without a single care in the world!

The rational part of my brain understands she didn’t really have anything to do with my life changing so much. That everything with Draven was going to hit us whether she left the house or not. But anger isn’t rational, and definitely not today.

Nothing about me is logical today.