War of Hearts(52)

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.”