Zeke turned to face her. Gone was the smile, the humor in his eyes. In its place was stoicism, a man who would not budge if a god struck him. “You don’t get it, do you? You’re mine now. Dom’s going to be running around like a chicken with his head cut off and while he’s doing that, I’m going to make sure the news is running ads about your little résumé lie, your little runaway bruid fiasco, and while that happens my points are gonna go up. So, darlin’, you ain’t goin’ nowhere. Have a seat.”
Like a heavy weight pressing on her shoulders it finally dawned on her what she’d done. Dom probably thought she left him for Zeke. He’d be an idiot if he thought that but the possibility was there. She loved him, crazy loved him with all her heart. A tear slipped down her face and her breath hitched. She shouldn’t have left. She should have run down that aisle to him not away from him. He would have kissed her, pulled her close, and made her feel like everything would be fine.
But she’d done none of those things. She’d run the other way in a storm of panic and anxiety that had gripped her with its cold fingers. Now she had to fix this shit-storm she’d caused. She had to repair the damage before it was too late.
With all the dignity she could muster, she walked back to the ladder that she’d climbed down not that long ago. Then she climbed up the stairs in her red gown that Dom probably would have liked and proceeded to jam her shoulder into the hatch with the intention of not stopping until she got out of here.
Chapter 26
Sweat dripped down his forehead, curved around a wrinkle at the corner of his eye, and then dipped onto his eyeballs. With a hiss, he blinked at the salty burn over his retina.
He’d long lost his shirt. What had been a crisp white linen shirt pressed into perfect creases from an iron had turned into something a dog would love to roll in. He’d searched every inch of the forest, but he was losing time. The sun was coming. He could feel the heat of it like a lamp on his skin though. He didn’t have much time before it ascended the sky.
The earth kept turning when he wanted to roar at it to stop. Just stop for a few hours. He needed time. Time that he couldn’t get back.
Where was she?
He kept moving, flying with all the speed his supernatural body had and startling squirrels and the like in his wake. He would find her.
What if you can’t? What if she’s gone for good?
With a vicious growl he slammed his fist into a tree. It cracked down the middle like a lightning strike, and then split apart as it crashed down to earth. Breathing like a rabid animal, he circled the forest, his eyes searching.
Searching for what though?
Anything! A piece of her clothing, a strand of her beautiful blonde hair, a tickle of her scent clinging to a branch she’d touched.
Zeke is too good, doubt said. If he doesn’t want to be found, he won’t be.
He couldn’t stay idle. There wasn’t enough time. Soon the sun would come up and he’d have to make quick work back home. And then what? Grayson’s men would continue their search using were guards but still.
If he didn’t want to be found, he wouldn’t be.
“FUCK!” His shout echoed through the forest. The sound a hollow version of himself.
The car at the highway could all be a trick. He could have had one of his pack come pick him up to throw them off his trail. He could have taken her across the highway to the other side. It might be more dangerous, but the man was mad and capable of anything. Dom wouldn’t put much past him.
He fisted his hair, tugging until the strands pulled and snapped as he gritted his teeth, gnashing. How could she do this to him? Dom barked another curse then continued his search through the forest. He would find her, and when he did she would pay and the price would be high.
Sweat ran down his chest, smearing the dirt and grime on his body into an oil painting of color. The phone in his pocket beeped. He didn’t stop running as he pulled it out. The message was a text from Grayson.
All it said was: Sunrise.
The sweat didn’t come from the strain in his muscles or the pounding work of his lungs and heart. No, it came from the scalding heat. From that orange glow that began to rise so far in the distance.
He couldn’t do it.
He couldn’t find her.
Failure coated his tongue with a sour taste.
He turned back, running away from it—the sun, Felicity, his election.
Blazing heat scored his back like burning flames as he left the forest a shirtless, dirty bum. The open light seared him until tendrils of black smoke drifted up around him. He gritted his teeth and braced his legs apart, muscles bunched hard and shaking as the pain consumed him.
Yes, this was better, better than the pain of dealing with what she’d done.
The sound of a car pulling up didn’t even make him open his eyes. Not even when he heard Grayson’s voice, deep and raspy; his breath smelling of cigarettes.
“Come on, man. Let’s get you home.”
He was helped into a car, shut in, and he didn’t feel a thing as he gazed out at the forest.
Why was it when terrible things happened time seemed to pass so much slower? Time was a bitch. It wanted you to feel every single second of agony, to see all the details of what a mistake you made. Yet, during the most exciting time of your life time seemed to try to fly by so fast you couldn’t stop and simply enjoy the moment. Felicity hated it and if time was human, she’d kill it.
Time was all she had. None of it allowed her to open the hatch, which after four hours of trying to open it, one of the weres finally came in and told her they’d latched it from the outside too. A big metal bar was across the door so it wouldn’t budge. Nice. Of course, they’d had four hours to tell her this but they hadn’t. They’d let her cry and hurt as she tried to get the blasted door open to get free. To get back to Dom and explain. It still wasn’t too late.
For some reason a terrible thought struck her that if she allowed the sun to come up without explaining herself to Dom then something awful would happen.
But she hadn’t gotten it open and they wouldn’t let her go. So she’d spent all day sitting on a sofa watching the news. Dom’s points dropped and dropped as more pictures of her popped up. When pictures of her mother on the beach with her boyfriend came on screen she’d nearly cried. They were digging into her past and searching for every piece of dirt on her, and finding it.
They called her a liar, a whore, a gold-digger, and anything else that came to the reporter’s little minds.
It wasn’t true, at least not mostly true since she had lied some, but it hurt all the same. As the hours passed like fine grains of sand moving through tar, she could only sit by and watch Dom’s numbers come in, lower and lower.
She never even got out to vote.
Judgment came at ten o’clock that night. VNN reported Zeke the winner. The men cheered, or roared, more like. And it was all her fault. She’d done this. Her fit of anxiety had cost him a whole election.
Will he ever forgive me?
She sucked in a hiccupped breath. How could he ever forgive her? She’d ruined his dreams over her stupid fears and panic. Oh god. Clutching her knees to her chest, Felicity buried her face in her knees to hide the tears.
She needed to apologize but how? No amount of explaining, apologies, or gifts could give him that election back. Nor could any of it take back the pain and frustration she’d caused him.