AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She pivoted on the long bench seat, turning the full force of her anger on him. "By the same logic, for all we know, it is my son."
"All the more reason I don't want you there, Corinne." He blew a low sigh at the glass of the windshield. "If it is him, then it cannot end well."
"How do you know that?" she charged hotly. "You can't possibly be sure of that - "
Another look at her, realizing what he was about to say might destroy everything they'd shared in their short time together. "I do know, Corinne. I have seen how your reunion with your son will play out. The little girl, back at the Order's headquarters - "
"Mira?" She seemed stunned, confused. A frown settled between her fine black brows.
"What does she have to do with anything?"
"There was a vision," he replied. "A vision concerning you and the boy ... and me."
"What?" Corinne stared at him as if he'd just punched her in the stomach. Although she was clearly taken aback, there was an edge of grim understanding in her soft, level voice. "Tell me what's going on, Hunter. Did Mira see something since we've been gone from the compound?"
"No. It was months ago," he admitted. "Long before I met you."
When he glanced at her now, she looked ill to him. A paleness came over her face in the dim light of the truck's dashboard. The accusation in her eyes sliced at him like a blade. "What are you saying? What do you know about Nathan? Do you know whether or not we'll find him?
Did Mira predict how this will end tonight?"
Hunter's answering silence seemed more than she could bear. "Stop this vehicle," she demanded. "Stop it right now."
He eased off the northbound, three-lane highway, gravel crunching under the tires as he slowed on the shoulder of the straightaway. He put the truck into park and turned to face Corinne beside him. She wouldn't look at him. He didn't need to see her eyes to know that they would be filled with hurt - with disbelief and confusion.
"You've had knowledge of my son all this time - even before you took me home to Detroit?"
"I didn't know the vision concerned your child, Corinne. When I first saw the premonition in Mira's eyes, I didn't even know who you were. None of it had any meaning to me at the time."
Corinne stared at him now, her eyes bleak. "What exactly did you see, Hunter?"
"You," he said. "I saw you, weeping, pleading with me to spare a life that meant everything to you. You begged me to stay my hand."
She swallowed hard, her throat clicking softly as the buzz of speeding vehicles rushed past on the road beside them. "And what did you do ... in this vision?"
The words came slowly, bitterly. As awful on his tongue as their truth would feel in his hands. "I did what had to be done. You had asked the impossible."
She sucked in a sharp breath and scrambled for the door handle. Hunter could have stopped her. He could have frozen the locks with a thought and kept her trapped inside with him. But her sorrow raked him. He leapt out after her, right behind her as she staggered out onto the moonlit, grassy shoulder.
"Corinne, please try to understand."
She was furious and wounded, shaking all over. "You lied to me!" The roar of the passing traffic grew as she railed at him, her talent gathering the sound waves and stirring them like a tempest. "You knew this ... all this time we've spent together, and you withheld this from me?
How could you?"
"I didn't know who you were trying to protect. I didn't know when the prophesied events were supposed to occur. It could have been years in the future. It could have meant anything. Before I said anything to you, I needed to understand what I saw."
A semi barreled through in the fast lane, and the sound of it shook the ground as Corinne listened to him try to explain something that felt indefensible to him now.
"The pieces didn't fall into place until you told me about your son."
She closed her eyes for a moment, glancing up at the stars before turning a wet gaze on him. "And then, after all that occurred between us - after we made love, after you drank from me - you still didn't tell me what you knew?"
"Then," he said, "I cared too much to hurt you with the truth."
She shook her head slowly, then with more vigor. "I trusted you! You were the only one I felt I could trust. To think I was actually foolish enough to let myself fall in love with you!"
More violent noise rose with the force of her heightened outrage. Over their heads, a tall streetlamp popped, showering sparks from high above them. Hunter swept her out of the path of the falling embers, holding her against him despite her tears and struggles. He pressed a kiss to her brow. Forced her to look at him, into his eyes and see another truth he'd been holding from her. "I love you too, Corinne."
