Page 14 of Dark Night of the Soul

He’d miscalculated.

It was an invitation.

And if the Brotherhood thought they could force me to choose between my past and her future—

I would show them how far I was willing to go to ensure she never had to make that choice herself.

I intended to cross that line.

Chapter 6 | Anna

I left my mother to her gardening and returned inside through the kitchen. It was empty.

I paused there for a long moment, listening to the familiar sounds. The hum of expensive appliances, the faint creak of the walls when the wind pressed against the manor.

As I stood there, a feeling of dread lodged deep in my chest, sharp and unwelcome, as Ophelia’s words surfaced unbidden.

They won’t knock on the front door this time. They’ll come when you least expect it.

The last time Sebastian showed up, he had knocked. I doubted he’d repeat the courtesy. Or come himself. He preferred distance. Delegation.

Would he send someone instead? An enforcer to do his bidding?

He was a coward like that.

The only person I could talk to about planning the next move was Kincade, and I had a feeling he wasn’t going to be in a chatty mood.

Talk about a buzzkill of a morning.

In less than an hour, my day had gone from sexy times to hell in a hand basket, as Grace would say.

My stomach growled. Survival first. I raided the refrigerator and found leftover fried chicken from Sunday dinner. Grace’s idea.

You could take the woman out of Texas, but you could never take Texas, or Sunday traditions, out of the woman.

I grabbed a leg, slammed the zero-degree fridge closed—and yelped.

Kincade stood on the other side of the room.

I never heard him enter.

“You scared me,” I said, my voice edging accusatory as my pulse caught up with me.

“I’m going to work out.”

He moved past me without slowing, without meeting my eyes. The space he left behind felt colder.

That wasn’t a good sign.

“Don’t you think we should—”

“No.”

The word landed like a door slamming. Which it was.

Okay, then. That answered that.

He wasn’t angry. He was controlled. And that worried me more.