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The car jolted to a halt with a screech of the tires. I jerked against my seatbelt and turned to stare at Gabriel. He was already unbuckling his seatbelt and shoving the car door open. By the Spark, what was he doing?
“Gabriel,” I said. When he kept moving, I scrambled out on my side, my pulse rattling in my chest. We were just a few feet down the road from the gate to the estate, the big stone wall looming over me from the other side of the ditch. I spun to face him. “Gabriel, what’s going on? Where are yougoing?”
“I can’t do this,” he said, his voice raw. His bright blue eyes caught mine, stark with pain. “I can’t just sit there and listen to you talk that way. I can’t watch youtorturepeople like you’re having fun doing it. I can’t.”
With a wave of dizziness, the ground seemed to tip beneath my feet. I grasped the still-open door to keep my balance. “I was trying to make sure the Frankfords don’t hurt anyone else. They came after Seth and his dad, they burned Jin’s house—they didn’t know he wouldn’t be in it—”
“It doesn’t matter,” Gabriel said. “The Rose I used to know would have found another way. She wouldn’t have given in and sunk to their level. They were attacking us the whole way to New York and back, and you never did more than you had to.”
The other guys had pushed out of the car too. “You can’t talk to Rose like that,” Damon said. “Who the fuck do you think you are? She’s kicking their asses, and they deserve it.”
“Damon,” I said, motioning him quiet. Having him butt in wasn’t going to resolve anything. I kept my gaze on Gabriel.
“They might have deserved it,” he said. “But it used to bother you anyway.”
“It still does,” I protested. But I couldn’t help remembering that moment when Master Courtland had cried out, when I’d been able to sense that if I pushed him just a little farther his control would break… and a rush had shot through me with that surge of power that had been almost gleeful.
“Maybe,” Gabriel said. “Not enough.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I…” He raked his hand through his dark red hair, the thick strands scattering around his ears. “I’ve tried talking you down. I’ve tried reminding you of how you used to think, but it hasn’t worked. And I can’t keep helping you if this is how you’re going to fight this war.”
My stomach dropped. Beside me, Seth stiffened. All three of the guys still standing with me were gaping at Gabriel.
“What areyougoing to do, then?” I said, the question wrenching through me.
“I’m going,” he said. “Maybe sometime later, when all this is over… I don’t know. But I can’t stay with you like this.”
For a second, I couldn’t speak. Then my legs were moving, running, around the car. Gabriel backed up, holding up his hands to stop me. The bond between us, the one we’d only committed to weeks ago, throbbed inside me.
“Don’t do this,” I said. Tears were welling up in my eyes. No amount of blinking could hold them back. “You can’t really mean this. You promised—you swore yourself to me, Gabriel.”
“I swore myself to the Rose I knew,” he said. “You’re not her. I’m starting to think they were right to try to cage your magic, if you’re going to enjoy hurting people with it.”
He turned on his heel and started to stalk down the road. My arm flew up on instinct with a tearing sensation in my chest. No. He couldn’t. There had to be some way we could work through this, some way I could convince him.
My fingers closed against my palm, and Gabriel’s legs locked. Without even thinking, I’d whipped my magic around him.
I yanked my hand back, a cold wave of nausea rolling over me. I’d thrown magic at my consort. I’d tried to restrain him, to trap him.
The tendrils of energy shrank back from Gabriel’s ankles. He looked down at them and then at me, his face blank with shock. He hadn’t really thought I’d go that far.
Neither had I. Spark help me, what was I even doing?
“I’m sorry,” I said. My voice came out ragged and small. I swiped at my tears, and Gabriel’s mouth twisted. For a second, I thought maybe he’d waver. “I won’t force you to stay. Can we please just… talk a little more?”
“I don’t think any amount of talking is going to be enough at this point,” he said. “I’m sorry too, Rose. But I can’t stand by and watch you destroy the woman I loved.”
My chin trembled. I braced one hand against the hood of the car. “Your motorcycle. Your things in the apartment. You’re just going to walk off with nothing?”
His gaze slid to the estate wall and back to me. “They’ve been on your property. You stopped yourself just now, but how do I know whether you could reach me through them, what you might do to me later? No, I think I’m safer like this.”
He turned and set off again, walking down the road with strong brisk strides. My hand, my traitor hand, itched to reel him back to me. How could he leave?
It only took a minute before he disappeared over the top of the first low hill on the way into town. My legs gave. I collapsed against the car, my head dropping into my hands, a sob hitching from my throat.
The three consorts still with me surrounded me in an instant. Seth tipped my head against his shoulder and Kyler slung his arm around me from the other side in a tight hug. Damon spat on the ground in Gabriel’s general direction.
