Page 75 of Temptation
My knuckles turned white as I gripped the wheel again, and with steady breaths, I pushed myself to calm down.
No more drama today, I repeated in my head.No more fucking drama.
I still had ten million things to do, and none of them involved me killing us all because I couldn’t focus on the road.
Skylar kept quiet the entire ride, but so did I. So did Ash, whose stare I could feel on the back of my neck. I had no idea what it was about him, but my blood boiled in his presence, and it wasn’t only because I wanted him far away from her.
This wasn’t about jealousy anymore, or animosity. This was something else entirely, and I didn’t have time to break my head about it. I didn’t have time to think about that shitshow as well, when we had other, more important things to focus on.
“Are you okay?” I asked, looking at Skylar.
Her tired, red-rimmed eyes burned through mine, and the apathy reflecting in them bothered me more than I thought it would. I hated seeing her like this and knowing that it was partially my doing.
I thought I was doing the right thing by keeping her in the dark, but my lies and the things I did pushed her in the direction that ended up in this. I had no idea that the sick fucker kept sending her messages, threatening her and her friends.
I had no idea that he would steal my cloak and my mask and go to our house to attack her. I thought she was safe enough, but I was so fucking wrong.
And that knowledge ate at me.
“What do you think?” she asked me instead, not one single emotion in her voice.
What was I supposed to tell her?No, Sky, you look absolutely dashing with that heartbroken facial expression and the anger simmering in your veins.
“Don’t forget to drop me off, Dylan,” Kane murmured, breaking through the fog surrounding my mind. If it was up to me, I would’ve left him at the cemetery, but Skylar ordered us all into my car. After Rowan drove off before us, I had no choice but to drive us home.
The thing that bothered me more than Skylar was the fact that Ash failed to give me any directions, which could only mean one thing—he was planning to come home with us.
I couldn’t have him there. I didn’t want to have him there, in my space, where Judah and Joanna were not welcome, and where I tried to create at least a small sliver of peace for my mind. He trickled into my mind, like the rain through an open window, and I had no idea how to erase him.
I had no idea how to rid myself of this weird feeling in my body every time he was around. The only other person who made me feel like this was… No, I wasn’t going to think like this.
Nothing good could ever come out of it.
I took a turn to the left, toward the street where Kane’s house stood at the very end, visible even through the rain. The old, Gothic-styled manor stood out like a sore thumb among all the white houses down the road.
I knew his ancestors built it and generations later no one had bothered to change how it looked. The iron gates in the front with their emblem in the middle were new but staring at this house felt as if we were transformed back into the town where mayhem ruled the streets, and the Order operated openly, with no secrets.
“Skylar.” Kane placed a hand on her shoulder before exiting. “Let me know if there are any new things I should be aware of, okay?”
She nodded against the seat, staring straight ahead—right where the turn toward our old house stood. I fucking hated this road. I always dreaded it because the nightmare waited just around the corner.
But I survived, and she was going to survive as well.
The click of the door opening and the whoosh of the cold air sent chills over my skin, and as Kane slammed the door after himself, I didn’t wait another second. I slammed on the accelerator and started driving, almost passing the turn for our old home, when Skylar suddenly yelled out.
“Stop!”
I slammed on the breaks, the sudden halting of the car almost sending me through the windshield.
“The fuck, Moonshine?” Ash asked from behind, holding onto my seat.
The erratic beat of my heart and thetap-tap-tapof the rain on the windshield boiled through my blood.
“Is Judah in town?” Skylar asked.
“No.” I tried finding him, tried figuring out where the snake was hiding now, but there was no trace of him. After that night in the catacombs, he disappeared again, just like he did every other time. But I knew he was in Winworth. I just needed time to find out where. “Why?” I looked at her and that slow, calculating look in her eyes told me I wouldn’t like whatever was going to come out of her mouth.
“We need to go to the house.”
