Page 88 of Heart of Thorns
“You’re right. We do.” He turned to face her once more. “We will.”
Seconds passed. Maybe more. Hearts thudded. Outside, a car horn blared. A front door slammed. Someone dropped a thing made of glass, shattering it on the pavement, and two children began to wail.
“Partners?” Jacinda held out her hand. It was no more than a whisper, that one-word question, but the fresh hope in her eyes—the bloodyaudacityof it—was deafening.
The children wailed. The goat’s cries echoed in his mind. The smell of the blood. The wet thwack of the shovel as he’d shoved it into the hay and guts, again and again, his father looming over him.
Gabriel stared at her outstretched hand as if it were a dead thing, a dark and poisonous flower he wouldn’t dare touch.
“I will tolerate your presence as long as the task of eliminating your sister binds us,” he said, meeting those devastating blue eyes one last time. Then, in a voice so bitingly cold it terrified even him, he said, “But the day I make a deal with ademonis the day you’ll taste the last of my bitter ashes.”
* * *
