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He shook his head, his eyes hardening with anger. “We can’t make progress. Don’t you get it?”

“No.” I lowered my hand before I choked him with it. “I don’t, because you won’t explain it to me.”

A hiss pushed through his teeth, more like a snarl, and he pierced me with razor-sharp eyes. “I hoped you would be mine, that I could have you the way he does.” He slashed an arm behind him, in the direction of the animal clinic.

God, this man twisted me up, jangling my insides with both hope and confusion. I wanted to touch him, kiss him, hold him.

“I am yours. You do have me.” I reached for his face.

“The fuck I do!” He stepped back, out of arm’s length, his gaze blinding and fierce and so incredibly pissed. “You know what I really hoped, Evie? I hoped I could fuck you every night, that I would have that to look forward to. I hoped a few hard thrusts in your cunt would make this miserable, goddamned lonely existence a lot less miserable and goddamned lonely.”

He swiped a hand over his mouth and resumed his trek toward the pond.

White heat exploded through my head and seared my sinuses. I drew deep breaths and tried to calm my pounding heart. His words were deliberately insensitive, meant to push me away. Yeah, there was truth there. Roark was right. But Jesse needed more than a release. He needed affection, love, companionship, and whatever else he was too afraid to admit.

But I was done chasing him. Done begging for peeks behind the fuck-off cliff.

My hands shook, balling at my sides. “Stop running, you fucking coward.”

His gait faltered but didn’t stop.

No matter what happened, whether we embraced our bond or remained separated by his visions forever, I had to confront his fears. Because they were mine, too.

I spoke into the dark expanse between us. “What did Annie say about my child? Your child.”

He stopped dead in his tracks, maybe twenty steps away. His head angled down, his back a rigid mountain of tension. “Can’t tell you that, Evie.”

“Because it will change my fate?”

A slow nod.

Christ, I wished he would look at me. “I don’t want a child. Didn’t you hear my argument with Michio?”

Another nod.

I still didn’t understand why he wanted me to stop sleeping with Michio.

“No matter what you’re holding back, that path won’t change. Losing Annie and Aaron…” I sucked in a breath. “I won’t go through that again. If I can’t replace the IUD, I’ll find other birth control. I’ll abstain if I have to.”

Fuck me, what a wretched thought.

He slowly turned and walked back to me, refusing to meet my eyes. When he stepped into my space, he stared at my mouth, didn’t blink, didn’t move for an eternal moment.

Something stirred at the back of my mind. Or was it a shift in the air? Whatever it was roused my skin in a ripple of chills.

The pond stretched before us, the surface a sheet of black glass. There were no chirping crickets, no trilling birds, not a whisper of rustling leaves. My discomfort about this place heightened.

Or maybe it was just Jesse and his ominous secret.

With agonizing hesitancy, he dragged his gaze to mine. As we stared at each other, the atmosphere rotated, soundless and shifty. It was a breeze. It had to be. So why was I struggling to breathe?

The air shuddered as he touched my chin, lifted it. “Annie said I must give her a sister, that it was my purpose. And in doing so, you would finally join her in her world.”

I tried to fill my lungs and failed. My lip trembled. What he said, the ache in his voice… I wanted to cry. Pressure built in my head and tightened my chest, but it wouldn’t release.

I blinked dry eyes, unable to let it go. “She said you must do it?”

Not Michio or Roark? Or the last thing I wanted to consider…What if I was raped again?

“Me.” He released my chin, his tone grim. Too grim. He was still holding something back.

“Annie’s spirit”—my sweet, little girl, who didn’t know how babies were conceived—“told you how to keep me alive long enough to get me pregnant?”

“And long enough to spread the cure.” He glanced up at the moon, its gleam partially smudged by gray clouds. Then he looked down at me. “She said the creatures would evolve.”

Like it or not, that rang true. The first time I noticed their evolving behavior was the night I met Roark, when they invaded the pub, steady and deliberate, working together like a goddamned SWAT team. Were they growing smarter? Faster? Modifying and adapting to their environments? They were certainly growing in number.

I squinted at him through the dim light. “What does their evolution have to do with me?”

“She said you won’t be able to save future generations from them…”