Page 80 of Dark Flame

So, I walk on, hoping someone drives by and takes pity on me.

* * *

Hours passwithout a sign of life. I’m nowhere far enough from Alec’s castle that he wouldn’t catch up with me. Now, the sun is high in the sky, about midday, which means I have maybe another six or so hours until he comes.

I take a bend in the road when a cracking noise echoes behind me and the ground ruffles, the signal that the peace of nature that’s been my only form of entertainment for hours has been disrupted.

And then there’s a voice. More like a breathed whisper carried towards me on the cool afternoon breeze of early fall.

“Harlow Sinclair.”

My palms tingle with the beginning smolders of a fireball ready to form, to defend, while I recall the silent incantation for a protection spell, should I need a shield between me and the intruder.

I slowly turn, coming face to face with a woman. A woman, whom for all accounts I don’t know, but a familiarity has me lowering my hands, the warmth dissipating. Dark hair is bound up in a bun, keeping her face clear, but still she swipes at the few stray hairs hanging, moving them out of the way from wide eyes that fade from brown to purple, the telling sign she’s another witch. She stands tall, confident, but with my spin, breaks into a gasp that has her stumbling forward, reaching for me.

“You’re alive. It’s actually you.”

“How do you know my name?” I prepare to run because there have been enough unfriendly people in my life that I don’t need another, even if there’s still something comforting about her.

Her brows fuse together and she rocks back on her heels, coming to an abrupt stop. “You don’t remember me?”

“Should I?”

“What have they done to you?” she asks in a low whisper. “My name is Morgan Hargrove, and I’m the High Priestess of Highridge Coven…and your guardian.”

Home.It’s a word that catapults into my head. A word that sounds right and familiar. Highridge covenshouldhave been my home, but according to the people I called Mom and Dad, they got rid of us because of the ongoing vampire attacks.

“You kicked us out.” Even as I say it, my chest clenches with the falseness in that argument while something else probes the back of my mind.

A memory…or something.

“Morgan, look over here!”

“I see you, Harlow. Great job!” The woman turns, her smile kind?—

And her face is the same as the one in front of me.

“Kicked you out?” She—Morgan—practically chokes, rapidly shaking her head. “My girl, no. I’m getting the sense you’ve been lied to, but no more than I have been as well.”

Morgan paces forward another step, lifting her hands, seeking permission, which I give by not backing up. She completes the final step before her palms rest on my cheeks, cupping my face, her touch as cool as the breeze.

The sensation quickly dissipates into something else: a series of visions that slip through my mind.

Morgan hugging me tightly. “Happy birthday.”

Morgan standing in a kitchen between two other people, a man and a woman. She glances over at my entrance and waves.

Morgan standing beside a child, holding her hand as they cross the yard towards me.

“You’re truly alive.” Her voice snaps the images away, and I jerk, trying to chase them. To bring them back. She takes my movement wrong and lowers her arms with a frown. “Sorry.”

“No, it wasn’t…did you do that?”

“Do what?”

“I think I saw…” I reach down for her hand, bringing her palm back to my face, willing the images to return. The feeling I know something—that this woman is telling the truth. “Isawyou. You were hugging me. You were walking across a yard.”

Morgan’slips part, and her face scrunches as though in pain. “Fuck, they really—no matter.” She lowers her hand again. “We’ll get it sorted, I promise. For now, I’m still trying to realize this isn’t a dream. That you’re alive and here.”