Page 72 of Beyond the Blue Horizon
In the same second, Theo straightened, and his attention whipped toward the vehicle that I could see flashes of through the trees as it took the little loop.
It was a blacked-out SUV.
Theo moved faster than I could fathom, and before I could process it, he was on the pathway in front of where Alicia stood.
As if he were making himself a barricade between her and the view of the SUV.
Violence streamed from his body. Every muscle rigid and firing with brutality.
Menace lashed out of him in an outright warning.
A bit of the edge that had lined me dwindled when I realized this wasn’t about me. That the shimmering sense of evil curling through the air wasn’t my demon hunting me.
It belonged to someone else entirely.
I was just picking up on whatever it was that Theo was radiating.
The SUV barely slowed as it made the loop before it disappeared back up the narrow lane.
Theo glowered behind it as it drove away.
His hands clenched and unclenched as he watched it go, before he turned and rushed back to where the children were still playing in the snow. He scooped Finn into an arm and took Lucy’s hand with the other.
He rushed back to Alicia and stopped two feet in front of her.
“Think it’s time for you two to go back inside. Lucy is getting cold.” He gritted it.
Alicia frantically nodded as she took Lucy’s hand from him. “Okay.”
That single word was rushed and ragged.
What the hell was going on between them?
I didn’t care. I didn’t care.
I could tell myself it a thousand times and still I wouldn’t be able to stop the twisting of the blade inside me.
It was so stupid.
So reckless.
Yet, it was there.
Undeniable.
“Ico-wed. We go fire?” Finn bobbed his head as he reached for me, angling out from Theo’s hold.
I took him into my arms, hugging him close, my nose pressed to his cold cheek as I tried to process what it was that I was feeling.
What was happening in this place that felt like both respite and a prison.
Intense, bottomless eyes slanted toward me. “Yeah, we’d all better get inside and get warmed up. I have some work I need to attend to.”
Theo basically hustled us all back to our cabins, standing guard as he watched Alicia and Lucy fumble through their door, before his consideration slid to me where I hovered at the front of mine.
My hand clutched the knob as I tried to make sense of who he was and what he made me feel.
“You should go inside for a bit.” His coarse words filled the air between us, and I felt them as a warning.
