Page 99 of Darkness Bound (Night Prowler 5)
With a heavy sigh, she turned from the view and made her way back to Jacqueline. She sat across from her, and gathered Jacqueline’s hands into her own once again. The urge was still there, strong and terrible, so Morgan did the only thing she could think to do.
“Jacqueline Dolan,” she said, looking into her eyes, “no matter what I say to you from this moment forth, you are immune to my Gift of Suggestion, and will be forevermore. I release you.”
Her heart felt like a dead fish lodged beneath her breastbone. She stood and walked away.
For a long while, there was a silence, only disturbed by the sound of bird calls and monkey screeches, far off in the forest. Then from behind her Jacqueline said, “I know that was hard for you.”
Her voice was tight. Angry. The dead fish flopped over, and Morgan thought, Caught.
Morgan sighed, passed a hand over her face, pinched the bridge of her nose between two fingers. “It would have been so much more convenient if you weren’t quite so clever.”
“For us both,” Jacqueline rejoined.
Morgan heard her stand, and turned to face her. Jacqueline’s face looked carved from granite.
“I owe you an apology.”
“Keep it. I hate sorries. They’re meant to make things better but they inevitably make things worse.” They looked at one another across the room. Jacqueline said, “I want to leave. I want to go home, to New York. Now.”
Morgan had never felt claustrophobic. She’d never experienced a panic attack, or suffered a nervous breakdown, or even had a single nightmare, in spite of all the tragedy and loss and iron-fisted repression she’d suffered up to now. But staring at the livid woman who she’d once imagined was the possible solution to bridge the chasm between humanity and her own kind, she felt the horrifying, soul-freezing reality of all of them combined.
For the first time in her entire adult life, she was rendered speechless.
Then a voice, raspy and kind, spoke from the other side of the room.
“And go you shall.”
Morgan turned. Kalum smiled at the two of them like the Cheshire cat as he pushed the cowl of his white robe off his head. It fell around his shoulders, revealing his face, his glittering green eyes. He looked at Jacqueline. “As shall we all. Just not quite yet, Gibil. There’s yet work for you here, work that can only be completed by you. When that work is done you shall go back from where you came. And after that . . .” His smile deepened, grew vaguely melancholy. “You will have to decide where home truly is.”
From outside there came a tumult. Voices shouted, rising up through the canopy, the beat of drums began. Morgan didn’t have to look to know what was happening, and she shivered, cold in spite of the humidity.
The Alpha of Sommerley had finally arrived.
?
??Hawk! Xander!”
Morgan rushed across the room, throwing back the gauzy fabric that led to the suspension bridge outside. She seemed panicked, frantic, and it set Jack’s already frayed nerves on edge.
As if they’d been waiting close by, the two men appeared quickly, wearing matching expressions of worry, tension radiating from their bodies. The three of them started talking over each other, the words tumbling out of their mouths.
“Leander’s here—”
“Did you have any success?”
“But something’s wrong, I can feel it—”
“She doesn’t remember, it didn’t work—”
“Alejandro’s going out to meet him—”
“Nothing at all?”
“The Queen isn’t with them.”
Morgan stopped and stared at Xander. “What do you mean, the Queen isn’t with them?”
“Just what I said. It’s Leander, the children, the viscount and his family, a few others. But no Queen.”
