I’d come to this conclusion somewhere on the highway, lost in the middle of nowhere, in a strip of land so empty and so flat, it made you feel like you were the only person on the planet. Hours after my car had been broken into while I used the restroom, leaving me with only a twenty-dollar bill to my name.
I’d been driving for weeks…or was it months already? And the only conclusion for why my life had thus far been a giant shit show of the most epic proportions was because I was cursed.
I was perhaps also an idiot.
The sun was falling in the west, and the sky was a kaleidoscope of color. A mixture of pinks and reds that at one point, would have made me shed a tear, back when I had a heart that could still be affected by beautiful things.
Alistair had sucked all the beauty out of my life, twisted and tore at my heart until it was incapable of viewing the world as it once had.
And yet something inside of me, something that was irrevocably tied to him for forever, it still missed him. Despite what he had done, what he’d kept from me. Despite the fact that I’d been told my whole life how wonderful my life was going to be once I found my true mate, and then he promptly destroyed any notions of happily ever after I’d ever dreamed about.
Despite all of that, I still wanted him.
And I always would. Because that’s how true mates worked. It was a bond that forced you to need something, even if it would kill you.
Hence why I was thinking that I was cursed.
I dragged myself away from my pity party as the sun finally sank below the horizon. The landscape was changing around me. Jagged rocks were springing up from the land that I’d sworn had been flat as a board just a few minutes ago. Had I been lost in my head for that long? That wouldn’t have been a surprise since I’d spent most of the last few weeks stuck in my head. I really needed to pay attention every once in a while though.
The landscape was definitely getting higher and higher, and I could see even steeper peaks up ahead. The road in front of me winded up through them. And now the sun was officially gone, and the stars were peaking their way out in the velvet sky.
Did I mention I was terrified of heights? And not just heights, add in driving and the dark too, and you officially had the trifecta of ridiculous fears that I’d developed over the years.
For a moment, I contemplated pulling over to the side of the road and trying to sleep until the morning. I quickly shook that thought away.
Despite the fact that a part of me wanted to be with Alistair, my true mate, desperately, all the other parts wanted to make sure we never saw that asshole again. The large majority of my parts also wanted to live, and Alistair would kill me after what I’d done. I knew that for a fact.
Taking a deep breath, I continued to drive, and it just kept getting darker and darker.
There were no lights out here, of course there wasn’t. Because why put lights in the middle of nowhere? I put my brights on, not giving a fuck. If I was going to drive through a mountain range in the pitch black, you better believe I was going to be able to see while doing it.
Looking in my rearview mirror, I began to freak when I saw headlights approaching. Any time I saw another car, I wondered if it was Alistair, if somehow, he’d found me despite the crazy precautions I’d taken to be hidden from him. Like the way I’d snuck a stash of cash from Alistair’s safe and bought a car with it when I was supposed to be grocery shopping. The way I’d used more of that cash to pay for everything I’d done on this road trip from hell. The way I’d gotten rid of my cell phone when I left so there was no way he could track it. The way I’d been wearing an ebony wig twenty-four-seven to try and change my looks.
I breathed a bit easier when I saw it was a Honda Accord. Alistair wouldn’t be caught dead in a car that didn’t scream money and privilege. While I was all about