Chapter 7
“Yes, sir.”
Ophelia Ashcroft was going to be the death of me.
The strength of my reaction to her threw me off.
It was vastly disproportionate to the extent of my restraint.
Helping a clumsy, stunning girl from slipping on the wet floor was one thing.
But ruminating on her, the feel of her, the sound of her voice, the perfume on her skin, during the lecture and for endless hours after she left was nothing short of madness.
The passage of time from the moment she walked out the door had slowed to an agonizingly languid pace as if the very aspect of time decided to torment me.
My tendency to lean toward logic had been overcome by what I could only describe as obsessive thoughts. As if my mind had been dealt one decisively torturous blow in the form of warm eyes and a sweet mouth. And worst of all, a bratty attitude.
Darkness permeated every inch of the town, and the starlight fought to penetrate the bulbous clouds drifting across the dome overhead.
Impatience seeped into me in the form of restlessness.
I paced my office, mind reeling with the revelation that there was an Ashcroft back in Kilbride, attending this godforsaken school, and traipsing about as oblivious as a mouse in a cage.
I’d been a fool not to investigate it sooner. My hunt for the cult members had become a large portion of my time, and I could admit my failings in not double-checking.
Hunter would have had my head for such a lapse of judgement. And I owed it to him to do better, be better. That included protecting his family, especially his granddaughter.
When the Cult of Moloch killed a precious member of my family all those years ago, it was Hunter who had saved me from becoming another death in a long history of sacrifices.
Swooping in like a bat out of hell and chopping the bird-bastard’s head clean off.
I’d been stunned, amazed, and grateful. He saved my life, and I vowed to serve him.
In turn, he taught me everything he knew.
Thank goodness he wasn’t alive to see the utter disappointment his son had become. It was a scandal beyond rationality.
And the way she had reacted at the mention of it…
The youngest Ashcroft obviously resented her father, his affair, and the very public nature of it.
She almost seemed resigned to mockery on her father’s behalf, though hoping to avoid it.
Diverting the topic to her grandfather had caught her interest, and I’d nearly said too much if only to selfishly keep her full and undivided attention.
An irrational anger swept in, sparking my restlessness into a blooming anxiety. Nothing could explain my current predicament.
I kicked the chair across from my desk, sending it flying to the ground with a loud crash.
My chest heaved, and my jaw ached from grinding my teeth as an abhorrent sense of yearning plagued me.
Images of that brief encounter danced behind my eyes, teasing me.
I wanted to touch, to feel, to taste. Not even the enormity of my mission helped me escape those urges.
One encounter.
One.
And already a strange fixation had imprinted itself on my flesh and bones. It was disgraceful, and I tried to refuse the Ashcroft girl the space her phantom was taking up in my mind. I sat at my desk and pretended to read my work.
I located my spare bottle of whiskey and drained two glasses. It only turned my anxiety into full-blown panic.
Where was she? Was she safe? Was she home? Had the apostles already gotten to her?
And when my paltry distractions failed me and the pent-up stress boiled over, I donned my hunting gear and stole into the night. Perhaps killing demons would ease the pressure building in the back of my skull and help me forget the charming brown eyes of a wickedly clever brat.
I told myself many things that night: that I was hunting, that I was only ensuring her safety, and that I wasn’t hopelessly deluded in my morals.
They were all lies.
It wasn’t following if I already knew the way there.
It didn’t take me long to reach the Ashcroft family house.
The place was virtually unchanged since Hunter’s passing aside from the few upgrades the man’s son and daughter-in-law made during their visits, using it as a holiday home the past several years.
But in the darkness, it was the same house I’d visited hundreds of times as a young man eager for knowledge and hungry for revenge.
Up until this point, I hadn’t returned to the Ashcroft family home since Hunter’s funeral. Even then I attended at a distance, ensuring no one saw me. I could have attended as a colleague, earning my position as a professor by then, but preferred to keep our connection off the radar entirely.
His loss had been a detrimental blow. Almost a decade of learning under his tutelage, fighting side by side, and endeavoring to take down the cult had forged a kinship between us. Old Ashcroft had been the closest thing to family I had left.
Now, I stood at a safe distance from his family home, watching for signs of life in the windows.
His granddaughter was in there, walking the same halls I’d traversed before she was even born.
The thought should have made me turn back, but a nagging sense of protectiveness kept me rooted at the edge of the tree line.
There.
A flicker of movement behind a gap in the curtains of a room at the back of the house. The thought of her slender frame, inviting mouth, and golden blonde hair had me gripping the hilt of the dagger on my hip. Blood coursed hot and fast under my skin, making me burn, and burn, and burn.
I couldn’t leave even if I wanted to.
So, I stayed and watched her. And watched.
And watched.