Page 14 of Amaros
Chapter Eight
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ZOE WAS GLAD TO GETa break from driving and dozed off in the afternoon.Amaros didn’t want to stop overnight again.She took over after midnight, so he could rest.Grace had crashed on the back seat and was deeply asleep.They’d stopped for gas and food in a small town.The gas station had been abandoned, so they’d helped themselves.She felt a bit guilty about not paying, but it would be a while before money would have any meaning again.
Amaros dropped off to sleep, leaving Zoe alone with her thoughts.Her intuition guided them ever towards the northeast and she drove on autopilot.It was a good thing that Grace had joined them.Having the teen as a buffer helped her resist the strange allure that she felt for Amaros.The warrior was undeniably hot, but it would be stupid to allow herself to develop a crush on him.He and his team would only be here long enough to destroy the forces of evil.After that, they’d leave again.
“What if I fell pregnant?”she murmured.She’d be stuck as a single mom in a hellscape of a world.
“Cambions can’t procreate with humans,” Amaros said, startling her.His eyes were closed when she glanced at him.
“What?”she asked, wondering if he was talking in his sleep.
“Your kind can’t have children,” he explained.
Zoe slammed on the brakes and the car skidded to a stop.Grace woke with a yelp when the seatbelt stopped her from being flung to the floor.“What happened?”she asked groggily, sitting up to peer through the windows.
“Say that again,” Zoe demanded, hands clamped down hard on the steering wheel.
Amaros had opened his eyes and was watching her warily.“Cambions can’t conceive babies with humans,” he explained.“I’ve only seen a few reach maturity, but I sensed they weren’t compatible with humans.You two are the same.”
Pain seized her and there was only one way she could let it out.“Get out of the car,” she said in a carefully controlled voice.
“Just him, or me, too?”Grace asked sleepily.
“Get out of the damn car!”Zoe shouted, rage spiking uncontrollably.She was about to have a meltdown and she didn’t want them to be in the firing line.
Amaros and Grace scrambled to undo their seatbelts and fled from the vehicle.The knight might be a powerful, immortal warrior, but Zoe had power of her own.She had enough presence of mind to lower the windows, then she unleashed her emotions.
Her shriek was loud enough to make her companions cover their ears and grimace in pain.They wisely raced out of the impact area and stopped a safe distance away.Birds and animals fled as well.Zoe was all alone with no one to offer her a shred of comfort.
Deep down, she’d always suspected she’d never have a family of her own.Her life had been too tightly controlled by her mom.Everyone in town regarded her as a living holy relic.None of the local guys that she’d sensed were attracted to her had had the guts to ask her out.Leaving town and abandoning her mother would have been her only chance to have a normal life.
It took a while to rein in her emotions again.Not even crickets were chirping when her final rage-filled scream ended.The night was abnormally still, as if it was holding its breath, waiting to see if she was done.
“Is it safe to get back in the car now?”Grace called out timidly.Zoe’s response was to raise the windows back up.“I think that’s a yes,” the teen figured.
They cautiously approached the car and warily opened the doors.“Don’t sit next to me,” Zoe snarled at Amaros.“Get in the back.”
Closing the door without a word, he climbed into the back and sat across from Grace.Zoe took off in frosty silence with her lips clamped together.The back window had cracked, but it hadn’t shattered.
