Alix (The Coven's Grove Chronicles #1) by Virginia Hunter Read Free Book Online

herself, the feeling went away.
    Sam nodded, and flipped around to face the front. “This is gonna be good.”
    Alix noticed the landscape they drove through was far from the towering buildings and crowded streets she was used to seeing. Open farmland, covered by a solid sheet of snow, stretched as far as the eye could see. “Where are we?” she asked, perplexed.
    Sam looked over her shoulder. “Southwest sugar, but we’ll get to that in a minute. Let Troy have his say.”
    Alix shook her head, exasperated. “Fine.”
    “We had to get out of town,” Troy said, responding to Alix’s question. His broad shoulders shifting in the driver’s seat. “Those...things followed us to the hospital, and pretty much everywhere else we stopped. I lost them before we got out of the city limits though.”
    Alix looked at her blond-haired friend. “Why the hell were they after you?”
    Sam’s eyes widened, “They weren’t after me. They came to the shop looking for you.”
    A chill ran down Alix’s spine. What the hell? Why are they after me? Her mind began to race until a shocking realization dawned. “So, what you said last night, about everybody. That was true?”
    Sam paled,. “Yeah, it’s true.”
    Tears blurred Alix’s vision. She buried her head in her hands and wept. Oh, God. It’s all my fault. Hank, I’m so sorry . She had brought ruin down on those she loved. How wrong she had been to think she had found a home and a family. She should have stayed on her own.
    Troy and Sam were silent.
    Alix wiped the moisture from her eyes, sniffling. “So what’s the story Troy?”
    He glanced in the rearview mirror, concern in his crystal blue eyes.
    “I’m okay,” Alix lied. “Tell me. It’ll help take my mind off things.”
    “Okay,” Troy began. “That night you and I met, I’d convinced myself it hadn’t happened. I mean, to get thrown across the room like that, and not have a scratch to show for it isn’t really possible, right? That’s what I’d told myself anyway.” He shifted in his seat again before continuing. “I went on that job, where that kid got shot. It was intense like I’d thought it would be, but everything was going okay. There were small pockets of rioting all around the area. I was lucky enough not to have been caught up in it, until the night I left to come back to New York.”
    “I watched the news almost every day after you left the shop,” Alix blurted, remembering what seemed like endless nights of loneliness and dread. “I didn’t see anything about any trouble with an EMT.”
    Sam snickered, “Damn, TV stalker.”
    Alix shot her a glance that would have sent most people directly to hell. “I was just watching the news.” She sighed, knowing how lame that sounded.
    “Whatever,” Sam replied, not quite under her breath.
    “You wouldn’t have,” Troy said, saving Alix from complete humiliation as Sam continued to smirk. “No one was injured...Well, not permanently at least.” He smiled at Alix through the rearview mirror before continuing. “As I was leaving town, I came across some people that needed help—their kid actually. The boy had been caught up in part of the rioting, and had some severe trauma to his leg and shoulder. I did what I could before the mob showed up. There were maybe two dozen of them armed with whatever they could find, and angry enough to unleash violence on whoever got in their way. I helped the family make a run for it to an apartment complex. The place was pretty rundown, but there weren’t a whole lot of options at the time.” Troy paused, and took a drink from his bottled water.
    Alix suddenly realized how dry her throat was. “Could I get a sip of that?”
    Without a word, he handed the bottle back to her.
    Her eyes lingered on the muscles of his shoulder and neck, as she took the water. “Thanks,” she croaked. His black shirt fit tightly to his body, making it impossible not to imagine what lay underneath. Of course she didn’t