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This is how I would leave the world. Eardrums blown, blinded by sand, and crushed between a tree and a foot.
“Argh! Agh!” The giant dropped his foot, stumbling back. Flinging and thrashing about, he clutched his head—roaring louder still.
“What’s... wrong with him?” Jason croaked. He didn’t bother trying to climb out of the bush he was thrown in. “What’s going—?”
The cyclops exploded.
A crimson tsunami of blood and entrails burst over the island, showering us in ichor. The entire eyeball dropped in front of me—accusing even in death.
Eyes rolling up in my head, I fainted.
Chapter Nineteen
“Aella? Aella, are you okay?”
My lid peeled open, making out a blurry but familiar shape.
“Baby, talk to me.”
“N-no,” I whispered. “Not you.”
“What?”
I swung, fist heading straight for the apparition’s nose.
“Whoa!” Alex dodged my punch, nearly tipping over. “What was that for?”
“Not you,” I cried. “It was bad enough tricking me with my mom. Enough is enough with this fucking place! Stop torturing me!”
“Aella, it’s not a trick.” Ionna suddenly appeared over me. She was drenched from head to toe, and dripping on my forehead. “He’s really here. He killed the cyclops.”
Just like that, it all came back to me. Towering one-eyed giant. Certain death. Clinging to the last shreds of my life in a tree, then it all being over.
“Alex?” I pushed up, finding myself lying on the shore. Someone had cleaned me. That someone was my Alex.
No, not mine. Not anymore.
“What are you doing here?” I dropped my gaze. “Did you come here to break up with me face-to-face? If you did, I deserve it. I’m so sorry, Alex. I never meant to—”
Grasping the back of my neck, Alex crashed his lips on mine. Rough, insistent, hot—he demanded entrance, then took it, tongue tangling with mine. I moaned loud and unashamed, throwing myself into the kisshard.
Tongues clashing, hands roaming, we went at each other so hard, we fell over and went rolling, not stopping until we were underwater. We broke away drowning.
“Fuck, Aella.” He threw his arms around me, hugging me tight. “I missed you so much.”
“You did?” My voice was small. “But I thought you hated me? Sebastian said you stood before the entire academy and swore to chop my head off like a manticore mannequin.”
“He said what?” Alex swore, jaw clenching. “Gods, he’s such an evil, vindictive, fucking asshole. Aella, of course I don’t hate you. I never hated you, and I never believed the shit my dad was spouting about you using me to launch an attack on the school.
“I told Sebastian as much when I asked him to save you from my dad and Drakos, and help you save your mother.”
I blinked. “You? You’re why Sebastian gathered my friends and came to save me.”
He nodded.
“But why? Why aren’t you angry? Because of me, you lost your mother’s last gift.”
“So what?” he said, shocking me with a shrug. “It’s a hunk of cursed metal. It was herlastgift to me, but it wasn’t her only one. I have many gifts and memories of my mother, but I only have one you.”
