Page 91
She flopped down and nestled into the pillow, looking up at him.
“You coming to bed?”
He felt like an idiot. So caught up in lust that he forgot how to function.
This time he didn’t answer her, choosing to climb beneath the covers himself. If he didn’t, she’d end up with another eyeful of his manhood.
She turned to her side to face him. “Do you think my parents will be mad?”
“No. They’ll be thankful you’re safe.”
“Yeah, but I don’t know if I want to tell them about this.”
“You don’t have to, you know. I mean, you can just tell them the part about changing your major. It’s not like it’s a lie.”
“Mm,” she hummed in acknowledgment, snuggling further into the comfort of the bedding.
He turned off the lamp, plunging the room into darkness except for the moon spilling across the bed.
“I guess Mom was wrong for once.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s the solstice.” When he hesitated to say anything, not knowing how to respond, she continued, “Mom sent me a text earlier this month saying something was going to change my life today. Doesn’t feel like anything changed. Unless deciding to go home is life changing?”
“It can be,” he said, suppressing a yawn.
She made another humming sound and shifted, falling quiet.
His eyes slipped closed, and he settled. Tomorrow he would visit the clinic and tame the thirst that had burned his throat ever since he tasted her blood. Then he would visit the police station to file yet another report. He wasn’t even sure it mattered at this point if she planned to leave. But if she returned to Athens, she would need this guy caught.
Riley was crying.
He needed to go to her. Needed to wake up from the beautiful space keeping him suspended in time.
His little sister needed him.
His eyes slipped closed, blocking out the beautiful aurora and stars in his peripheral as he floated through space and time.
It no longer surprised him. He knew exactly where he was.
The rogue had shot him, and he found himself trapped between life and death once again. Trapped in a beautiful purgatory all his own.
The crying grew louder.
He always assumed the cries he heard upon his death were those of his friends. Assumed the loudest wails were those of his baby sister. But the longer he floated, the more he questioned the sound.
He knew Riley’s cries and Blaire’s. He doubted King Adrian’s sisters or any of the female members of the clan would mourn him with such sorrow. Lukas and Seth didn’t sound feminine, and Aiden even knew what they sounded like when they cried.
Someone else was mourning him. Someone else sounded devastated and broken, heaving and sobbing at the loss of his life.
He wanted to tell her it was temporary.
Wanted her to know that in a few minutes Blaire would bring him back.
“Please don’t cry,” he said, but no sound traveled into the vacuum of cosmos balancing his soul precariously on a knife’s edge.
If Blaire’s magic didn’t reach him, he would slip into nothingness. But he knew it would. Soon, warmth and life would fill him again, bringing him back to those he needed to look after. Needed to keep safe.
