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“Fine,” I said after a few seconds. “I’ll text Nat and let her know. I could use some space to process all of this.”
“That’s my girl,” Alek beamed. The rain had settled enough now that we could leave on his motorcycle. He slid his own black leather jacket off and secured it around my shoulders as we made our way over to his bike.
All this time spent with Alek, and it was still thrilling to be this close to him. He handed me his helmet before swinging his leg over, waiting for me to join him.
I pulled the helmet over my messy, tangled red hair before following his lead.
My body was stiff and tense at first, just as it always was. But as I placed my hands on Alek’s waist, he grabbed them and pulled them tight around his torso, causing my chest to press flush against his back.
“Hold on tight,” he said with a smirk over his shoulder.
A few moments later, I had no choice. Alek peeled away from Night Raven, away from my father, away from the absolute mess that had been seeping for the last two weeks.
And we escaped into the shadows.
I never could get over the stars.
The further we got from the city lights, the more the sea of glittering stars illuminated the black night. I gripped Alek’s body tighter as I peered up, letting the wind whip my long hair around my helmet as I got lost in the sight of it all.
How many years had I gone without seeing these? How many nights had I been locked away in Theia’s basement, forced to miss out on this beauty?
A fresh wave of resentment washed over me as I thought about it—about her. My mother had known how damaged I would be if I found out about all of this. She had known how hurtful it would be for me, how abnormal.
And she did it anyway.
There were dozens of times, if not more, where she could have simply told me the truth. She could have explained how precious and fragile that damn veil was. She could have begged me not to open it for the sake of the world.
If I had known that the entire balance of light and darkness, of good and evil would be thrown off, would I have still assisted Marcus in opening that damn veil?
I gritted my teeth as I thought of my answer. Of course I would have. Alek was on the other side.
I would do it all again for him. No question about it.
But here we were, left to clean up the mess that Marcus had made the second he set this all in motion.
I hated him almost as much as I hated Theia.
They were a perfect, twisted match.
Marcus had been gone, too, leaving Wrath to run the legion of Night Ravens. It was suspicious as hell, but with everything else going on, Marcus’s absence did not seem so pressing. He wasn’t welcome back at the Black mansion. Alek had made that very clear.
Alek turned a corner on his bike and led us onto a long, dark road.
My hands snaked around him even further, and I could have sworn I felt him laugh in front of me.
And then he accelerated.
Dangerous and fast and risky and idiotic, the bike sped up. It sped up until the wind was ripping at Alek’s shirt, whipping around my helmet and slipping past my legs like water. Still, Alek sped up.
He moved the bike forward like he knew I needed it, like he knew I needed to feel something that wasn’t dread.
With my arms secured tightly around him, I let my head fall back. I let the stars above become blurs of fire disappearing into the night sky. I let the adrenaline in my pounding heart take over my senses, take over my mind, force me to forget.
The bubbled laughter of excitement within me could not be contained. I laughed and screamed as Alek pushed the motorcycle to its limits, maneuvering in the darkness in a way that could only be described as inhuman.
We were flying.
I wasn’t sure if it was the fact that we had just left so much chaos behind us, or the fact that I couldn’t see a damn thing beside Alek in front of me and the stars above, but I had never in my entire life felt so free.
