I gave more than one bloody nose over that girl.
As the years passed, so did the way I saw her. She wasn’t just a tag-along or someone I saw with sibling affection. It went deeper.
I let out a low, humorless laugh under my breath.
She burrowed beneath my skin, regardless of how hard I fought it.She wasn’t a gangly little tomboy anymore. She was changing, and I wasn’t the only one to notice. With her long red hair and vibrant green eyes always wide with wonder, she was stunning.
Add in the freckles scattered across the bridge of her nose, and she was ethereal.
Her friendship was my lifeline, and I wouldn’t risk it for anything. I didn’t want to lose her, and I was afraid that if I let her know how she was changing in my eyes, that’s exactly what would happen. So I kept my mouth shut. And the other boys away.
The real danger was in the way her body was changing, though. She was growing into her long, skinny limbs. She no longer resembled one of the lads, even when she tried to discreetly hide her new curves behind baggy clothes.
She was fucking beautiful.
Dangerously so.
Now, she’s fucking lethal.
She could bring any man she wanted to their knees, and they’d thank her for it. I hate it. I have to share her with the world now. A small part of me wishes she had stayed tucked away in Brylan. Away from these unsatiable soldiers’ lingering looks.
Especially that bastard, Kingston.
I don’t trust him, and I don’t like the way he watches her.
I rub my temples, wishing I could rub away the last twenty-four hours.
Maeve had to throw a wrench in everything. I shouldn’t have been drinking that night on the beach, but I was, and she caught me in a vulnerable state. She said I wasn’t doing enough to keep her daughter pure, that she was slipping through our fingers. I wanted so bad to tell her there was no “our,” and she was solely mine.
Maeve never deserved Nori. She was always cruel and cold to her.
I didn’t tell her that. Like the coward I was, I just watched through my hangover as her devious mouth formed the words that would all but bring my world crashing down around me. “You have to try harder, Ambrose. Because there’s a darkness in Nori,” she said, her sharp eyes boring into mine. “Her legacy demands her light be forsaken. Her father was a Noctryn.”
And that was when I knew I’d watch the world burn just to protect her.
I’d light the match.
Suddenly, everything made sense. All the years of defiance and angry outbursts. It was her very core rebelling at the idea of her mother’s ideologies being shoved down her throat. And right then and there, I knew I never wanted her to feel how I felt at that moment. I wanted to shield her. If she thought for one second that she had dark lineage running through her veins, it would skew her results at the academy, and she wouldn’t place as a Veil.
Or worse, she wouldn’t place at all.
A death sentence.
They’d have to dig two graves because I wouldn’t go down without a fight.
That was before the results came out after Asylamation, and I learned about Liminals. I’d never even heard of them up untilthat point. How something like this was kept from us in our education is still beyond comprehension. I never gave it much thought onhowNori had come to be because I was too focused on keeping her alive.
Maeve had to have known. And she decided to keep that information to herself.
General Porter and his forefathers before him went to great lengths to keep any and all information on the subject buried. Just like he does with anything that stands in his way, people included. I wouldn’t even begin to guess how many graves have been dug because of his family.
When Nori arrived at the academy, I was too far buried in the secrets forced upon me that I couldn’t tell her at that point. She’d hate me. So instead, I kept my distance. I didn’t know how to look her in the eyes and keep the lies from coming out.
She’d know.
I drop my head into my hands. Defeat presses down harshly on my shoulders.
Look at me now. Pathetically sitting in a library, praying for a glimpse of that red hair. I’d give anything to see her look at me with something other than disgust.
