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Something flickered across his face, something relieving and dark and heartbreaking. But amongst all of that, Alek nodded. “Of course, I’ll stay,” he whispered. He walked around the bed and crawled atop the thin silk sheets.
It was crazy. It was absolutely, undeniably insane. But I felt safer with him near. He had saved me. He had fought for me. And I knew, deep down, that he would do it again.
I let him pull me closer, and I rested my head on his chest. His heart rate was slow. Steady.
Nothing like mine.
“And Alek?” I said again. His hand drew lazy circles on my back.
“Yeah?”
“I don’t want to die. Not anymore. I want tolive.”
His fingers stalled for a second. I wanted to take the words back as soon as I heard them aloud, but on the other hand, he needed to know. He needed to truly understand just how dark things had been in that basement, just how little light I had left inside of me.
Alek had taken that dull flame and ignited it, had shown me a way out of an endless, destructive hell.
“I know,” he said after a few seconds. His fingers resumed where they had left off. “I don’t want you to die, either.”
Alek stayed that way with me for hours, until my heartbeat settled to a low drum that matched his. Until I no longer feared him leaving. Until his fingers tracing my back turned to a lullaby.
And, for what felt like the first time in years, I slept. And I did not dream of the chains in the basement.
ChapterThirty-Nine
“Lyra,” a familiar voice pulled me from my deep sleep. “Lyra, get up.”
I blinked my eyes. Alek was no longer with me, no longer in my bed. But similar green eyes find out mine in the darkness.
Alek’s father stood beside me.
I immediately pushed myself to a sitting position. “What’s going on?” I asked. “Where’s Alek?”
“Alek’s waiting for us downstairs. Come, come.” Alarms went off in my mind, but Alek’s father seemed calm enough. He wasn’t angry, but he seemed to be in a hurry for whatever reason.
I was too groggy to analyze the situation. Too groggy to fight it.
I pushed the covers off myself and followed him down the hallway.
Everything was dark. Tiny, old lanterns in the hall lit the path as he led me further and further into their mansion.
My brain was telling me something was wrong, but I didn’t know what. And where was Alek?
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“Shh, shh,” he responded. We were almost running now, scurrying through the darkness like the rats in the streets of Paris.
Now I was definitely panicking. But I had nowhere to go, no way out of this mansion without Alek.
We walked down a long staircase into the basement. Everything was still dark, and my bare feet padded along the freezing cold floor. I followed Alek’s father until we came to a large door.
He pushed it open.
I followed him inside.
Everything was dark except for a small fire. The walls were black, and I could hardly see Alek’s father as he closed the door behind us.
“What is she doing here?” Alek demanded. My attention snapped to his voice. In the darkness, I could barely make out his figure.
