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But I brushed that urge off. Alek was a demon. He lived in a world I had only ever seen glimpses of. If he didn’t want to talk about what happened, I should be grateful.
Yet still—that small, wicked voice in the back of my mind wanted to yell at him. Wanted to scream at him for leaving me here in this prison with no explanation, no understanding of why he had left me for so long.
“Thank you,” he said, interrupting my thoughts as he exited the bathroom.
When I looked up, I saw him standing shirtless by the door.
“Um, you’re welcome. Although you did scare me a bit.”
“Sorry about that,” he said. “I knew you were close and… like I said, I wasn’t sure I would make it all the way home.”
“None of the Night Ravens were around to help?”
Alek laughed, but something dark laced it. It wasn’t his usual, contagious laughter. “Oh, trust me,” he replied, “there were plenty of Night Ravens around. Just none to help me.”
I stopped what I was doing and stepped forward. “Alek, tell me what happened. Who did this to you?”
He clenched his jaw and looked away.
I took another step forward. “Answer me.” I don’t know what came over me. I definitely had no business demanding that he tell me what happened. But in my defense, he did crawl through my window and bleed all over my floor. He’s the one who showed up here after ignoring me for weeks.
At the very least, I deserved an answer.
“My father needed to make it clear who was in charge,” he finally answered. His voice was hardly audible.
“You’re saying your father did this? He stabbed you?”
His eyes found mine. “You’re not the only one with a fucked-up family, love.”
My heart shattered for him. I didn’t want anyone to know the type of suffering I had known, but I did realize that being locked into a basement for years wasn’t the worst thing to possibly happen.
At least my mother had never stabbed me.
“Oh my god,” I whispered. “Alek—”
“You don’t have to feel sorry for me,” he cut me off. “It’s part of the business.”
“Getting stabbed is part of owning a bar?”
He smiled. “There’s a lot more to it than owning a bar.”
“Well, you’re lucky I’m nearby. You should be more careful.”
“I’ll keep that in mind next time.”
We stood there, staring at each other for what felt like hours. Alek’s eyes scanned my face, flicking over each of my features while I stared back.
I didn’t want him to know how much he affected me. I didn’t want him to know that I had wondered where he went for the past couple weeks or even worse: that I had actually missed him.
“I haven’t seen you in a while,” he said as if reading my thoughts.
“No,” I replied. “You haven’t.”
I shrugged and glanced away, looking at anything but him. I could feel the blood creeping into my cheeks.
When he took a step closer, my skin prickled in excitement. I didn’t want to react that way, but my body acted without my permission.
“I’m trying to protect you, Ly,” he whispered. “After what happened at the lake… it’s safer if I keep my distance.”
