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Leading Maeve out of the sealed vault of our dorm and into the academy proper, our escape was uneventful. One moment, we were inside; the next, we were out. Unremarkable, because what student would dare?
Roaming the halls was one thing. Roaming the city?
Unthinkable.
We may have all hated the academy, but where would we go if we left? Home? They would hang our mothers. Friends? We were not allowed communication with graduates.
The consequences were not worth the risk. Not unless your life was forfeit either way.
Mine would end if I had to stay in those walls one more day, trapped where I now knew a male heard my song and thought to make me his.
To be mated and owned by some random boy would end me.
Balmy air smelled of fog creeping over the ground. It hid our feet well, its dampness welcome as we set it swirling in our rush. Delightful, the night embraced us both as we ran down the street and into the unknown.
An hour of darting from shadow to shadow, unsure which way to go, passed before we found something breathtaking. An open reservoir, like a glittering lake banked with a walking path and eateries. A nearby restaurant had strung up twinkling lights, reminding me of things I had seen as a child on the rare occasion my mother had taken me outside of our home. Signs and colors,brightnessthat was never on display at the academy, all of it was there for any who might walk by.
The air smelled of mouthwatering foods. There was distant music and the hum of indistinct conversations.
Normalcy before me, right there, more alien than I could say.
In the distance, a couple walked hand in hand by the waterside. They laughed and talked, intimate and easy.
Looking down at my own empty hand, I wondered what it might be like to have someone hold it. To know a man’s smile. To be treated like a female and not a vorec killing machine.
I envied enough to find myself unhappy and cut off such thoughts before they might serve as a distraction. Perhaps sitting at a restaurant and eating real food would be lovely. But I wanted the fog, and no mate would ever allow it.
Distractions or desires, I’d had years to learn to squash them into mental dust. All I required to live my life on my terms was one willing man, for however long it might take him to put himself inside me and end my obligation to the academy.
Yet, it seemed I was not the only one romanticizing the view.
Voice dreamy, Maeve dared whisper, “Can you imagine what it must be like to go there? To sit by the water and feel the wind on your face?”
It was a dangerous fantasy. “It’s all couples. You’d have to be mated.”
Her lip curled at the thought. Like me, Maeve had no interest in wasting time bound to a man. “There must be places for women. This is just one small section of a massive city.”
A confusing city with labyrinth-like streets that made no sense and led in circles. Getting back to the academy would be far more difficult than getting to that manmade lake. “Over there. Do you see that hybrid male walking alone? I think we should follow him.”
Follow him, we did.
Past a small park of trees, down a street of shops closed up for the day, into a quieter neighborhood less tidy than the pretty reservoir circle.
His destination? A bar aptly namedThe Fog.It boasted the only working illumination on the street, seemed populated but not crowded, and there were many vantage points for us to run surveillance while we came up with a plan.
First, I had to get in unseen.
Next, I had to find a man willing to have sex with me.
Should all go well, I would be ruined by the end of the night.
11
“God, it stinks in here.” Hand to her nose, Maeve stayed within the shadows, the pair of us having waited hours to make our approach.
Getting inside had not been complicated. The bar, after all, was not the prison of the academy. The business desired patrons, boasted windows and back doors, with zero security beyond a simple lock easily picked with a hairpin.
With the burgundy-papered wall to our back—as far from the majority ofThe Fog’sstrictly hybrid patrons as possible—Maeve and I watched hybrid men in their native habitat.
