Sydney
The inside of the cottage smells strongly of paint. I watch Sarah move through the first two rooms anyway, keeping out of her way and staying in the snug hallway right off the front door where a small kitchen sits on one side and the living room on the other. Sarah moves lightly from room to room, opening doors and closing them again.
Her face is unreadable, blank, and those eyes are a stunning pale lavender, which is my only hint that she's happy.
I watch her closely, unable to stop myself from noticing the way her fingertips graze over the worn, faded wallpaper in the bathroom at the very end of the hall, like she’s marking each swipe of color and texture with her touch.
I might have overstepped. Her expression cracks, her eyes going dark and watery, and she looks over her shoulder at me.
“Are you sure about this?” She tucks her hands in the pockets of her jacket, my jacket, which brushes her ankles and hangs off her slim shoulders.
“I am.”
“Why?”
That word holds so much weight. I have the opportunity to really lay it on thick, telling her she deserves a roof over her head, heat, and opportunities.
But I say, “Why not?”
She holds my gaze for several seconds, searching my face. “You’re a strange man, Alpha Sydney.”
“Just Sydney,” I reply, clearing my threat.
But she’s smiling softly as she turns off the bathroom light and steps down the hallway, her boots squeaking on the freshly waxed floorboards.
“Sydney.” She stops roughly three feet away in a shadow that turns her eyes to polished, gleaming gems. Again, I’m wondering if I’m seeing things as her eyes shift to a dark shade of lavender. “This must be some party if you’re giving me a house for helping you out.”
“All of my mom’s parties are rather grandiose,” I admit with a shrug. “She likes to entertain.”
“I’ve never even seen the queen in person.” She grips the archway leading into the snug kitchen and peeks into it, her long, blonde braid falling over her shoulder.
Her hair is like white silk. I fight the urge to touch it, to confirm how smooth it would feel between my fingers, as she turns back to me.
“Does your mom have a lot of friends?”
“She does, actually. She doesn’t keep a typical court, though, and this party is mostly just to break up the long winter.” That’s what she told me, at least. “With everything that went on in Eastonia over the summer, I imagine this has more to do with getting my dad out of his office and socializing with old friends than anything else.”
“That’s kind of her.”
I nod, and the air between us feels suddenly tense and somewhat stale.
I brought her here for more than one reason. Sure, I wanted to show her the cottage in an attempt to get her to stay here in Shadowcrest, but she mentioned something earlier this morning that stuck with me.
“My mom was alone too,” I tell her, leaning on the wall and crossing my arms over my chest. “She… well, it’s not talked about much. I think the official story told to the public was that my parents met at the ball held for his twenty-first birthday, which is partly true.”
“What’s the real story then?” She leans on the archway in a totally casual stance, her ankles crossed and hands tucked in the pockets of her enormous coat.
“They lost track of one another. A few years later, my dad was looking for a wife, someone to put on the throne so he could go off to war without a civil war breaking out amongst the Alphas in Crescent Falls. She was… essentially forced into the role.”
“By your dad?” She looks shocked and slightly appalled.
I shake my head. “Not… not totally. It’s not as bad as it sounds.”
“Is that what you're trying to do to me?” she asks lightly, giving me an arch of her brow. She isn’t wearing a lick of makeup, but her cheeks are rosy, which lights up her entire face. “Hold me captive and make me your Luna out of convenience?”
“You caught me.”
She rolls her eyes to the ceiling and huffs a laugh, but my heart is racing.
That isn’t what I’m doing.
Just a few months ago I was dead set on growing old and decrepit with no heirs, dying alone. Mateless. Passing on the title of Alpha King to whatever kids Ryan manages to raise as long as they aren’t half-feral.
Nothing has changed.
I refuse to let anything change.
My tone darkens as I say, “My mom was sold to breeder traders and taken over the border of Celestoria to Crescent Falls. She had no one. Her real parents and adoptive parents were dead. Her stepmother sold her for the equivalent of a few bottles of wine and some meat. That’s what she believed she was worth. But she trusted my father, an Alpha, to make sure she was taken care of.”
Sarah stares at me, swallowing hard. I watch the narrow column of her throat bob, which sends my body into a sudden frenzy I’m not sure I can tamp down.
“I just want you to trust me. I understand why you don’t, but I’m not like your landlord. I’m not like half of the Alphas in Crescent Falls who would present this offer with fine print that makes it impossible for you to leave if you’re not happy here. I just need to know that you’re safe, and selfishly–”
Selfishly, I wanted to see her again.
“Selfishly what?” she asks, tilting her head a bit.
“Selfishly I like being a hero sometimes.”
She rolls her eyes again, and there’s that smile that I think might be my undoing. For a single fraction of a second, I get a flash of memory that temporarily paralyzes me. That smile. That same unbothered, utterly happy smile as I press my mystery woman against a wall in Ryan’s house, leaning in to kiss her again.
I slept last night for the first time in days. I usually dream about her and have flashes of memory throughout the day, but since finding Sarah?
Nothing.
A sudden throbbing sensation in my left temple erupts. Nothing more than a headache, probably brought on by three cups of coffee and no breakfast this morning.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I reply, rubbing my head for a moment. “Just a headache.”
“Cosette probably has a tea for that.”
“Oh, she does. I’m sure she has it waiting for me back at the house.” I glance around at the empty space. “It’s not a great time of year to paint, but I’m hoping it’s dry enough to start moving furniture inside tomorrow, or the next day–”
“Don’t you want to make sure I can actually deliver before giving me a house, Sydney?”
“I’m not worried about that at all.” My head really starts to hurt. I turn toward the door, yanking it open. Snow has already started to cover the front porch again. “We should get back.”
She brushes past me while I hold open the door for her, but she looks over her shoulder at me, her brow knitted in concern. “You don’t look well.”
“I get migraines from time to time. It’s nothing.”
“Do your grandma’s tears work on them like they worked on me last night?”
I pause on the bottom step, looking down at her. “You heard that?”
She purses her lips, nodding.
“I–I should have told you. Cosette didn’t like the idea of drugging you but–”
“I needed it. Thank you.”
I roll my lower lip between my teeth as I search her face. I can’t tell if she’s actually thanking me or not. She has a sarcastic edge to her voice sometimes, which I don’t have much experience with outside of talking to Ryan.
There are only a few people in this world that aren’t intimidated by me.
Apparently, Sarah is one of them.
“Can I ask you something?”
“What?” She turns so we can walk side by side as I step off the porch.
I need something to distract me from the throbbing ache traveling through the left side of my skull.
“You mentioned you grew up in a group home. Which one?”
“It wasn’t in Crescent Falls,” she says after a brief pause. “I don’t think it had a name at all.”
We cross the road back to the trail leading to the manor.
“Where was it if it wasn’t in Crescent Falls?”
“Is this something you really want to know?”
“I’m looking for someone.”
I stop walking and turn to her. The air around us is silent and still as snow falls in giant heaps that quickly covers our shoulders. There’s a fresh bite in the wind as the clouds darken, another storm rolling in overhead.
But I can feel a sudden tension between us as I look down at her. Her eyes fade to amethyst in the shadow of the clouds.
“Did you live with someone named Sasha? She would have been roughly your age, I assume.”
“Why are you looking for her?”
“Did you know her?”
She looks at my chest, her gaze absent as if searching internally for any recognition.
It’s useless, I already know it. I’ve canvassed every square inch of this kingdom, turning every stone.
“I knew someone named Sasha. Briefly.”
“Briefly?”
She nods, her expression twisting slightly as she meets my eyes. “You’re right. I think she was my age. But…” she trails off, turning to look at the forest hugging us from either side. “I was ten when I came to live with Mr. and Mrs. Havisfield. I was shy and didn’t talk to anyone for a long time, so I didn’t know her well.”
“Do you know what happened to her? Where is she now? I need to talk to her.”
“You can’t,” she says sadly, kicking snow with the toe of her boot. “She died a few months after I arrived. She was very sick, from what we were told.”
I draw in a breath and let it out slowly, looking over the top of her head at the snow-covered forest. “You’re sure she’s dead?”
“I was there when she was buried.”
I don’t know Sasha’s last name. It was one detail Atticus didn’t give us. It’s likely, based on what we know about Gabriel’s coven, that a young female child wasn’t allowed to take his last name despite her parentage, and instead, absorbed something along the lines of “of Draven.”
Sarah tells me, as we walk back to the manor, where to find the group home, and I realize there was one stone I left unturned. It’s an area where I didn’t think to look.
I’m not sure it even matters now if Sasha’s dead.
I wonder if Gabriel knows. Sasha was supposed to be immensely powerful. He’s been hunting her for at least a decade. He’ll be looking even harder now that his coven has been disbanded, and he’s on the run.
But if she’s dead, he’s likely been running into the same dead ends I have in his hunt for her.
“Oh, Goddess above, thank goodness you’re back. I was just about to send the warriors looking for you,” Cosette says from the side door as we approach the garage, rubbing her arms against the cold. “Don’t you ever acknowledge the mind-link?” I don’t admit that I hadn’t noticed her trying to reach me. “There’s another huge storm rolling in tonight, You’re Grace. I’m sure we’re going to lose power any minute now.”
“Show Sarah the atrium, please,” I say with some effort. My head feels like it’s about to explode, and my vision is starting to blur at the edges in my left eye. “I’m going to–make a few phone calls.”
I step past Sarah and brush past Cosette on my way into the house.
Behind me, I hear Sarah say, “He told me he had a headache but I’m worried. He doesn't look good.”
“He’s had them since he came back from Eastonia. It’s just stress. It’s nothing to worry yourself over. I’ll have Dalia bring him some tea. Come, Blake has missed you.”
I don’t register my movements in the house, but I’m suddenly in the dark recesses of my room, falling flat on my back in bed, still wearing my coat and boots. The ceiling spins and cracks, and somewhere in the distance, I can feel the fire of Kenna’s powers as she rips apart the guards who had me and Evander in silver chains.
Gabriel’s laugh cuts through the pain exploding in my skull. I shove the memories away, pulling my phone out of my pocket with a trembling hand.
Ryan answers on the first ring, like usual.
“Are you up for a road trip tomorrow?”