Skye
It is not, in fact, all over.
“What?” I croak while Mom aggressively fluffs my pillows and settles me upright in my bed. I was right–I’m in my old room in my parents’ house in Moonrise. Thick, impenetrable curtains hang from my windows, blocking out ninety percent of the sunlight, only allowing strips that Alex seems to walk through without any issues. I don’t remember anything, save for the first moments of the attack and glimmers of hazy images of my dad’s office before it all grows black and blurry.
“The Alpha of Aurorium wants someone to take the fall for the murders,” Maeve, who spirited into the room ten minutes ago, explains with overt annoyance. She’s perched on the edge of my bed, dressed casually in a dark red sweater and matching pants, with her extraordinarily thick brown hair piled messily on top of her head.
Kenna left the room twenty minutes ago. To do what, I have no idea, but Alex remains, pacing and tapping his fingertips on his chin while watching every breath I take like this is all he’s done for what I now know has been weeks.
Three weeks. Three entire weeks I’ve been kept asleep. Three weeks of the family coming to terms with him and me. Three weeks of Maeve and my dad negotiating with the authorities in Lunaria. Three weeks of Alex in this room, watching me like a hawk.
I still struggle to swallow and speak, my throat unnaturally tight and raw. My skin screams with a blistering kind of itchiness that’s driving me absolutely insane. I should be healed completely by now, shouldn’t I?
“The Alpha of Aurorium can suck my–” Alex begins to say, which is so out of character for him, but I suppose he gets a pass.
“Anyway,” Mom barks, throwing an extremely shady glare at Alex, who is unaffected as always, and turns to me and smiles. “Alex is fine. The Alpha King of Lunaria already handled it. Alex is a free man.” Mom rolls her neck. “And also no longer works for the university.”
I glance at my husband, who catches my gaze, conveying a silent message that it’s unfortunately not as uncomplicated as Mom’s making it sound.
Maeve, however, leans over to pat my thigh. “You really scared us. I’ll never forgive you.” Her cat-like smile burrows into my heart and warms through my blood, making me feel a bit less groggy.
Still, I’m dying here. I want to scratch my throat so badly, but Mom keeps batting my hands away, tsking and forcing them back under the covers.
“Why–” I wince, desperate to clear my throat but finding it impossible. “My throat?”
Alex smooths a hand over his face, growing more and more agitated as the seconds pass. Maeve notices and rises, clicking her tongue at Mom, who glances between Alex and me. I can tell she’s internally fretting over me but sucks in a breath and resigns herself, following Maeve out the door.
They leave the door open.
He stares at the open door, blinking a few times, then grumbles under his breath and strides across the carpet, closing it against the quiet voices drifting in from the hallway.
“Lock it,” I whisper, grimacing as the words burn over my tongue.
He does, and he turns and leans his weight against it, fixing me with an exhausted, overwhelmed look.
My lips part to ask a million questions, but he cuts in, “Don’t. Don’t try to talk. You’re not completely healed yet.”
“Why not?”
He sighs, scrubbing his palms over his eyes like he hasn’t had a chance to close them in the weeks we’ve been here. He steps forward and sits on the end of the bed, taking a moment to make himself comfortable, and replies, “Because Kenna, Cole, and Misty couldn’t heal you entirely. They were worried about you losing your ability to speak, so it’s been slow.” He leans toward me, his hands resting on either side of my thighs, closing me in against the bed. “You’ve been kept asleep, in a stupor, while you heal as slowly as possible. But now that you’re awake, I understand that Misty is going to return to finish the job.”
I reach up to try to scratch the bandages, but he stops me, gripping my fingers, then toys with them like he hasn’t… touched me in so long.
He scooches closer, his eyes, so blue, locked on mine like he’s silently asking permission to lie with me, and I wholeheartedly allow it, and within seconds I’m tucked in the crook of his shoulder, my cheek flush with his chest. Alex relaxes against my weight with the deepest sigh. It vibrates through his chest, and he slumps, resting his chin on the top of my head.
Then, after making me promise I won’t speak, he tells me everything.
* * *
Alex
Three Weeks Ago…
I can’t avoid the sunlight here. My skin prickles, but I ignore it, following Kenna down a long, narrow hallway in a building situated on the side of the palace that’s apparently open to the public. Healers in starched uniforms step out of rooms, pushing carts. Babies fuss, and voices murmur through open doors. Windows at either end of the hallway spill warm winter light tinged with silver as snow dances in a dizzying haze, which is my only salvation from the sun's effects.
She turns a sharp corner, glancing over her shoulder to make sure I’m still behind her, and hurries up a staircase. I press myself to the wall to allow a trio of healers to walk past us, then follow, my heart rate creeping upward with each passing second.
I was told, when I was finally freed from the chains and allowed out of that room, that Skye was stable but still in terrible shape. After a lengthy conversation and assurances that, unlike shifter males, who are notoriously territorial and will kill before asking questions when it comes to their mates, vampires tend to be a little more… level-headed in situations like this, Kenna agreed to take me to see Skye.
Another hallway comes into view, shorter and more private than the last. There’s a single door at the end of the hall, which stands ajar, soft voices trickling into the void of cream-colored walls and perfectly waxed tiles.
Kenna disappears into the room. I follow but halt in the doorway.
Several sets of eyes lock on my face. Spines straighten. The tension skyrockets.
But there she is. Fast asleep. Bandages thicker than my forearm wrapped around her neck and chest, bare save for a blanket covering the parts of her body that are only mine to see. I close my eyes for several seconds, bracing myself on the doorframe, and then a presence steps to my side, quietly encouraging me to come closer.
I open my eyes to Blake, her father, who looks so beaten by grief that it momentarily catches me off guard. The same powers, the same particles of stardust, swirl in his eyes as the ones I see in Skye’s.
The rest of the people in the room fade into obscurity as Blake guides me to her bedside. Marianna, her mother, who looks so much like Skye it hurts, rises from the chair next to the bed, and I drop into it, bracing my elbows on the mattress and leaning forward to take one of Skye’s limp hands.
I tell them everything. My entire life. I tell them about my kind, my parents, significant moments of my childhood, and the bloody wars that raged between the time I was ten to twenty, when I put an end to it. At least, I hope I did.
I tell them about killing the queen of a rival kingdom and the fallout that followed. I tell them about the three years I spent on the run, pushed further and further away from home until I was so lost, so desperately deep in the aether between our kingdoms, that it was unlikely I’d ever find my way back, and how I kept going. I tell them the things Skye already knows–my background, how I was able to enroll as a student at the University of Lunaria, how I deserved to be there and proved it time and time again.
Then, I tell them about the past month.
“I made a deal with him,” I say, looking up from Skye’s hand to meet Blake’s eyes. “He was going to keep killing. He was targeting Skye, and I promised I’d leave with him and go back to where I came from if he left her out of it.”
“I’m guessing she didn’t take that well?” Blake asks flatly, and there’s nothing more I can do but nod.
“During that time, things were moving quickly between us. We moved in together. Only she, and two of our friends, knew what I am, but the university president became aware of our relationship and urged us to do things cleanly. We were… working through the reality of our relationship. Skye doesn’t care that I’m a vampire, that I’ll outlive her by centuries, that the likelihood of having children was almost impossible, something she voiced that she wanted, and I wasn’t sure I could give her.”
Marianna rests her hand on my shoulder. Blake watches the movement, but I can already feel him in my head, quietly, painlessly confirming the details of my story. It feels so different compared to Skye’s clumsy, painful explorations.
“Then she found out she was pregnant. It was a shock for both of us. She was so sick, and I was at a loss about how to help her, and then Kai made himself known. He threatened us.” I look up at the faces in the room. Her parents, Misty, and another man–an older man with dark hair and eyes like polished silver. The tattoos on his fingers ripple when he grips the back of a chair housing a regal older woman with dark brown hair and sea-green eyes.
“I wanted Skye to return here, to her family. She was going to need all the help she could get during the pregnancy. She needs the best healers. Healers we didn’t have access to in Lunaria. The University is so medical. Nothing we had access to could account for the fact she’s–” I look at Misty with a sudden urgency.
“The baby is okay. But this has been hard on both of them. They’re not in the clear yet, but as it stands, she’s all right. They both are,” Misty confirms, but her expression is grim.
“This baby is a hybrid. Half shifter, half vampire… and possibly a mystic, like her.” I squeeze Skye’s hand. “They didn’t deserve this.”
“What happened in Aurorium?” the silver-eyed man asks, and I look up at him. Ryatt. He has to be the Shadowsynger. He’s a legend–a god, all things considered.
Blake rolls his shoulders. I already know he’s seen everything at this point.
“Kai threatened her life. He killed one of my students and two locals off campus. Then, he killed the dean of my department, a man I didn’t get along with, which is why I was considered a suspect. He was willing to do much more, including making my lies public, which would not only risk Skye but myself, and I was the only thing standing between him and her. I was able to face Kai, and he made me a deal. I would go with him, and he would spare Skye’s life. I had to consider it, but I wanted her protected before then, especially from university politics, and honestly, in the event I didn’t return.” I meet Blake’s eyes. “We married in Aurorium, quietly. Skye took leave from her lectures so she could rest, and that gave me the opportunity to try to deal with Kai.”
Blake leans back, glancing at Ryatt.
“You were going to kill him?” Ryatt asks.
“Of course.”
“Then what happened?” Marianna asks weakly, but her eyes are on Skye.
I look at Blake, who stares down at his lap, a small, knowing smile touching his lips. “Skye doesn’t like being told what to do,” he says under his breath, “and took matters into her own hands.”