Chapter 10
“Why the hell do I have to be in your arms?” I asked, making no effort to hide my irritation as I stared into Airis’s eyes, silently choking on my resentment toward him.
“Then give me another way to get you to the portal across three cities and a sea,” Airis replied, arching a brow and crossing his arms over his chest.
Thinking it over, I immediately asked,
“How long are we going to be flying?”
Just the thought of him touching me again made heat crawl beneath my skin.
And for two very different reasons:
Either an overwhelming physical attraction to this asshole—
or an equally overwhelming urge to murder him.
I understood why he didn’t trust me.
I wasn’t exactly rushing to trust him either.
But I hadn’t held a knife to his throat.
And I hadn’t risked his life just to get the truth.
“About fifteen minutes,” Airis said, casually rolling his neck. “The longer we stand here arguing, the less time we’ll have in Vuduarus.”
“And why’s that?”
“Because I listed our exact arrival time in the report,” he replied. “And I’m expected to stick to it.”
I sighed.
At this point, I didn’t even feel like asking for more details.
“Fine. I can survive fifteen minutes,” I muttered, stepping in front of him.
In response, Airis tossed a warm fleece shirt over my head—the one he’d been carrying the entire time.
“Hey—what the hell are you doing?” I yanked it off my face and glared at him with all the fury I could manage.
Today, my irritation felt almost impossible to control.
“Put it on. It’s cold up there.”
“You could’ve handed it to me like a normal person instead of throwing it at my face,” I grumbled, though I still pulled the soft fabric over my head, instantly wrapping myself in even more of Airis’s scent.
Without another word, Airis swept me into his arms and pulled me firmly against his chest.
“Hold on tight.”
The second he said it, freezing air slammed into my face hard enough to steal the breath from my lungs.
With a startled gasp, I instantly wrapped my arms around Airis’s neck and buried my face in the crook of it.
As soon as we stepped through the portal—so well hidden I never would’ve found it on my own—we emerged in the middle of a forest.
“Are we in Manchester?” I asked, glancing around, though realistically I doubted I could identify a place by its trees. “And how do portals even work? What if we needed to get to... I don’t know... Italy?”
“The seal that grants me access to Vuduarus reveals different intersections during travel,” Airis explained. “Like a web of crossroads. I simply choose the route I need.”
He scanned the area as if searching for something before confidently heading toward a narrow path running between the road and the tree line.
I hurried after him.
The last thing I needed was to be stranded here alone with absolutely nothing.
“Wait—where’s my phone?” I suddenly asked, realizing I hadn’t thought about it once during my entire time in Istarus.
“We found you without it,” Airis answered without looking back.
I quickened my pace, nearly breaking into a jog just to keep up with him.
“Where are you even—”
I cut myself off the moment I spotted a black jeep parked along the roadside.
A curly blond head leaned out of the front passenger window, enthusiastically waving us over.
“Honor and glory to our great lieutenant and his fiery protégée!” he announced dramatically, half-hanging out of the vehicle.
“Touching speech, Chesterson.” Airis gave him a slow clap dripping with sarcasm.
“Relax. Next time I’ll come up with something better,” the guy grinned, dimples instantly appearing in his round face.
He reached for the front passenger door, but Airis stopped him with a single look.
Instead, Airis opened the rear door and gestured for me to get in.
“Ria and I are sitting in the back.”
“You always sit in front,” another voice pointed out—the driver this time.
I struggled to climb into the absurdly tall vehicle.
“And since when did you decide to call me Ria?” I asked.
“You introduced yourself that way to Anastasia,” Airis replied as he slid in beside me, completely ignoring the conversation around him.
“Yes. And only friends—or potential friends—get to call me that.”
I deliberately avoided looking at him, focusing instead on the two guys who had turned around to face us.
“Bax Chesterson,” the blond said with a smile.
“And I’m Lars,” said the driver, a dark-skinned guy with striking blue eyes. Unlike Bax, he wasn’t smiling. He looked at both me and Airis as though he had a thousand questions and fully intended to ask every single one of them eventually.
“You can call me Ria,” I said—mostly out of spite toward Airis rather than any genuine desire to bond with them.
“You called me a fiery protégée,” I added, looking at Bax. “Can you communicate across worlds or something? Is that how you knew about my element?”
“Tarven stopped by yesterday,” Bax answered. “He told us.”
“Yesterday?” I glanced briefly at Airis. “Don’t you have restrictions on how often you can travel?”
“Tarven is Vuduarus’s representative,” Airis explained. “His limit is much lower. If I need three days before making another transfer to Vuduarus, Tarven only needs six hours.”
“I see.” I nodded as the jeep finally started moving. “Hopefully Tarven also remembered to mention that I’m apparently a potential Harold Moss agent everyone should keep an eye on.”
Airis let out a heavy sigh while Bax shot him a questioning look.
“She has no connection to Harold,” Airis said firmly.
“Oh really?” I arched a brow. “And where exactly did that confidence come from? What if the temple was wrong?”
“You took her to the Temple of Nereida for that?” Lars glanced at Airis through the rearview mirror.
“No way!” Bax burst out laughing, throwing himself dramatically against the seat. “Guys avoid the Temple of Nereida like the plague.”
“Why?” I asked, grateful for anything that distracted me from the irritation simmering beneath my skin.
“At some point, girls started dragging their suitors there to test whether their feelings were genuine,” Bax explained. “After three students died, the entire tradition was officially banned.”
“Oh no.” I pouted dramatically, looking at Airis. “Sounds serious. I should probably report you for violating temple policy.”
I was lying, obviously.
I just wanted to irritate him the way he kept irritating me.
Then Bax’s earlier words finally caught up with me.
“Wait… so the temple really does collapse if someone lies inside it?” I asked, turning my attention back to the guys in front—or more specifically, the backs of their heads.
“Yes,” Lars answered. “But it restores itself four hours later.”
“Interesting.” I nodded, turning toward the window.
“Were any of Moss’s people spotted while I was gone?” Airis asked.
At his words, my lips pressed tightly together.
Angela’s lifeless body flashed through my mind again.
That final, empty look in her eyes.
I understood she hadn’t truly been killed.
Only her body had.
But somehow, that didn’t make any of it easier.
“There was suspicious activity detected in Finland,” Lars said, “but they disappeared before the squad could reach them.”
Finland?
Do they seriously monitor every corner of the planet?
“You have squads stationed in every country?” I asked.
“Every continent,” Lars corrected.
“Then how do you move between countries and cities so quickly? And how do you even detect Moss’s people?”
“Every squad has four members who specialize in transfer magic,” Airis answered.
“And there’s a shield stretched across the sky,” Bax added. “It tracks concentrated magical activity.”
“They’re not always reliable, unfortunately,” Lars shrugged. “Sometimes they miss magical traces entirely.”
“We’re still improving the system,” Airis said.
“Maintaining something that massive isn’t easy,” Bax added. “Especially after repeated magical eruptions aimed at weakening the shield.”
“At least they’ve become less frequent.”
“But that’s probably not a good sign.” Airis crossed his arms over his chest. “It only means Vuduarus isn’t his primary target.”
Was I really relieved to hear that?
Knowing my friends might stay safe a little longer?
“You’re planning to stay in Manchester for all three days?” Airis finally looked at me.
I nodded.
“But honestly, feel free to take Airis if you need him,” I said, remembering how determined he’d been to meet my friends. “Actually, even if you don’t need him, you can still take him.”
“You can’t be left unguarded,” Airis replied immediately.
“Of course,” I muttered. “Who knows? Maybe I’ll contact my boss the second you leave.”
******
An hour later, Airis and I pulled up in front of my parents’ house.
As it turned out, Lars and Bax had arranged a car for us before returning to their post.
I stared at the large two-story mansion surrounded by ornate golden iron gates and swallowed hard.
Last night, I’d tried to prepare myself for this conversation—tried to imagine what I should ask my parents, what I should say.
But standing here now, my mind went completely blank.
“So?” Airis stopped beside me. “Are you going in, or are we planning to stand here all day?”
“You should probably prepare yourself for a little cardio too.”
He shot me a questioning look.
“A year and a half ago, I threw my house keys into the ocean.”
“Then we’ll manage without them.”
Airis stepped up to the gate and raised a hand.
A second later, a metallic click echoed through the quiet.
“How did you do that?” I asked, following him through the gates and onto the property.
“Telekinesis,” Airis answered simply. “You’ll probably study it in your second semester.”
Cool.
“Should I be worried about a vicious dog or anything?” Airis asked, eyeing the perfectly polished Graynory estate suspiciously.
The house where I had always been the unwanted part.
“Sometimes my parents bite,” I shrugged, walking around the side of the house toward the backyard.
The sun beat down relentlessly overhead, and my mother never missed an opportunity to lounge by the pool.
“You still haven’t told me why you don’t get along with them,” Airis said, matching my pace.
I could feel it—he wanted some kind of truce between us.
But he wasn’t getting one that easily.
“I’m not in the habit of sharing personal things with people who see me as the enemy.”
I sped up, trying to put at least some physical distance between us.
But just as I reached the corner of the house, before I could step into the backyard—
someone grabbed my wrist.
And pinned me lightly against the wall.
Airis stood close.
Close enough to make my pulse stumble.
But not close enough to cross the line.
Though sometimes it felt like that line shouldn’t exist at all.
“I’m sorry.”
Silver eyes held mine with unsettling seriousness while his hand remained wrapped around my wrist as though he had no intention of letting go.
“I’m a representative of Istarus and the chief lieutenant of the combat divisions across all twelve worlds,” he said quietly.
Then paused.
“I don’t have the right to make mistakes.”
He exhaled and glanced away for a brief moment.
“If even one person got hurt because my feelings clouded my judgment…” His jaw tightened. “I wouldn’t forgive myself.”
Silence rang in my ears.
I kept staring at him, even though he no longer met my gaze.
And if not for that—
I might have convinced myself he’d never said those words at all.
“Feelings?” I asked quietly. “You like me?”
“Being attracted to you and liking you aren't necessarily the same thing,” Airis said.
Then, after a brief pause:
“But yes. In this case… I’d call it liking.”
I frowned immediately, turning his words over in my head.
“So what? You’re saying you’d sleep with me without any real intentions?”
“I’m saying you attract me as a woman.” His eyes met mine again.
“That’s not the same thing.”
I scoffed and pulled my hand free from his grip.
I had no idea why his words hurt so much.
I’d already met enough men who wanted my body but never cared about the rest of me.
And I had no desire to let either be broken again.
“Maybe we could be friends,” I said coldly.
“Or at least good acquaintances.
But definitely not lovers.”
I moved to step around the corner into the backyard, but Airis’s voice stopped me again.
“And why exactly have you decided that?”
He stepped into my path once more.
“Your body responds to me.”
“That doesn’t mean it’s making the right decision,” I shot back, fixing him with a sharp look.
“And why are we even talking about this right now? We have bigger problems.”
With that, I brushed past him and rounded the corner.
But one look at the backyard was enough to stop my heart cold.