36 #2
All this time, the exit has been right here. Easily accessed aside from the guards. Not complicated in the least. My home—my father—are right on the other side of it. “And what happens once we leave?” I ask softly.
“I haven’t thought that far ahead,” he admits, his voice darkening.
I haven’t thought that far ahead either. How can I? In this position? With this boy? I stumble a few steps, nearly tripping and sending us sprawling on the ground, but Calix catches me before I can demolish our entire plan.
Calix who kicked my ass in a classroom. Calix who washed my wound with so much care that it made me ache. Calix who I beat in Combat.
Calix who is Sin’s cousin.
“Hook your legs around my waist.”
I blink. Surely I heard him wrong. “C-Calix?”
“Your legs.” His hands move from my waist to…
lower. Decidedly lower. I bite my lip. “If we trip and fall in front of the guards, we’ll be locked inside our rooms faster than we can blink.
We won’t have time to save Sin. The castle is desperate for an excuse to trap us both. You because you’re special, and me…”
“Because you’re the son of her sister,” I finish for him.
“Son of a blood traitor.” Calix shakes his head. “I can carry you. It’ll be faster, more efficient, this way. It will simply look like we’re impassioned.”
“Impassioned,” I repeat, my legs turning to jelly.
“Yes.”
“Oh.”
He pulls back enough to glance at me without ruining our ruse. His eyes narrow, and a muscle in his jaw feathers as though he’s exerting extreme control. “It’s okay, Hart. It’s just until we’re outside.” A pause. A breath. His voice lowers further. “But only if you want to.”
Do I want to straddle Calix while he presses every hot and hard inch of himself against me? To be quite honest, I don’t want to answer that question. Not when Sin and I have become so… close.
“It’s natural,” he murmurs, attempting to soothe me. Or perhaps he’s soothing himself. “It’s a natural reaction, and it doesn’t mean anything.”
“Okay,” I say, and then, because I can’t bring myself to say please help me straddle you now , I echo, “Okay.”
Calix’s fingers dig into my thighs, and he lifts me effortlessly.
I wrap my legs around his hips, pulling him against me, and his abdomen clenches as we walk.
He carries me almost leisurely past the guards.
We still look like lovers, perhaps a touch more…
impassioned . His heated touch presses into me, and my hands find his hair.
Our faces are so close together that we may as well be kissing.
But we don’t. We won’t . Still, I can’t help glancing up.
He’s already watching me through a hooded gaze.
His lips brush mine as the movement of his steps jostles us.
Electricity crackles in my veins. He’s not Sin.
He’s not kind or warm. But he’s protective.
He’s loyal. My fingers twirl around a lock of black hair, and Calix looses a breath that tastes like midnight rain.
“It doesn’t mean anything. We’re enemies,” he whispers against my lips, as if to remind me of the fact, but the fire that subsequently blazes through me is catastrophic. Lie. His pupils dilate.
“Enemies?” I ask, not daring to directly call him on the falsehood when my pulse beats into him like war drums. His grip tautens further, and his nose caresses mine. I almost forget where we are. I almost forget he’s dying.
“Vanessa,” he says. Then, to the guards in a booming, gruff voice, “Do you mind?” He nods toward the doors. I hear the guards’ breath catch in their throats.
“How long?” they ask, their footsteps thudding around us. I tuck my face into Calix’s collarbone, writhing against him now for show. As if we’re so enthralled by this moment and not terrified of our impending dooms. Calix’s grip hardens even further still. “A few hours,” he responds roughly.
Please please please.
“Very well.” The guards step back—they step back—and one laughs to himself dryly. “Horny bastard. At least she’s not a human.”
I cling to Calix, begging him to not react. To ignore their cruelty. He does. Thank god he does.
The doors open with a creak. The guards fall away.
Calix walks us through the portal with one large, powerful step.
And then—the air changes. From the thick sweetness of magic to the clear scents of salt water, musk, and grass.
The moon brightens his face, and the sky batters rain down upon us.
Cold, wet droplets of mortal rain. I shift in his arms, throwing my head backward toward the cloud-covered stars.
It’s black and gray and so… so familiar .
It’s home.
We did it. We successfully left the castle. But when Calix gently lowers me down his body and onto the ground, he doesn’t seem pleased at all.
“I hate to break it to you, but you can’t be driving a hundred miles an hour through a residential area.”
My complaint only makes Calix step harder on the gas. It seems we are, in fact, enemies, as right now I’d love nothing more than to shove his body out of the driver’s seat and take over the car myself.
We fly through Anastasia Island, and maybe it’s good that we’re speeding because the lights are a red-and-green blur through the window.
I can’t fixate on a single location. Can’t remember exactly where I was when Celeste and I last drove over the bridge, or where we were attacked.
Still, it’s the first time I’ve been here—back in my world—since my kidnapping.
“Calix,” I snap. “Will you relax?”
“Does it look like I can relax?” He holds up his left arm, and the pitch-black veins have spread to his neck, climbing his throat like tendrils of ivy. “I swear to the stars above—if you’re the reason my cousin dies…”
My stomach flips. I wipe sweaty palms on my pants. Please no , I pray. Please let Sin be okay. But I don’t want Calix to hear that sort of vulnerability from me, so I say, “If he dies, you’re dead too.”
“And you think you’ll survive our deaths?” Calix turns his head to glare at me some more, but I look out the window. Whatever friendliness I might have felt when his hands were near groping my ass is gone now. It’s as if that moment never happened at all. Though, to be fair, he is dying.
“I know my place in court better than anyone else,” I say quietly.
His grip on the wheel tightens. “Is that why you’ve been running around with the prince at night?”
I clutch the handle of the door. It threatens to snap, just like the last time Calix was driving me around. Driving me to my doom. “I haven’t been.”
“He’s never in his room.”
Because he’s always in mine. I wince. “Why are you keeping tabs on his nightly activities? Maybe he’s been with Evelyn.”
“He would sooner roast his body over open flames, and you know it,” Calix retorts. “You and I have both seen the way he looks at you. Sin can’t hide a single meaningful emotion to save his life. He’s as good at keeping secrets as an infant bribed with candy.”
I roll my eyes, cross my arms, and aim my body even farther toward the door.
Calix’s words should be comforting, but he spits them out harshly.
Like accusations. And as I would rather avoid discussing my intimate moments with a man I just semi-grinded on, I choose to gaslight him instead.
“Evie and Sin are going to be mated soon,” I say matter-of-factly.
“It would be ridiculous for him to have relations with anyone else.”
The wheel threatens to break off in his grasp. “You drive me fucking insane, Hart.”
“Ditto.”
“Besides, you’re only in this car because you claim to know exactly where my cousin is located.”
“I did not use the word exactly .”
“Oh?” Calix unlocks my door with a button on his side. “Feel free to roll out, then. I won’t slow down, but I’m sure you’ll heal.”
“Have you ever considered acting… I don’t know… like you’re not a huge fucking asshole?”
He slams on the brakes in the middle of the street, and I jerk forward, nearly smacking my head on the dashboard. “What the hell , Calix?” This. This is why he boils my blood so much. This is why I have to hate him even when he has moments of kindness. Because he is an idiot .
He puts the car in park—still in the middle of freaking street—and swivels in his seat to glower at me.
“Do you understand what my life is? My aunt hates me. My very presence ruins her every waking moment. My uncle died in my care. The only person I have left is Sinclair. He has always believed in me. He has always loved me. He has chosen me over even his own mother’s disdain.
He didn’t have to do any of that. He could’ve ignored me as a child or complained about me growing up as his shadow.
But he hasn’t. Sinclair and I are tied together by this fucking bargain, but I would kill for him, Vanessa.
I would die for him. So you tell me where you think he is, and we’ll go there.
You are not the first victim of this court, nor will you be the last, and that doesn’t mean I don’t care. I just care about Sinclair more.”
I rest my head on the glass of the window and angle the air conditioners onto my face. The cold helps his words seep into my skin. Calix isn’t the villain. He might be a dick, but he’s not a murderer.
Forcing myself to sit up straight, breathing deeply, I whisper, “He should be near the beach, but we need to stop looking for a car. I think he ran here as a wolf.”
“Okay,” Calix says. And then, quietly, “Thank you.”
He shifts the car into drive and starts down the street. We’re minutes from the lighthouse. Where everything happened. We’ll have our best chance at finding Sinclair there. But of course, this can’t be so easy.
Red and blue lights flash behind us, and a siren screams through the otherwise quiet night.
“Fuck,” Calix says.
I’m forced to agree, throwing my head into my hand. “Tell me you have a legit license.”
“Vanessa,” Calix says plainly. “I’m a Beta with royal blood. I can compel humans. It’s the timing that sucks.”