9. Riley
RILEY
I had stared at Raya for the remainder of the dinner, quieter than I’d ever been before. My eyes never left her face, not when she spoke, not when she bartered her life away so carelessly, and not even when the elevator doors had closed behind her, leaving me staring at the closed metal doors in her absence.
I was sick, so very sick, because I hadn’t known my mother was chained in the Outer Ring, and now even more so because I wasn’t sure if tonight would be the last time I would ever get to see my sister’s face again. It already felt like too much time passed between each time I saw her now.
Zander had been quiet since too, though he’d watched me as I processed my pain, carefully veiling it behind a soft smile and blank eyes. It was that same emotionless expression that turned and fell on him now. “She may die.”
His face softened slightly as he came towards me and wrapped his arms around my waist from behind, placing his chin on top of my head. It didn’t comfort me in the way it usually did.
“I’m sorry I am unable to give anymore to your family. You know that, as the leader, I cannot play favourites. I gave your sister whatever I could.”
Staticky noise whirred in my ears as he spoke, understanding what he was saying but also not, because everything seemed entirely unfair. He had power.
“Why is my mum in chains, Zander?” I couldn’t fathom how this had even happened.
His voice came out as a whisper. “She disobeyed our law in front of many people. You know she is sympathetic to other’s plights, even when they themselves are criminals.”
I bristled. Why, of all the times, did she choose now to disobey the law?
Fingers rubbed up and down my arms in reassurance. She had already made her decision; I couldn’t go back in time and change it. I could only accept what was and try my best to move forward, trying to achieve my goal.
Zander broke the silence to try again at reassuring me that everything would work out. “Your sister has a powerful gift, my love. You know of her tenacity. Look how she showed up here as confidently and determined as she did. It is incredibly admirable. She will survive. I am sure of it.”
He turned me around in his arms, a hand gripping the back of my head as he drew me close, his lips hovering just above mine. His expression was pinched, almost pained, though none of it would equate to the depth of mine.
“We must honour what decisions people make about their own lives, Riley. We cannot seek to control every action of another.”
My brow furrowed, and I looked closer at the lines on his face, agony etched into the grooves. I fell into his chest and wrapped my arms around him. Sometimes, I forgot that people had lived other lives throughout the war. I was fortunate in many ways to live here and have missed it.
“I know. I am just scared, as we all are,” I whispered against his chest, my own heart hammering loudly inside mine.
“Defence numbers have dwindled, and more Omegas were taken last year than ever before. Your sister could finally be the ace the Haven has needed for a very long time.”
I closed my eyes and gripped him, my heart seizing in my chest. I couldn’t bear the thought of losing her or the pain it would inflict on my mother. She wouldn’t survive a grief like that, wouldn’t survive the loss of her child, nor I my sister.
Zander extracted my arms from around his back as I looked up at him and saw the shift to his business-as-usual fa?ade. Brief moments were all he ever gave me, and every time, I longed for so much more.
“You need to leave,” I stated observantly, disappointment stirring again in my gut, and he winced.
“The thinning is two days away. I have meetings to attend tonight and things to organise. I’m sorry.” He reached out with a hand to caress my cheek before letting it fall back to his side.
I took a step back away from him, and it was as if the small space between us was infinitely wider, because it felt like I could never truly reach him.
“I understand.” What choice did I truly have other than that? This was the path I chose in becoming the partner of the Supreme of the Haven. He was our busy, passionate leader, and this was the life I’d need to adapt to.
Zander cast one last yearning glance back at me before leaving, his boots clipping against the floorboards as he went until only silence remained, the loneliness of it loud.
My shoulders drooped down as I lowered myself to the lounge and looked around our home. Was this going to be my life? Was loneliness the price of his love? The price of a better life for the people of the Outer Ring?
Maybe when I was his bonded, we would lead together. Power could buy and give you access to so many different things that those without it would never experience. I knew what a life without it was like; I’d lived it before he chose me. With power, I would never hunger again. I would never fear for my life. I would know a decent bed, a warm meal, a hot shower. I would never worry about the things others worried about in the Outer Ring. I should be grateful, and in part, I was. But it wasn’t enough when so many others didn’t have the same fortune I did. This moment made that abundantly clear.
I padded across to my room, stripped down, and changed into my pyjamas, white as was expected of me. I smiled down at it, sadder than before, because I’d once felt powerful wearing this shade. Now, I felt it highlighted my lack of it. Not even the Rose of the Haven was enough to save her sister from the price of potential death.
With heavy limbs, I crawled into my silken sheets and lay my weary head down for the night. I prayed to Omni right until sleep claimed me for the guidance I so desperately needed.
M y sleep was fitful, my body drained but not relaxed enough to truly submit to a restful sleep I needed. So, when a glass shattered in the kitchen, I bolted upright, immediately alert, and scrambled out from my bed, my back tight against the wall as I stared at the door.
My breaths came hurried and fast as glass crunched underfoot. A boot, surely, from the way it crumbled.
I shifted my way quietly around my room, padding closer to the door to grip the handle, adrenaline now coursing through my veins, my body coiled tighter, ready to defend myself.
Glass skidded, and a second crunch against the flooring followed. I cursed Zander for having no surveillance in the house, for that stupid elevator that so conveniently gave access to our private home from the base of this building. He placed such an arrogant amount of trust in his guards.
I didn’t trust anyone, not truly. People would sell you out for a better life within a second. They would take it if the opportunity struck.
I strained my ears to listen, but the only audible sound was the rise and fall of my quiet breaths.
Slowly, I turned the knob and opened the door as my pounding heart throbbed in my ears.
“What are you doing?”
A voice, dark and sinful, erupted from the shadow in front of my open door, and I screamed and fell back, scrambling on the balls of my feet until I gripped the single gun from under my bed and pointed it towards the offending space.
Laughter emerged in response as Sly stepped forward into my room with a cocked eyebrow.
“Who knew the Rose of the Haven was so agile.”
I kept the gun trained on him. Absolute idiot. My heart physically hurt from how aggressively it was pounding against my ribcage.
“Going to shoot your only ally, hmm?” He took a step forward, calm and confident, as if his presence here at this time of night was not a complete invasion of my privacy.
I frowned and kept my gun trained on him, my voice low and accusing. “What are you doing here so late?”
He didn’t seem deterred as he walked the rest of the way and held his hand out towards me.
My frown deepened slightly before I slowly lowered the gun, placing it on the floor beside me, hesitating before sliding my hand into his, noting the roughness of his palm. A worker, then.
“I’m sorry to have woken you. I dropped my water.”
“I was awake anyway. Why are you here?” He hadn’t answered my question the first time, and his casual attitude to breaches such as this was beginning to alarm me. I allowed him to pull me from the room, out towards the moonlit living area, the floor-to-ceiling windows allowing unrivalled views of the city. I was still shaken up from the shock of his presence, not entirely grounded in my body again to rationally process what was happening.
“You are never alone at night,” he tossed casually as he bent to scoop the last pieces of glass up off the floor to throw in the bin.
“I am,” I replied steadily, and he laughed again and shook his head, forcing a small confused smile from my lips.
“I don’t think so, and I would know because I assign the guards to you.” The smile fell from my lips then. I hadn’t known.
Sly managed to catch the change, confirmed by the words that spilled from his lips, “I knew you wouldn’t like it. That’s why I assigned myself to you most of the time. Zander approves and,” he paused, moving towards me with that same mischievous grin of his, “I know you adore my company.”
I scoffed, the weird tension in my chest easing. “Hardly.”
His face beamed at my reply as laughter bubbled out of me. “Hmm…but you will. Perhaps you’ll even come to crave it.”
He began to slowly circle me in perusal as I tracked his every step, shifting my body towards him, never allowing my eyes to leave him. What is his problem?
“Why didn’t you come and meet me?” he asked quietly.
There was so much to lose. The price of lying to Zander was too great. And why would this Omega, who I barely knew, want to help me?
“What do you gain by me doing so?” I retorted, and he ran his hand through his slightly ruffled black hair.
“That’s a difficult question to answer,” he replied, his feet coming to a stop directly in front of me as our eyes locked. Was this another test?
“Everyone always wants something. You expect me to trust you when you admit you can’t answer the question.” My chin lifted, annoyed that he expected so much from me for little in return.
“I said that it was a difficult question to answer. I didn’t say I wouldn’t.”
I remained silent, an encouragement for him to give me something to grab onto. His expression lost its mischief and instead turned earnest. “Truthfully, I would hope to lose some of the regret that continues to haunt me for my lack of action, where I didn’t do enough for someone who reminds me so much of you.”
“Who?” If I regretted anything, it was that single question, because the moment it left my tongue, his face pinched and then smoothed.
“Someone who felt trapped in a life she hadn’t truly created. I see so much of her in you, trying to fit in and be the person another expected her to be. But it never ends well. It didn’t end well.”
“I’m sorry.” My head dropped to the floor, ashamed of pushing him as his voice cracked near the end.
“It was a long time ago now,” he replied softly, “But I see an opportunity here with the power I have to give you a little more freedom than you have right now.”
My throat began to close again, though he didn’t intend it. He was admitting that I was simply a symbol of the Haven and not much more. Those rough fingers touched ever so gently beneath my chin as he lifted my head upward. It was strange having someone else mirror a movement Zander so often prompted of me, even stranger that it seemed warmer and less critical.
His expression was serene, almost melancholic, as I inhaled his almost oceanic scent that was as warm and inviting as the sea breeze on a balmy day. It sparked a pleasurable memory I had experienced only once on a media day for the debut of a newly built boat for our fishery.
“The price may be steep, Sly,” I whispered, and I had no idea why there was this thick tension suddenly between us. Was I going to do this? Or would I test him in return and find out for myself where he was honest?
He didn’t smile, didn’t jest as he had done in our previous engagement. He simply nodded in acknowledgement.
“Perhaps, if he finds out what I offer you. But not even you know that yet, and it’s not like I am planning a revolution. So, if you want to know what it is, what your life could be like with more control, you will have to take a leap of faith and meet me in the garden as you said you would.”
He took my hand in his again, his thumb caressing the back of my palm in reassurance, settling something deep inside me. I didn’t bat him away this time. Instead, I focused on it, relishing it, because everything about this shared moment seemed more real than anything I had ever experienced with Zander. Somehow, it chased away the loneliness I had been feeling earlier, replacing it with something that felt a bit more like hope. Perhaps Sly was Omni’s answer to my earlier prayers, and his offer was the first step towards solving the problem that seemed to plague me.
I pursed my lips in contemplation, my hand dropping back to my side.
There was only one question that remained as we stood together in my and Zander’s home.
Would I dare take that treacherous leap to find out?