20. Rahzlyn #3
“I’m not an apostate,” I insisted. “I’ll explain it to your seer.”
“His Blood Sight won’t work on you if you are of Geminian descent.”
“I am. I was born on the first of June.”
What did he want me for? It could only be related to what I attempted earlier tonight. Anxiety rose within me at the thought of being charged with treason, tortured, and then executed.
I steered my mind away from spiraling. Without Basil, I couldn’t quell my panic. “What exactly defines your oath of celibacy?” I blurted. “Is it any unchaste touch?”
Cobalt’s hooves clacked steadily as he answered, “It means to renounce all others, in body and mind, for my Astral and queendom. Doing so is an honor.”
“You seem rather defensive about it.”
His body tensed. “What is with you and sex?”
“Isn’t what I did to you on that bed considered unchaste?” I wiggled in the saddle. “Isn’t the position we are in now considered unchaste?”
“You didn’t do anything to me,” he snapped. “That was part of a mission the seer sanctioned me for. And so is this. Now be quiet.”
“Then what’s the difference—”
“The difference,” he said, his thighs flexing in frustration, “is that there was no intent on my part behind it. There must be want and intention in the action.”
“It goes against our nature,” I continued. “Connection is innate to our existence. To deny such intimacy, physical or emotional, is cruel and isolating. It’s inhuman.”
“You don’t understand because you’re not a Chosen. And because you seem to know nothing about serving a higher purpose than oneself.”
“You don’t know anything about me.”
“Oh, I think I know enough.”
Red clouded my vision. “Listen, whatever your name is. Just because you’re a Chosen doesn’t mean I am any lesser of a person than you.
You may be taking me against my will, but you can go walk yourself off a skyland for all I care.
Try sleeping at night knowing I’ve never said that to anyone but you. ”
“Lucky me, then.”
I had never hurled such cruel words before. Not when Mel and Kole’s mother had taken her own life that way. My blood boiled so hot, my entire being threatened to combust if I didn’t let something out. Despite the guardian sounding unphased, regret lingered in my stomach.
He quietly maneuvered us down an obviously predetermined path, avoiding populated roads.
We neared an abandoned shipping port no longer in use on the far edge of the skyland.
Cobalt slowed to align herself with a clear expanse of land, nothing but the midnight sky beyond.
She stomped her hooves, waiting for the guardian’s signal.
He nudged her sides with his boots, sliding a hand around my waist. I didn’t have time to prepare for what came next.
“Stars above!” I exclaimed as Cobalt charged onward. Gravity pulled me into the guardian as the Pegasus leapt into the air—into nothing.
“Hang on,” the guardian commanded.
“I am!” I sucked in a breath as we became weightless. Flutters bloomed in my belly. I held on to the guardian’s thighs in spite of my contempt for him.
“Not to me, to her mane.”
“Excuse me for never having done this before!” I cried into the night. Cobalt snapped her wings and veered sharply to the right, ascending above mountains of clouds. My heart thudded wildly, and not entirely with fear.
We were flying.
I was flying.
It was unlike anything I’d ever known: terrifying, freeing, and impossibly light. I marveled at the Pegasus’s powerful wings and how they carried us with such ease away from the city. The city that once appeared so colossal could now fit between my pinched fingers.
“This is incredible!” I laughed, the wind swallowing my breaths.
Perhaps it was the lingering effects of the tonic that made me forget who I was with and where I was going, but in that moment, I was alive—free from Allory and Markus’s wicked clutches.
At this speed, the music was louder than ever.
It was all so beautiful that tears welled in my eyes.
Against my better judgement, I peered back at the fiercely stoic man behind me.
My captor… and rescuer. His thighs bracketed mine, securing me in place with one hand on my hip.
I shouldn’t have enjoyed this—especially with him, given the circumstances—but I couldn’t help it.
We were so utterly free and weightless amidst the stars and clouds.
As his unreadable eyes roamed my face, I flashed him a mocking smile. The musical wind tousled our curls, dark strands whipping and intertwining in the rush of air.
He smirked, clicking his tongue. Cobalt suddenly dipped in response. Stomach flipping, I gasped as we dropped—no, plummeted. My fists tightened around the fabric of his pants, our eyes remaining locked the whole time.
As if in challenge.
My smile turned genuine from the liberating exhilaration. I wasn’t afraid; no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t scare me.
Not when I’d already prepared to die tonight.
And for a moment, I thought I saw his lips twitch. As if maybe—just maybe—he were enjoying this as much as I was.