“Just ruminating,” she answered. “I’m not happy with my choices.”
The moonstone towers of the Upper Block shot up around them like shards of rainbow glass. Beautiful, the way they reached for the cosmos twinkling above. The temptation to give in just to have one of her own was staggering. It would give her independence. The freedom to entertain outside of her parents’ friends. To sleep with someoneovernight, instead of sneaking around at parties and having passionate encounters in darkened alcoves like she was still an adolescent.
Her father wrapped an arm around Lunara as her mother broke away to sniff at a glowing vine of night-blooming jasmine. “I understand,” he said. “We both do. It’ll all work out after your trial. You’ll see.”
“And if I refuse the trial?”
His eyes tightened, highlighting the beginnings of wrinkles in their corners. “I hope you won’t, but the choice is?—”
“Stellan.”
It was amazing how viscerally a body could react to a single word. How instantly Lunara’s limbs iced over upon hearing the breathy choke of her mother’s voice, like they knew moving would be the start of something wretched.
“I would have your gift, Almaura.”
Lunara’s father shoved her behind him and whipped around, his fangs glistening as he snarled.
It sounded like Malachyr, but wrong. Chest heaving, she peered around her father’s torso. Sure enough, it was he who stood behind Almura with one hand gripping her jaw, the other dipping lewdly between her breasts.
“Would you deny your Keeper?”
Her mother whimpered, frozen and blinking as both of his hands tightened around her.
“Would you touch another’s mate thus?” Her father was seething, the cords of his neck bulging.
Lunara had never seen him like that, with the promise of violence in every line of his body. Hadn’t realized he was capable of it.
Malachyr raised indigo eyes to her father. “You should be honored, Stellan, that I would deem her worthy after what you’ve both done.”
“It is you who is no longer worthy, Mal. Let her go, or die.”
Illamiata pulsed in the space where Malachyr’s collar bones met—a single, crystal teardrop set against the ghostly blue shimmer of his skin.Phantom,her parents had said. She understood it better as he moved, there one second and gone the next.
He leapt between the ether’s spaces in a blur. Without waiting to see where he would land, Stellan reached back and shoved Lunara as hard as he could into a border hedge. She sank like she’d leapt into water, the leaves and branches devouring her beneath their surface.
She fought to escape as the din of battle rose. Power thrumming. Growls and grunts. Fists meeting flesh. One of the hovering platforms clipped the bush as it flew by and the crack of bones echoed.
It was her father’s pained bellow, though, and the silence after that stopped her heart.
She freed her head just in time to see Malachyr where he’d started, bleeding from several places, one eye swollen shut.
Claws embedded in her mother’s throat.
Almaura’s wide eyes landed on Lunara, and blood trickled from her lips as she mouthedrun.
But Lunara couldn’t run. She couldn’t evenmove. It was like the shrub had planted itself into her body and rooted her to the ground, paralyzing her.
Her father was on his knees gasping, reaching. One of his hands was… missing.
Bile rose, hot and searing at the sight of that mangled stump. If Lunara could just convince her limbs to work, she might be able to help.
“It isn’t me who will be dying today, Stellan.” His grin was demented. “You should’ve let me have her. Better yet, you should’ve remembered your place.”
Blood sprayed as Malachyr’s hand wrenched to the side, the slap of something wet hitting the street a second later.
Lunara’s mind broke, rending itself in two and refusing to comprehend what it was seeing.
No. No, no, no. Not real.
