My fingers were so close to Rush’s chest that I could feel his heat. “I hate him,” I admitted, picturing Luther, but realizing that my words were somewhat hypocritical, considering my own brother was a Serpent. Rush didn’t scoff or flinch at my statement.
“Ari, you don’t know how these men operate.” Heavy breathing, getting slower. “They don’t show mercy. They just kill.”
“They left you alive tonight.” Part of my response was a defense of my brother. The Serpents—all of them, including Luther—represented what my brother had become. He wasn’t evil. Making poor choices, perhaps, for a while. He’d lose interest in the empty lies of that life and leave it, eventually.
“No,” he breathed, voice fading. “I’m not sure they meant to. I left them on the ground, alive but regretting their choice.”
A gasp fell from my lips. “How?”
“I had to get to you. If…my dragon was taken, I’d…”
Rush’s eyelids drooped, and his breathing slowed. For several seconds, I stared at him, unashamedly memorizing the curves of his face up close. Myth was starting to sound less dangerous than the boy in front of me. The reasonable side of me said it was foolish to think of him as anything more than a forced ally, someone who would betray me at a moment’s notice to protect his secrets.
The unreasonable side of me, the reckless one, didn’t care. He’d flown across town to rescue me. Maybe he thought of me as a liability, considering I knew too many of his secrets now, butif that were the case, he could have pushed me off Myth as we’d flown over the rooftops and he certainly wouldn’t be here, beside me, right now.
By the eight o’clock bell, I was jolted awake, not by the resonant tolls echoing over the grounds, but by Vanya’s hollering across the room.
“Oh. My. Sun. Above.”
I jerked in alarm, shoulder grazing Rush’s arm. Sunlight burned my eyes.
“You have been lying to me, Arivelle Mireaux.” Vanya’s arms were crossed over her nightgown and she stared at me—us—with wide-eyed wonder. She clicked her tongue several times.
She grabbed her school uniform and blazed out of the room, declaring she would dress in the bathroom but that afterward, I had better be ready with answers.
I sat up in bed, rubbing my eyes. Beside me, Rushland Covington rolled over with a loud groan. His arm flopped, landing across my waist.
I leaped up, face burning. I couldn’t believe I’d fallen asleep. Next to him.
“Wha…what’s….” Rush’s words were muffled by the pillow—my pillow. His eye opened and squinted in the sunlight. “Ari?”
I watched in horror as his hand raked down the bed where I’d just been lying. How had I been stupid enough to do that? I hadn’t even been sleepy when he’d burst in.
“Still warm,” he muttered, hand still on the sheet. “Why’d you get up?”
I grabbed Vanya’s pillow and chucked it at his head. He lazily swatted at it but missed.
“You’re still drunk.”
His head lifted partway off the pillow. “No, prickly little cactus, I am not.” In one smooth movement, he sat up and swung his legs over the side of my bed. His hair was a mess, hisshirt half-undone and fully untucked. His suspenders drooped at his waist.
I nearly forgot to breathe.
“What’s the matter?” he asked, a twinkle back in his eye that made the hairs on my arms stand up. “Am I really that arresting in the mornings?”
I scoffed at him and reached for the pillow that had fallen onto the floor. This time, he blocked it, batting it away.
“Arrogant aristocrat.”
He grinned and stood up. When he stretched, I looked away, but not fast enough. The bruise on his hip was already turning blue. He lifted his shirt hem and examined it. I kept my gaze pinned to the floor.
“Ari,” he said, waiting until I looked at him. “I’m sorry about last night.” He eyed my attire, and I swatted at him with my hand this time. He turned around.
As electrifying as it was that he was in here, my heart sank as I glanced out the window. Sunlight struck the snow-topped roof of the school. “Your father will have tested Myth for his flame by now.”
Rush nodded, still not looking at me. “I’m sorry, Ar.”
Spinning around, I almost forgot I was wearing a nightgown. I grabbed my blazer from the back of my desk chair and tossed it on. “How did this happen? How could I have let him go like that?”
