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CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

S omeone had hidden Ransom’s clothes all around Never Keep.

Statues were dressed in his fine shirts, rooftops were decorated with a collection of fluttering trousers and, rumour had it, the Tiberian Rat shifters had been gifted a collection of his underwear for nesting material. Who would do such a thing?

I smirked as I headed from the Galaseum for my morning instruction, slowing as I passed by Ransom tugging a glove off of a sculpted horse cock on a statue of Centaurus, the half man-half horse holding a bow and looking serene.

Ransom snarled as he grabbed the second glove from where I’d stuffed it under the horse’s tail against its asshole.

His eyes found mine and I stared him down as his upper lip curled in hatred.

“Hey Ransom, I heard you lost your room to your runt sister,” my brother’s friend, Maria, called to him, sniggering with a group of fellow Raincarvers.

“Shut your face, Maria,” Ransom clipped. “Or I’ll tell everyone about that thing you did with that banana you cast an illusion on.”

Maria turned pink as her friends looked at her in question. “You wouldn’t dare ,” Maria gasped.

Ransom gave her a smirk that said he absolutely would dare, and I turned away from them both, smug as hell despite the ‘runt sister’ comment.

At the bottom of the Grand Stair, I spotted Harlon speaking within a silencing shield to the Cardinal Reaper. It was strange to see my friend holding the ear of the most revered Fae in the four lands and I ached to know what they were discussing.

Harlon looked serious, his brow furrowing while they talked. There was an illusion over both of their mouths so that their lips didn’t move in any particular pattern, making it impossible for me to try and read the words they were speaking to each other.

I drifted over to a tapestry of Scorpio on the wall, pretending to admire it while keeping my attention focused on them.

They stopped at the base of the stairs, the sea of students parting around them, all of them bowing and calling out praises to the Cardinal Reaper who seemed oblivious to their existence.

He rested a hand on Harlon’s shoulder and my friend raised his chin, a bright determination in his eyes as he nodded, agreeing to something I couldn’t begin to guess at. But it tied a knot in my stomach all the same.

Harlon bowed to Solomon and the regal man swept away from my friend, leaving him there in the crowd.

I cast a little ball of ice between my fingers and sent it flying Harlon’s way, pinging it against his forehead. He frowned, catching my eye and I jerked my chin toward a door beside the tapestry, hoping for a private place to speak.

I slipped through the door when no one was watching, finding myself in a storage room with tightly-packed shelves.

The seconds ticked by while I waited for Harlon to follow, a small part of me wondering if he might not come.

But the door finally opened and relief flooded me as he closed it behind him.

I rushed forward, throwing my arms around his neck and he pulled me close, letting out a heavy breath that tickled my skin.

“It’s good to see you, Ever,” he murmured against my ear. “Are you staying out of trouble?”

“Do you want me to coddle you with a lie or tell you the truth?” I grinned as I stepped back, but he didn’t smile in return.

“You don’t understand the danger that lurks here.”

“I might not understand it, Harl, but I’m damn well aware of it. And this shit goes deeper than I thought. I know what happened to those portals.”

“You do?” he hissed, gripping my arm. “The Reapers are losing their minds over the destruction. They have no leads. No clues.”

“Well I’m not going to be a lead or a clue,” I said firmly, knocking his hand off of me. “This information needs to be taken back to Cascada. I think whatever’s going on here could change the tide of the war.”

“You really won’t tell me?” he asked, hurt lacing his tone.

“You’ll tell the Cardinal Reaper,” I said thickly, the accusation casting space between us. An echoing void that I had never once felt in all my years of knowing him.

He said nothing for a minute, confirming my suspicions were correct. “He’s on our side. Why would he have me looking into his Reapers here if he was a part of this? Why would he bother to lie to me? He could kill me easily enough. What possible reason could you find not to trust him?”

“I have a feeling,” I said stubbornly.

“A feeling?” he scoffed. “That’s it?”

“I know I’m right about this.”

“I think you’re just too damn stubborn to admit you could be wrong about something.

” He took a step toward me and I was reminded of how big he was, the Bear Shifter in him always so close beneath his powerful frame.

“Answer me this, Ever. Assuming I am right and the Cardinal Reaper truly wishes to stop the bloodshed that’s been happening in the Keep, and destroy that monstrous thing they’re hiding here…

could this information you have damage Cascada if you withhold it? ”

The question rang in my head and I was forced to consider his words.

If the Cardinal Reaper knew that Prince Dragor had destroyed the portals, would he hold him accountable?

Expose the act and perhaps even demand his execution?

By telling no one, I could be letting a prince of Air keep breathing.

Even if the Cardinal Reaper was involved in the dark deeds at Never Keep, surely he would want Prince Dragor killed before he could spread the secrets he knew.

By saying nothing, I might as well be protecting him. And I’d be damned if I’d ever do that.

“Prince Dragor destroyed the portals,” I revealed and Harlon’s eyes widened.

“The Skyforger?” he blurted. “But why? And how could he possibly have known about them in the first place?”

I shrugged, knowing nothing more. “I followed him into the secret passages and-”

“You did what ?!” Harlon snapped, eyes flaring. “I told you not to go back down there. If they catch you, they will kill you.” He grabbed my hand, tugging me closer. “I cannot lose you.”

His fingers were hot against mine, wrapping firmly around my scarred hand and reminding me of all our days spent in the sun. But so much had changed. So much stood between us now.

“I miss us ,” I whispered into the dark, hating how pathetic I sounded. Despite our old life being anything but perfect, it had once contained days where nothing bad happened at all. Now it was like the bad was drawn to me, like it lived between my flesh and bone.

It wasn’t long until graduation, and then what?

Harlon would either remain here among the twisted Reapers of the Keep or be stationed in another land.

We were going to be separated, possibly permanently.

And I didn’t know how to stop that from happening.

But at the same time, it wasn’t like I wanted to return to the past. I’d been made stronger here, I’d harnessed my magic in ways I’d never imagined.

I was becoming what I had always longed to be, but I feared what it was going to cost me in the end.

Harlon squeezed my fingers. “What I’d give for one more hour in the ocean with you.”

“Everything is so complicated now,” I breathed.

He nodded, solemn as he reeled me closer. He didn’t smell the way he used to, the sea salt absent from his skin, leaving only a faint citrus tang in its place. But even that part of him was muted by the scent of incense clinging to his golden cloak.

“I would kiss you if I hadn’t promised not to,” he growled and my heart rate elevated. “I would devour you just once more, even if that was all the stars let me claim.”

“The Harlon I knew never cared about breaking rules.” I fisted my hand in that fate-tarred cloak and dragged him closer, the air sparking, electrified by the want for something sweet to veil the bitterness of our reality.

“You’re right. Who am I becoming?” He let that question hang there for all but a heartbeat before his mouth came down on mine, hard and wanting, pushing my lips apart with his tongue and kissing me furiously.

He drove me back against some shelving as I tangled myself around him, feeling the thrashing of his pulse and tasting the desire on his lips.

I shoved the gold cloak from his shoulders, wanting to find my Harlon beneath it, and he growled his approval, hitching my leg over his hip and grinding against me. I inhaled at the feel of his hard cock through his trousers and I bit his lip with a moan of want, but he shoved me back.

“Don’t mark me,” he warned. “I’ve not yet learned to heal.”

I nodded, my throat thickening as his eyes became hooded. “You can mark me though, Harl. You can bite me, bruise me-”

“Is that what you want?” he asked in confusion. “For me to hurt you?”

“Pain is passion, especially in a world as unforgiving as this one. I want you to set a fire in my skin that never stops burning.” I dropped my gaze to his mouth, then to the firm set of his shoulders.

He was a truly beautiful man, but there was a riddle in my mind whenever I thought of us being more, and I didn’t know the answer to it.

“I’ll show you what passion looks like, Ever.” He dropped to his knees, pushing my skirt up and gazing at me with a fervent look that offered me the world.

I hesitated, hanging in that moment between everything changing and everything staying the same. But I’d never been able to stand stagnancy.

I nodded, slinging my leg over his shoulder and holding my skirt high for him so he could access my underwear.

He kissed my clit through the silken material, making me gasp, my back arching as his fingers rubbed between my thighs until he could feel my wetness soaking through them.

He slowly dragged them to one side, exposing my pussy and slicking his tongue over my clit with a soft movement that made me shiver.

I moaned, my head tipping back, and he did it again; slow, then fast before driving one finger inside me and curling it, pressing down on that perfect spot.

It felt so good to be touched again, my skin, starved of contact, prickled with need.

And as he rolled his tongue over my clit once more, a fire built between my thighs, the softness of his lips and the heat of his mouth driving me into a frenzy.

But fears began to spark in my mind of what this meant for us, clouding the ecstasy rising in my body.

I fisted my hand in his hair and he growled into my pussy, licking me faster as I drove my heel into his back.

But my mind kept darting in ten directions and doubts raced through me.

This could be it for us. No going back. No friendship to be rekindled if this didn’t work out how we wanted.

And what did I want anyway? He was Harlon Brook.

The man who had once been my boy in the sun.

A boy who had been destined for a greater path, who was now marked as a Reaper, who held the ear of Solomon Imai-

“Harlon,” I rasped, unsure if I was asking him to stop, but it was too breathy for him to know. He laid kisses on my bare flesh, kisses that were hot but didn’t burn. And I so wanted them to burn.

His tongue slicked over me again, but my body was withdrawing, the pleasure an echo instead of a cry. He looked up, frowning at my expression, and slid his finger out of me.

“What’s wrong?” he asked as I let my skirt fall between us and lowered my foot to the ground.

“This…us, I don’t know what I want,” I admitted. “I’m terrified of losing you.”

He rose to his feet, cupping my cheek in his palm. “You won’t,” he said gruffly.

The callouses on his hand were built from sword work and the tough life of Castelorain, but he wasn’t intended for that life anymore. He might never raise a sword again. And the Harlon I knew would have been heartbroken by that fact.

I looked to the gold cloak discarded on the floor and then back to him, the weight of our truth suffocating me. “I already have.”

He shook his head fiercely, a frown creasing his brow. “We can make this work.”

“How? Graduation is coming. It’s only weeks away. And then I’ll go to war, and you’ll stay with the Reapers. There’s no life in which this works. Unless…” I blew out a breath of amusement at the mad thought.

“Unless?” he pushed.

“Unless you run away with me. We head for the wilds or some lonely, far-away isle, anywhere we can get that they won’t find us, and we stay hidden in the shadows.” I said it in a way that told him I was joking, but Harlon didn’t smile.

“You wouldn’t have to hide. Only me,” he said thoughtfully. “You’ll be a warrior, able to go off to war, but you could come to me when you return.”

“And what life is that for you?” I scoffed. “Dammit, you were meant for battle, Harl. The stars cursed you with two elements, it was no gift.”

He frowned, his hand falling from my face. “We shouldn’t be speaking of the stars this way. They chose our fate, maybe we should be more grateful,” he murmured, though he didn’t seem sure.

“You think they care for two vagrant souls like ours?” I laughed, but he remained melancholy.

“I’ve seen their wrath,” he said darkly. “Do not scorn them, Everest.”

“Don’t berate me like a child,” I warned.

He sighed, regarding me for a moment and then picking up his cloak. “Stay out of trouble.” He wrapped the cloak around his shoulders, marking him as one of them once more.

“I like trouble.”

“I mean it, Ever.”

“So do I.”

He broke a smile at last, his eyes lingering on me before he slipped out of the door and left me there with the breath falling heavily from my lungs.

Perhaps I should have told him about the quick exit I was planning on graduation day.

I had a scheme that would ensure I returned to Cascada before Kaiser Brimtheon could get his claws in me and take me to The Matriarch.

I didn’t know how many chances I was going to get to speak with Harlon again before that day.

But the next time I did, I might just have to say goodbye.