Page 64 of Starfall

Elias

I didn’t care about the party, the celebration, or the roars of approval shouted across the room in my honor. I didn’t care about anything at all except for one thing. And she was nowhere in sight.

I’d become a defeated man wearing a championship crown.

As Darren shoved me around the tent, I continued to search for Ari.

I’d asked Wyatt to watch over her and make sure she got here in one piece since Liv had been working upstairs.

I’d been unsure if I could put all my faith in him since I had been an ass and barely spoke to the man, but when he immediately agreed and went to her side, I relaxed. Slightly .

Now, I couldn’t fucking find either of them.

I no longer cared that her magic had failed. The issue was why , and the look on her face when Darren rushed me out of the arena had horrified me. Because she was horrified.

Darren currently had me sequestered in a circle of city leaders, all smiling politely at his crude jokes.

They’d never take him seriously. He might dress like a king and own most of the properties in the Chance Quarter, but he didn’t possess the cunning mind of a true politician; when it came down to it, he was just a cold-blooded thug .

I scanned the room, again . No head of silver hair. No silver eyes. No Ari.

She had to be in here somewhere. The stabbing sensation dissipated when I’d entered the tent, so that had to be a good sign she was close.

The walk over to the festival had been a different story.

She must’ve struggled to keep pace, and our bond had stretched too far—enough for bile to have risen in my throat, and for me to double over.

My blood chilled to ice.

There.

On the dance floor, arm in arm with a white-haired stranger was Ari .

The impossibly tall man spun her around, his hand on her waist, his golden eyes gleaming from behind his black winged mask.

Rage boiled within me when he leaned down to whisper into her ear.

When she visibly shuddered at whatever he said.

Fuck, I wanted to punch that smug smile right off his face.

And the way he held her, so close it was indecent, had my jaw clenching hard enough to hurt. I closed my hands into fists.

While Ari made no effort to remove herself from his arms, I knew?—

I knew that was no ordinary man.

Not in the way he walked or moved. How he seemed to float on air rather than be subjected to gravity. And those golden eyes…

He reminded me of the golden-eyed raven that had followed us in the woods when we traveled to Persh. Watching, always watching.

Xavier. That had to be the mysterious dead man walking. The one I couldn’t stop envisioning killing when he grazed her lower back. Too. Fucking. Low.

Pull away, Ari , I silently begged, already thinking of excuses to give Darren. But my boss’s hand lay heavy on my arm. A warning. His need to control seemed laughable at that point; I had bigger issues than my asshole boss.

Fuck Darren.

I tore my eyes from Ari and her companion, but the red coating my vision had returned.

“I need some air,” I said, shaking off Darren’s slimy hand with ease.

He sputtered, but I pushed away, aiming for Ari and the prick dancing with her.

People scurried out of my way as I eased around the side of the tent to avoid the crowds.

I could tell that I looked unhinged when they met my gaze and their lips parted and eyes widened in fear rather than adoration. But fuck it all.

Ari was making a face, one that tore me up, one that screamed for someone, anyone to save her. My heart raced, but I was nearly there.

“Elias? Is that really you?” My limbs jerked to a halt. I’d know that voice anywhere.

A figure cloaked in darkness drifted forward, and I stumbled in place when a sliver of the moon illuminated her gorgeous face. For months I had pictured that moment, this little reunion. Yet…she stood in my way now, and all of my excitement had turned to dread.

“Grace? W-what are you doing here?” I blinked, making certain that what I saw was indeed real. I’d taken some hits to the head a couple of times during the fight, so the possibility of a hallucination appearing wasn’t out of the question.

But, no. Grace was before me, and her rosy cheeks darkened beneath my perusal.

She should be in the next tent, readying herself for her wedding .

Her father and his men would never have allowed her to venture outside alone.

And I sure as shit wasn’t prepared to see her in the flesh.

Not when all I could think about was getting Ari free of the white-haired stranger, and as far from his eager eyes as possible.

He looked like he’d wanted to consume her.

Grace lifted a delicate shoulder, her blue eyes brimming with tears. Once, such a trick might have gotten me to heel, but I barely held myself together. Especially when Ari and the man had vanished from the dance floor. Sweat banded my brow, and anxiety sent a sickening chill into my stomach.

“I needed space, Elias,” Grace confessed, adjusting her gauzy blue skirt.

I’d almost forgotten she stood before me.

Which would have sounded ridiculous weeks ago.

“It was too much in there. Too many people.” She sighed, rubbing at her temples like she often did before a migraine set in.

I’d massage her head for hours until it passed.

I wondered if they were real, or if she just liked how she could wrap me around her finger and get me to do whatever she wanted. Even now, I saw the strain in her smile when she noticed my attention strayed anywhere but her.

Grace frowned and pressed her body against mine, the bold action forcing me to glance down.

Her glittering pastel dress decorated with hundreds of shimmering crystals brushed my bare skin, the material coarse.

With teary eyes, she peered up, some raven strands falling out of her elaborate updo.

I stood there, and for just a second, I remembered how beautiful she’d appeared the first day I met her.

She was always beautiful on the outside. Flawless.

But…

It…it wasn’t right. Her hair. Her lips. Her eyes.

A shift had occurred. My eyes had opened?—

Her perfection was too perfect. Too polished. Unreal in a way that raised the hair on my arms. I found it unnerved me.

Had I never noticed before?

I jolted when she placed her hands on my chest. They were warm and delicate and so breakable, and I remembered how that tender contact had used to comfort me. They didn’t do so now. Her hands were nothing like the icy touch of the star maiden who’d thoroughly wrecked me.

“Please tell me you’ve missed me as much as I did you,” Grace begged, standing on the tips of her toes to kiss my cheek.

“Tell me to leave with you and I will. We’ll go to Sal, and there, you can start fighting again.

You already have a name for yourself, and by that time, we’ll be married, and my father can’t do a thing. ”

She must have heard about my win. Hell, everyone had—my name was being shouted in the streets.

Grace hadn’t cared about her wedding all those months before when my name meant little. And how she’d stared down her nose at me in her carriage? No . This was wrong. All of it was wrong.

Still. I had to ask.

“Did you agree to marry him first? Or was it your father forcing you?”

She jerked back as if she’d been struck. “What do you mean?” Her blue eyes widened. They used to dazzle me, but now, in the dim, they’d lost their sparkle. I wondered if I’d merely conjured that shine.

“Tell me,” I demanded, my tone harsher than I intended. Lies had surrounded me for too long. I couldn’t take another one. While her answer would mean little in what I planned, I needed her to say the words.

Grace regarded our intertwined hands, sniffling. “I told him I’d consider it, but then?—”

“You told him you’d consider it.”

“But I never agreed!” she rushed to say, holding onto me with a fierceness I wasn’t used to from her, like she knew I was slipping away.

“My father frightened me, claiming you’d bring down my standing, that you’d never be able to provide for me.

It was a lapse in judgment, and one I have regretted every day!

I don’t care about wealth. I just care about you. I know that now.”

She reached for my cheek but I stopped her by grasping her wrist.

Grace had never fought for me. Months prior, I’d pictured her sobbing, pleading with her father to release her from the marriage, but she had considered it. She destroyed me, ripped my beating heart from my chest, and stomped on what remained.

And I had let her. I’d let her because I thought it was what I had deserved. Her betrayal hurt more than her absence. I understood that now.

I couldn’t go back.

“You, Grace, were my first love.” Her eyes watered, and a hint of relief briefly brightened them. “But you won’t be my last.”

These last two weeks hadn’t gone to plan.

Not once. Yet they’d given me a chance to know Ari.

She never pretended to be anything else but herself around me, and in return, she’d seen the real me with open eyes.

Ari had taken everything I was—the good and the ugly—and she accepted it.

I had been Elias Carmichael, nothing more, and she smiled and held me in her arms, regardless.

Ari was my hope, a light in the dark. A wish all by herself.

If I wanted to start a new life with my earnings from tonight, I pictured one person beside me.

We could take the time to get to know each other better, and wake up each day entangled in the other.

I could see it now: the sun streaming through the curtains and igniting her silver hair as it fanned across my chest, her arms wrapped snugly around my torso.

I wanted that —the image in my head. Wanted to take a chance on her.

A future I chose. If she accepted me. If she wanted to try .

If it was still possible at all …

“Goodbye, Grace.” I stepped back, ignoring her indignant gasp. “I wish you nothing but happiness, truly.” It just wouldn’t be with me.

Giving her my back, I grabbed a drink from a passing server and downed the contents in one go. Narrowing my gaze, I scanned the room for a head of silver hair.

Time was running out.

Ari and I had a lot to discuss, and no mortal or immortal would ruin it.

If Xavier wanted to claim her, he’d have to go through me first. The prick’s hands on her had been enough to warrant a swift punch to the face.

Judging by her enraged expression, he’d tricked her somehow, which didn’t surprise me.

The fucking immortals didn’t care what their actions wrought.

Ari was a star maiden, but she was also her own damned person. She deserved more , and I wanted to give her more.

I needed to find a way to break the rules of the universe.

Even if it meant damning the Eternal himself.