ALEKS

The first time I saw Leukas, I’d thought he was the most handsome guy in the whole galaxy. I wasn’t the only one who thought so. Kaila, my first friend in the university had agreed. She'd also described him as the coldest, standoffish and most aloof guy she'd ever encountered. When I first spoke to him, he hadn't seemed like that, not to me. To me he was Luk, my protector, my companion, and everything I desired but couldn’t have.

Now, he was absolutely devastating in his beauty, all man and sharp angles; chiseled cheekbones, strong jaw, intense eyes which are often silver-gray eyes and a perfectly shape nose. He had grown into the cataclysmically gorgeous man I had always thought he'd become. He emitted this air of cleanliness and perfection he had always seemed to radiate, along with his dark chocolate and forest-y fragrance. I was very humbled by his beauty and sex appeal, by the feelings he invoked in me. He was projecting all his feelings towards me at that moment though. I could feel his coldness then. His aloofness. His hatred. Leukas hated me.

The thought galled me even as I accepted it. I deserved it. I completely deserved his contempt and I accepted all responsibility for it. A part of me recognized that one of the reasons I'd ran all those years ago was to avoid seeing him hate me or do anything other than love me. I'd known when he found out I wasn't the girl he’d thought me to be, he would never look at me the same. He'd hate me for all the murders I committed. All the names he saw on that file. All the lies I’d told him about my parents and where I’m from. All the lies I’d made up to kill Aleksander, The Ice Princess of the Bratva and become Aleks, Luk's very own Aleks. I hadn’t wanted to see that hatred for me, I couldn’t. His love, though unspoken, had been the best thing I’d ever had and I was determined to never remember him as anyone but the man who had taught me what true love was.

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Adrian and Elena were fine and just as I’d suspected, Alex and his men hadn't hurt them. At least not yet. While her sister took a nap on my lap, I couldn't let them out of my sight, Adrian told me about how they'd been told that someone was waiting for them outside the school and they had thought that Lander had come to collect them for lunch like he usually did when he was in the city. A couple of men apparently grabbed them and drugged them with chloroform. They were pretty much unconscious for the most part until Jason went to rescue them. They looked fine though, not traumatized in any way so there was that. I was a bit worried about the fact that Alex, to my knowing, was still out there but I had bigger fish to fry at that moment. The trip that I’d be taking with all the Hyades. The trip to their hometown.

Jason had told me in not so many words that I had no choice in the issue. I would just get on a plane with them and I’d find out more about why once we get there. I’d decided to talk to the kids about their father and introduce him to them once we got there since everything was so crazy at that instance. My kids were very smart kids despite their age and I was sure under normal circumstances they would've figured it out already, but the day had taken a toll on them despite their physical wellbeing. Their day had been distorted and nothing was going according to routine when our little family had always thrived on it; all the new people, the food that obviously wasn’t made by my hands and so many males around them. They could tell that something different was happening and I had never equipped them for such possibilities beyond our routine. It had obviously been a mistake on my part but still, the kids did not recognize the man they both resembled so much.