This was Sagan’s favorite place to be. Right here with her friends and her sketchbook. Even if Tameka was on her case.

“Are you disassociating again or just ignoring me?” Tameka asked.

Rayne played with the food on her lunch tray, her voice pleading. “Leave her alone. Justin’s out on his only away game. This is the first time she’s sat with us in a year, and you’re on her ass.”

Tameka pointed a fork full of veggies at them. “Hey, it’s not my fault she lets that asshole order her around like a harem girl.”

Sagan wanted to stay in her sketchbook rather than join in the conversation. It seemed much more pleasant to work the shading on this wing or the negative space on that antenna. She looked forward to going home and adding some watercolor.

Sagan hated tolerating Justin’s brutish control. After all that shit he’d said about her being a track and field star being the source of his attraction to her, he’d decimated her ankle.

Justin told Sagan to stop wearing makeup; she did. Stop dressing like a Goth chick; she did. Stop attending concerts; she did. And finally, to stop eating with her friends at lunch and only eat with him; she did.

Basically, anything Sagan found fun or relaxing seemed to upset Justin. So she gave it all up. And what did she get? Three bad minutes of physical “intimacy” almost daily that still failed to push away the tall, devastatingly handsome invader of her dreams.

After the other night, when Sagan confronted Korac, she’d confessed the truth to Rayne, who confessed her truth about Nox. Both girls were a lost cause.

Rayne had pulled Sagan in for a hug, saying, “You’re beating yourself up about it.”

Sagan squeezed back, knowing Rayne was the only person in the world who understood. “I don’t know how to undo it. I’m in love with him.”

They found solace in each other.

So here, at lunch, Sagan risked Justin’s spies snitching on her again for hanging out with her real friends. If only Justin had a clue. However she might act at school for his sake, she would never be the girl he wanted.

“You might have a point, Tameka,” Sagan mumbled to her sketchbook.

She smiled and closed her latest drawing of a butterfly, before glancing over Rayne’s shoulder to scan Justin’s usual table.

There sat the Overachievers enjoying their lunches. Lucy’s head popped up as if summoned. When she caught Sagan’s glance, the blue-eyed blond girl quickly looked away. Cecily peered up next and snitched to Stacia beside her.

Justin would definitely hear about this.

Later that night, Sagan’s training session with Xelan went sideways fast. Laid out on her ass, he pinned her, forcing a weapon to her midsection. If a car had pulled up to her driveway with beaming headlights, they’d shine on a vulgar-looking scene.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Sagan had lost this contest before it started. Xelan was thousands of years more experienced than her. Thanks to his sleeveless tank, she saw that his exceptionally chiseled muscles weren’t even straining. And maybe for half a second Sagan considered giving in and letting him plunge the axe into her chest.

At that exact moment, Xelan rolled off Sagan and extracted the blade. He laid there beside her until he was suddenly standing on his feet. Anxiety and fear crippled Sagan.

Don’t move.

Don’t breathe.

And don’t meet his eyes.

Xelan was upset. “Kyle and Andrew train with no drama. Why are you, Rayne, and Tameka so troublesome?! I swear you three girls will be the death of me.”

Sagan stiffened, afraid to answer. She reacted the only way she knew how to that tone of voice from a man. Sensing herself moving further away from her body, Sagan curled on her side, drifting.

It was okay. It would be over soon.

“No!” Xelan knelt on his knees and shook her gently by the shoulders. Terrified, he begged her, “Come. Back.”

Sagan slammed back into herself, gasping. The compassion in Xelan’s kind midnight eyes forced the tightness in her chest to loosen.

“Don’t go, Sagan,” Xelan pleaded. “Rayne was right. What is that bastard doing to you?” He reached out then thought better of it, lowering his hand.

Sagan uncoiled herself from the fetal position and knelt on her knees in the dirt, mirroring him. She couldn’t bear to tell Xelan about her nightly tormentor. So there was only one other ‘bastard’ in question.

Sagan’s voice came out softly as it often sounded after leaving herself. This was the first time it didn’t involve bruising on her throat. “How can I be a soldier if I’m broken?”

Did Sagan hear right?

No, she must be mistaken.

In all this time Sagan had known Xelan—four years—he’d never once shed a tear. Now he was weeping.

Silhouetted against the moonlight, Xelan cried for Sagan, saying, “I can’t protect you in the daylight. We can make you physically strong. We can even make you defend yourself against the hordes of Cinder. But this… I can’t protect you against this.” He stood with a sigh and walked toward the only tree in her backyard.

Sagan stayed on her knees in the dirt.

Xelan said, “This will take a toll on your human soul that I can’t bring you back from. Your face during our fight? You wanted to die.” He let that hang in the air.

“Xelan—”

“All of you are struggling with this in ways I couldn’t predict. This wait is causing suffering I wasn’t expecting. You’re warriors with nothing to fight. Where else would you take that fight but inside yourselves?” Xelan walked back to Sagan with gentle movements, and his hands loose at his sides. Non-threatening.

She loved him for it.

Xelan said, “Tell me everything. Everything that’s eating away at you. It’s the only way I can help you.”

And Sagan did. Mostly.

Korac would remain her darkest secret, for Rayne’s ears only. But after Sagan told Xelan everything about Justin, the midnight ring around his eyes swallowed the whites of them.

Xelan’s voice had triplicated. “I should’ve let Rayne kill him in the beginning.”

Sagan took his closed fists in her hands and spread his fingers against her palms while she promised, “I’m getting better. Rayne is helping me, and once school ends, this will all be over.”

The lovable Icarus regained enough control to revert his eyes to normal before saying, “I don’t want this to go on for another second let alone five more months.”

Sagan squeezed Xelan’s hands and sighed. “But what if he tells Rayne’s parents? This is a small town, Xelan. Mine and Rayne’s secret could ruin her.”

Xelan pulled Sagan in for a full-on hug, warm and welcoming as he said, “Promise me, you’ll take care of yourself from now on. You know Rayne wouldn’t want you to risk yourself this way. If she knew the truth, even I couldn’t keep her from jail.”

It was a kind of reassurance Sagan understood. “I promise, Xelan. No more.”

After separating their hug, Xelan gently gripped her chin and examined the split in her lip. “If you’d had a nacre, this wouldn’t have lasted but a minute or two.”

Sagan winced. “If only.”