The sound of cheering and applause drowned out all else and Alex realised they must have just heard the end of the king’s speech. People began to surge towards the stage and Alex was hard-pressed to keep her feet on the ground in the mass of bodies.
“Bad timing, hey?” she called to D.C. over the noise.
D.C. didn’t respond and Alex turned around to get her attention, only to discover that D.C. was nowhere in sight.
“Dix?” Alex called out. But the cheering crowd was too loud for her voice to carry very far.
Despite the clearer area, there were way too many people nearby and D.C. could have easily been swept up in the crowd.
“Dix!” Alex called again, and she started moving forward with the people in the hope of finding her friend. She continued with the flow of bodies for a few minutes before realising that finding D.C. in such a large crowd was on par with finding a needle in a haystack. She knew her best course of action was to head back to Mrs. Gribble’s like they’d agreed and wait for D.C. there. Her friend might already be waiting for her, if she’d taken the wiser option and left straight away.
Alex managed to forge a path through the crowd until she was snugly against the wall of a building. The traffic was still flowing heavily, but the wall next to her made it easier to move than when she’d been in the middle of the mass. She fought to walk against the tide of bodies and slowly managed to break through the crowd.
“Excuse me, pardon me, sorry, excuse me…”
The apologies poured from her mouth as she pushed against the stream of people. They grumbled and glared, but she didn’t care since she was focused on reaching her destination.
Finally the crowd started to thin out and her excuses were needed less and less. A few minutes later she could see the doorway to Mrs. Gribble’s store about fifty yards away on the other side of the street, and she was relieved to see D.C. standing out the front.
“Di—”
A hand reached out from the doorway she was walking past and covered her mouth, muffling her call. Too shocked to react fast enough, Alex was yanked roughly into the building, the door slamming shut behind her.
“I told you we’d meet again, Alexandra.”
Alex’s blood froze at the sound of Aven’s smooth voice whispering into her ear.
“Mmmfffnn!”
She struggled against his hold but was powerless against his Meyarin strength.
“Uh-uh-ah, we can’t have you calling out to your friend,” he said calmly as he tightened his grip on her. “You wouldn’t want anything to happen to her, would you?”
Alex didn’t know why Aven was warning her now, when only a few months ago he’d intended to kill D.C. himself—or use Alex to do it. But despite her lack of understanding, she wasn’t willing to risk her friend’s life, so she stopped struggling. Her efforts weren’t getting her anywhere, anyway.
“That’s a good girl,” he said mockingly. “I’m going to let you go now, and you’re not going to scream, understand? If you scream, the princess will die before the breath has even left your mouth.”
Alex swallowed and nodded against his hand. The moment he released his hold on her, she jumped away and turned to face him, vaguely noting that they were in some kind of unused storage room.
“It’s good to see you, Alexandra,” he said, moving to lean casually against the wall of the empty room. “You’re looking well.”
Alex didn’t let her guard down. Regardless of his relaxed demeanour, they weren’t exactly old friends. Aven’s calm façade worried her, especially since the last time they’d seen each other hadn’t ended well for either of them. He’d been forced to flee, and she’d nearly died.
“What are you doing here, Aven?”
His golden eyes lit with amusement. “You’re not happy to see me?”
She wasn’t willing to play his game, whatever it was. Instead, she stood with her arms ready by her sides, waiting to see what he would do next.
Aven realised she wasn’t going to answer him, so he continued, “Imagine my surprise when I learned that Marselle had finally allowed you to leave the safety of his precious academy, knowing that you could so easily fall into my hands.”
“The security at the palace more than covered the risk,” Alex defended. “I was perfectly safe there.”
Aven’s mouth curled into a slow grin and Alex hated that, despite his inherent evilness, he was still devastatingly attractive. Apparently it was a trait that all Meyarins shared, but since he was the only one of his race she’d ever met, she had no one else to compare him with.
“The security you speak of wouldn’t have stopped me,” Aven said. “Those pitiful palace guards and their ridiculous Warden superiors would have merely been an annoyance and waste of my time. But I knew all I had to do was wait for you to come to me.”
“In case it escaped your notice, I’m not in this room by choice,” Alex told him. “You’re awfully confident for someone who happened to stumble upon me by chance.”
“Chance had nothing to do with it. Only a fool would believe you wouldn’t leave the palace to explore on your own. I just had to wait for the perfect opportunity to get you alone. Granted, your Warden friend is more talented than I gave her credit for, and she has admittedly made this day more tedious for me than I would have liked. But no matter, you’re here now.”
Alex didn’t know what he was talking about. “What Warden friend?”
“The one who has been following you and the princess all day,” Aven informed her with a smirk on his face.
Alex was shocked. If what he’d said was true, then she and D.C. were going to be in so much trouble when they got back to the palace.
… If they got back at all.
“Wait,” she said, thinking fast. “How can a Warden have known who we were? And for that matter, how did you recognise us? You shouldn’t be able to identify me through this cloak.”
She fingered the material that covered her head and Aven barked out an incredulous laugh.
“I’m Meyarin, Alexandra,” he said, as if that was an answer in itself. Maybe it was. “A touch of Shadow Essence isn’t enough to fool me. But I can’t speak for your Warden. And I don’t care to.”
Alex frowned and hoped D.C. was all right. But it was also a relief knowing that there was someone out there watching over them, despite the problems the Warden might cause for them later.
“Do you plan on telling me why we’re here, or are we just going to exchange small talk all afternoon?” Alex asked. She wanted to get out of there—preferably in one piece—and to do that, she needed to know what Aven was after.
“You still have no patience, I see,” Aven said.
She shrugged unrepentantly. “Patience is overrated.”
Aven raised his left hand and looked at his scarred palm thoughtfully. “Perhaps it is a virtue you lack, but you certainly do make up for it with your strength of will.”
Alex had to resist a shiver of apprehension when she felt her own palm tingle along the line of her identical scar. She would never forget the terror of being subjected to Aven’s commands and stripped of her freedom. If she’d been born with any gift other than her willpower, she would have been Claimed as his slave for the rest of her life.