My Ex-mate’s father is my fate

The silence that followed the roar was louder than the noise itself. It pressed against my eardrums, heavy and suffocating. My breath came in ragged, shallow hitches. I could still feel the heat of the shadow power humming under my skin, but it was retreating, pulling back into the dark corners of my soul where Nyx lived.I looked at my hands. They were trembling. The shadows that had wrapped around me like a protective cloak were gone, leaving me standing there in my ruined, dirt-stained white dress. I felt naked. I felt exposed under the cold, purple light of the dying moon."What was that?" someone whispered from the back of the crowd. The question broke the spell. The fear that had kept everyone frozen began to melt, but it didn't turn back into the respect I had known my whole life. It curdled into something sharp and ugly.I looked at Kael. He was standing on the cracked stage, his chest heaving. He wasn't looking at me with love. He wasn't even looking at me with the guilt I h

The city didn’t smell like the forest. It smelled like exhaust, old garbage, and too many people. The neon lights of New York burned my eyes, a far cry from the bruising purple moon I had left behind in the forbidden woods.My feet were bare. The pavement was cold and gritty, biting into the cuts I had gotten while running through the briars. I had been moving for days, fueled by nothing but spite and the dark, humming hunger of Nyx. I pulled my torn dress tighter around my shoulders. It was a rag now, the white silk stained grey and brown. I looked like a ghost haunting the back alleys, a discarded thing that didn't belong in this world of steel and glass.My wrist throbbed. The broken mark felt like a brand of ice against my skin. I kept my arm pulled close to my chest, hiding the rotting grey symbol from the world. I turned into a narrow alley, hoping for a shortcut or a place to hide for an hour. The shadows here felt different. They didn't feel like Nyx. They felt oily. Dangero