Alessia Stocklin and Ezra Withers are polar opposites, but they can certainly agree on one thing: their mutual hate for each other.
He's an Alpha deadset on killing every rogue he comes across, while she's a vigilante - known as Nightshade - intent...
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Ezra wasted no time contacting his Beta, Lawrence. After the realization of what the black veins dancing all over my back meant, Ezra bolted upright, his eyes glossing over. He was mind linking Lawrence to see if he could either spot Apollo at the party or — at the very least — find any scrap of evidence on where Apollo could be. Part of me wondered if Apollo was pulling a cruel prank.
It was no secret Apollo was not thrilled about being used as a key piece of evidence in the trial, and it was even wider known knowledge that Apollo did not exactly rejoice in the mate bond — which had just been publicized — between Ezra and me. Apollo, while mostly predictable, did have the habit of disappearing for short stints of time, usually returning back with some sort of injury.
But, deep down, I knew Apollo would never leave at a time like this.
He would never leave when the hearing was so near. Apollo himself believed in Ezra's cause. He was not thrilled to be cataloged as evidence, but he would never just leave because he felt this way. Alpha Byron would not allow it; more was expected of Apollo as the Alpha in Waiting, and he would not jeopardize his potential title of Alpha just to get out of an uncomfortable situation.
Something would have had to have gone horribly wrong for Apollo to have disappeared.
Sighing, I cradled my head in my hands. While I was so busy trying to protect Apollo's life from Elias' threat, Apollo slipped through my fingers. Some great sister I was.
You and me against the world, Les, Apollo's childhood voice floated through my mind. These were the words Apollo reiterated to me once we caught word of our parent's death.
Everything was so chaotic back when Meridian crumbled to ash. So many bodies were being identified. The number of surviving members grew thin, and it was hard to locate the right family members when such a body was identified. As a result, before we were officially called in to identify Mom and Dad's bodies, there were rumors that Mom and Dad were among the dead. When the rumor surfaced, Apollo promised we would always have each other's backs — you and me against the world.
I thought that was exactly what I had been doing when I firmly held the dagger in my hand with the initial intent to kill Ezra. I thought I was protecting Apollo, but had I been misguided? Was this my fault?
All I could think about was I should have been there. I should have been at the party. I should have been with Apollo instead of almost committing murder.
With Apollo on my mind, I did not have a lot of mental bandwidth to process the severity of the black veins. I knew what they meant; I knew the death sentence they carried, but part of me believed I would wake up from this nightmare. I would wake up and learn my brother was not missing, I did not have black veins, and I never had the unquenchable urge to kill my own mate. A different part of me knew that would never happen.
