Eyes Like The Ocean | A Culled Crown Novella

Chapter 2

"Viera, I can walk home by myself!" he teased.

She merely shrugged and said what he always did, "Of course you can walk yourself home, but you should never have to. Not when I'm here to walk with you."

He leaned in close to see what she'd brought for him. Again, she tried to pull away, tantalizing, but he grabbed her hand and brought it to his lips, he kissed the edge of her palm as he breathed in the cinnamon smell of the pastry. He growled, deep and appreciative. "My favorite."

"Me or the treat?"

He let go of her hand and kissed her forehead. "You, of course."

Pleased, Viera handed him one of the muffins and pocketed the other. "I made a few extra this afternoon so I could steal some."

His eyebrows raised in surprise. "Really?" Leighton laughed as he mused, "And you closed the shop early. Wow."

She just nodded.

He tsked. "Your father will be furious."

"He'll be just fine. I doubt he'll even notice. He's so caught up in waiting for Culling news."

He unwrapped the paper around the muffin and tore off a chunk, popping it into his mouth before he said, "Bold words."

She snaked an arm through his and let him lead her back down the main street towards the housing complexes and crisp whitewashed estates. Viera had lived in one of those gleaming white homes for most of her life. Leighton lived with a few other guards in compact housing down on the southern end of the city.

On the walk home, they talked and ate, discussing recent gossip and teasing one another, as young couples do. To outsiders, they looked normal. Just two people in love.

The ring on her finger shone in the fading afternoon light—a sign, just as deep and unrelenting as the mark on her flesh, that she belonged to someone. Belonged to him.

She hadn't stopped admiring it since he'd placed it there, snuggly on her finger for the world to see. Of course, she had hidden it in her pocket while she was at home, careful to keep it from her father's line of sight. He wouldn't approve, but she didn't care.

The ring—Leighton—meant everything to her.

***

They'd met in school during their ninth year. Leighton had just moved to the city to join the guard, so the school and the people were new to him. He hadn't known about Viera being goddess-touched or that she'd once almost killed one of their classmates. He didn't know to fear her, not the way the other students did.

Back then they'd been normal fifteen-year-olds and the Culling had seemed like a distant threat, not the emanate dark cloud it was now. He had fallen for the quiet, sad girl who kept to herself and spoke to no one. He'd made it his mission to become the one person she spoke to. He'd succeeded.

That had been nearly three years ago.

In all that time, Leighton had never once been invited into Viera's family estate. He never wondered why or felt lesser because of it. He understood that her father opposed their courtship. It was better for Viera if they kept their relationship far from the locked gates of her home.

Still, there were moments when he wished they might be normal, truly normal and not the pretend normal they so often were. He'd like to take her dancing and declare his love for Viera Kevlar from the rooftops—but she worried what other people might think, what her father might think. So, Leighton, city guard that he was, became skilled at stealing moments from her.