Page 89 of The Stars are Dying

“It has no allegiance to him.”

I didn’t know if I could believe him.

“He set up the games,” I said.

“No. He setyouup. Did you not listen to a word?”

“I listened!”

Nyte scoffed. “What part of the games being personal didn’t you understand? He has as little clue about where the trials lead each person as they do.”

My head spun with everything I was learning about the Libertatem. “I didn’t need your help in there,” I grumbled.

“I couldn’t take the chance. There are many tones to that stunning voice you’ve yet to indulge me with.”

“You’re insufferable.”

“Yet I’m still here.”

I dipped into a darker alley, not wanting to linger on the main streets with the potential to become a vampire’s target now we’d climbed to the second level of the city.

I turned to him. “You still haven’t told me what you want for helping me.” I looked him over like scattered pieces, beginning to fear my debt to him was growing to more than what I’d be able to repay. “You either give me answers or I don’t want your help anymore,” I said low, sounding far braver than I felt while he towered over me. He was so breathtakingly, dangerously beautiful that it was an effort to keep my wits around him. His guise could lure me in only to capture me. Yet with the way I fought gravity to be closer to him, to touch him, maybe I wanted to know if his claim on me would be bliss or torture.

Or if the two came hand in hand, an unseen entanglement within all his darkness.

“Fine. Then leave,” I said at his silence. Without thinking, I raised my hand to his chest, meaning to push him, or at least confirm he was real.

It was the wrong thing to do. He took my wrist, securing my palm and flattening it against his chest, which was clad in a thick black winter cloak. We wore gloves, and I blushed at the thought of what he might feel like without them.

“I have helped you. Saved you. Don’t forget that I am on your side,” he said, with a hint of a plea if I didn’t know any better. “I need you to swear to me you believe that.”

My heart beat hard with worry. “What for?”

The tips of his fingers grazed my chin, tilting it to lock onto his mellow pale gold eyes. “For what I have to show you.”

The sound of someone dropping down behind us made me whirl away from him, and I gasped, reaching for a small dagger at my waist, but this assailant had been waiting for me. They grabbed my wrist, spinning us around and crashing my back into the wall. I tried to slip out of their hold, but their knee wedged into my stomach, winding me, though I managed to reach up and yank down their hood, and that was when we both stopped our struggle.

Beautiful lengths of curly pink hair tumbled out, and I stared into Rose’s large hazel eyes in bewilderment. “What among the stars are you doing?” I breathed, letting go of my fight completely. “We can’t kill each other. I thought we—”

I didn’t know what I’d foolishly thought. That Rose was an ally? I had trusted too easily, too desperately, when she’d given me no real confidence to believe it.

Scanning around, I cursed the bastard Nyte for leaving me to face the confrontation alone.

“Who are you?”

I blinked at the question. Then my blood soared when cool metal pressed to my throat. I opened my mouth, but I knew my lie was broken, and I didn’t know how she’d figured it out so quickly.

“Please,” I whispered. “I can explain.”

“Did you kill her to be here?” The way Rose spoke was fierce…protective even.

“No,” I said quickly. “I have no desire to be in this game, but I had no choice.”

“Clearly,” she scoffed. “I’ve been watching you. And you’re a damned fool if you think attracting the king’s attention gives you an advantage. Perhaps he’s onto you as fast as I am.”

“How do you know I’m not Cassia?” To speak it aloud made a lump form in my throat.

“What did you do to her?”

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