Her father, she thought bitterly, would have signed the lease the moment she missed one call.
Her chest tightened with anger, a low, simmering resentment that burned hotter with each second she stood there.
She didn’t belong here anymore.
And Earth… had already agreed.
“Who’s there?” a voice called from inside.
Morgan snapped her head toward Kyrax.“We need to leave. Now,”she whispered in Saelori.
He responded instantly.
He swept her into his arms, shielded her body against his armor, and launched himself back through the corridor. They cleared the balcony in one impossible leap. He hit the ground in silence, his movements fluid as a shadow slipping between worlds.
The surveillance systems were still dead. No alarms sounded.
No one saw them.
Minutes later, they were back aboard the skimmer, the park already vanishing behind them.
She sat in her seat, pulse still racing, staring down at her hands.
That wasn’t home anymore.
And the place that felt like home—the only place that made sense—was waiting for her across the stars.
CHAPTER 33
Kyrax stood beside her in the skimmer’s cabin, his presence a dark, grounding weight through the bond. Outside, the last traces of her old apartment complex slipped away beneath them, swallowed by the night. She still felt the phantom ache of that moment—the shock of seeing strangers in her space, the hollow certainty that her father had erased her life the second she vanished.
Kyrax’s voice brushed her mind, low and steady.
Is there anywhere else you wish to go?
She hesitated.
Her first instinct was to say no, to leave Earth behind entirely, burn the bridge, and never look back. But something tugged at her, low and sharp in her chest.
Closure.
One last piece of unfinished business.
“I… do have a room in my father’s house,” she said quietly. “Some of my things. And I want to see him.”
Kyrax nodded once, accepting this without question.
Then we will go.
The skimmer banked sharply, turning toward the hills. Within minutes, the sprawling Halden mansion came intoview—its long glass edges reflecting moonlight, the grounds meticulously trimmed even at midnight. From above, it looked cold. Impersonal. Exactly as she remembered.
They landed in the shadows near the side entrance. The moment Morgan stepped out, her breath hitched. It felt as if years were pressing down on her shoulders again—expectations, rules, invisible chains. Kyrax’s presence behind her cut through all of it. She exhaled steadily and walked forward.
Inside, the house was silent.
Too silent.
It didn’t feel like home. Just an expensive shell.