LOGINSkye“Don’t move.”I suck in a sob and blink back tears. Alex crouches in front of me, his hands on my upper arms to steady me. I’m still kneeling when his apartment comes into full focus. I never gave it much thought when I woke up here in a drug-induced haze, but it’s a masculine, nearly identical layout to mine. He’s not fussy about his decor. Small knick-knacks rest on shelves, with more books than I have rocks, which is a feat, but that’s it. His scent is everywhere–clean and reassuring–familiar and… comforting. More comforting than I deserve. Strands of my hair stick to my tear-dampened cheeks. My eyes feel heavy and sore from crying. I stare at the space between us, at the shards of sharp glass reflecting the light of the aurora spilling through the windows and the soft amber haze of a floor lamp in the corner of the room, but then the glass darkens, turning inky and sticky with an oozing crimson liquid my mind doesn’t immediately comprehend. “I’m going to pick you up,” Alex
SkyeIt’s raining in Maatua. Pouring, actually. Rain pelts the familiar metal roof while I stand on the porch, my fingers curled around the handle but frozen in time. I can already feel the vacuum-like sensation of doom hanging heavy in the air when I take a deep breath and pull. The humidity dries out, turning the air warm–but it’s just as heavy–as the door closes on a phantom wind behind me. Voices speak in muffled tones in the kitchen just down the hallway in front of me. A tea kettle whines against soft voices I recognize without seeing the faces they belong to. My mom. My aunt Brie. Aviva and Cole. Lexa and Nora. Other cousins and family friends. I look up at the ceiling, where the wide, open living room bleeds into a lofted hallway, and the upstairs bedrooms are cast in rainy shadows pouring from the skylights. One door is open. “Sweetheart.”I look straight ahead and find my mom in the kitchen archway. She bunches a rag in her hands before walking out of sight and returning
Alex“The dean isn’t coming,” says Dr. Michelle Ambrose, one of my colleagues, as she twists her rings around her fingers and glances at the door of the lecture hall where we’ve all gathered under my direction. “I sent him an email an hour ago. I’ve sent him twelve emails today alone,” she continues, sniffling. “Laney was one of mine. She’s in my lecture class. She’s–” She closes her eyes, her pale, gray-blonde hair falling over her face as she bows her head. I look around the room at the eight seats filled by professors and the rows behind them filled further with the administrators from the biology department, our postdocs, student teachers, and assistants. Several graduate-level students came, but it’s the young students in the back, shrouded by shadows of confusion and grief, that tie my stomach in knots. I’ve been pacing as the department filed in, stuck in my own head, torn between thoughts of Skye and our argument, her points, which, if I’m being honest, were correct, and thi
AlexSkye doesn’t turn around. I slide my phone free from my pocket, noticing the three missed calls from Toby and the dozen other notifications from my horrified colleagues, but I ignore them, taking three steps and setting my phone on my desk. I look at Skye, taking in the way her hair shimmers in the lamplight when she turns to watch me move. Her eyes gleam like polished amethyst, swirling with power so different from mine. She’s right. I’ve been weak. I’ve kept myself weak. I’ve kept her at arm’s length even though everything I want is right in front of me, and for the first time in my life, I considered risking someone’s safety to have something for myself. “I haven’t been honest with you.”“I know,” she snarls–trying to look furious. But tears shine along her lower lashes. “I understand this is confusing. It is for me, too. And I hate that you feel like I’m gaslighting you about how I feel, but I’m looking at this through the lens of… I want you. I like you. I respect you, a
SkyeThe lecture hall in the psychology department is big enough to hold every single faculty member and the entire university administration in one place at one time. But I’ve never seen everyone gathered like this before, and the undercurrent in the room is so thick with unease I can taste it. Dr. Gerralde parts the aisle where I’m seated, sidestepping in my direction, and his pale face and uneasy eyes make my heart leap when I rise to my feet. “Sit down,” he says under his breath. “What’s going on?” I ease back into my seat. Everyone else is tittering nervously as well. Murmured conversations lift to the ceiling, but the podium remains empty. “The president is meeting with the board and the deans as we speak,” he says under his breath, glancing around the room before leaning in to continue. “A student is dead.”“What?”The door to the lecture hall bursts open before I can process the impossible news I just heard. An echo claps through the crowd in its wake, abruptly quieting ev
SkyeA network of skybridges and elevators leads to a handful of warming rooms and airlocks directly on the surface of the ice. The main one is quite large and houses a row of lockers, as well as changing rooms for men and women, and separate outdoor entrances for both. I hang my coat in a locker, fiddling with my padlock, then walk into the women’s changing room, where steam creeps across the floor, and several shower nooks spray warm, wet air, the entire space almost suffocated with humidity. I change out of my clothes and fold my pants and sweater neatly before donning the robe I brought from my condo. It took me an hour to find it, seeing as I’ve barely started the process of organizing my clothing after moving into my new place, but now it’s almost midnight, and I knew I wasn’t going to be able to sleep until I burned off some energy. It’s a balmy negative sixty when I shove open the door to the airlock and close it with a crunch behind me. Wind rattles the thick, frosted glass
*Maddox*The drive to Cliff’s Edge pack will take several hours. If so many of the packs between our territory and Alpha Charlton are hostile right now, it’s best if we take our troops around them. The last thing I want to do is give the impression that we might be moving in, planning an invasion, be
*Isla*“No?”I repeat Maddox’s response to asking him to leave my room, unable to believe that he’s just replied to me in that fashion.“What do you mean no?” I ask him. He’s just driven four hours to speak to me about the queen contest I’ve found about from my cousin, but when I’ve reached a point of
*Isla*Maddox was gone when I opened my eyes. I shouldn’t have been surprised. He told me last night that he had a lot to do, but I insisted he stay with me, and he did.I had fallen asleep on him in the bathtub, so he probably didn’t have much of a choice.Now, I am sitting at the dining table eating
*Isla*I didn’t know if I should go back to my room or to a garden or maybe straight to my parents’ house, though they hadn’t followed after me. Ben is on my tail, so as I fly down the hallway not really knowing where I’m going, the other thought I had, to the top of the castle and over the side, qui







