halls of Arcanea University. The entire summer had felt like winter within me. Everything was so bitter and dead inside.
I’d had hope. I thought that after a few months apart, Ethan might’ve come to his senses, and we could work things out.
Then he dropped a bomb by telling me he was possessed, and he had no intention of getting back together with me ever again. Boom. There he went again, obliterating my love for him in one giant blast.
The situation was worse than I thought. If we didn’t get rid of this demon, there wouldn’t be an Ethan left anymore.
There’d only be the leshane.
I tried to knock myself out of it. I couldn’t think that way. Whether Ethan and I were destined to be together, or whether we were broken up for good, I couldn’t allow him to suffer that way. I might not be his girlfriend any longer, or his fiancé, but I still loved him.
I’d mused all summer if I should break our bond or not, going back and forth on the choice. It was clear now wasn’t the right time to make that decision. Our bond was the only thing keeping Ethan tethered to reality. Once I broke it, the demon would take over… and he’d be gone.
To be honest, I resented that. If Ethan and I weren’t meant to be, I wanted to break our bond and move on. I didn’t want to cling to a relationship that wasn’t going anywhere.
But this bastard demon wasn’t giving me that chance. Ethan needed me.
Yet I needed to work on myself, too. The events of the past year barely had me knowing who I was anymore. I couldn’t help Ethan if I was lost myself.
And I was definitely missing who I used to be.
Delmare, Odette, and Kiara were hunched over a magazine in the corner of the Rec Room. None of us were in our school uniforms— it was the weekend, so we weren’t required to wear them. I felt relief when I saw them; no matter what happened between Ethan and I, they’d always be my friends.
“What are you guys reading?” I asked as I approached. They all looked up at once. Odette peeped and scrambled to hide the magazine behind her back.
“Uh… nothing,” she stammered, before giving a very unconvincing smile.
I reached for the paper. Delmare tried to hold me back from it, but I was able to rip it out of Odette’s grasp before anyone could stop me.
It was a Malovian tabloid, one famous for stalking the royal family. On the front cover blazed the headline, Royal Breakup! Are Prince Ethan and Emmaline Sosna No Longer Mated?
Beneath the headline were pictures of Ethan and I. On the left side was a photo of us last semester, cozied up at the ballet we’d gone to together. On the right, a separate picture of Ethan and I walking apart from one another blazed. It’d been taken the day we got back to school. We obviously looked pissed.
I rifled through the pages to find the main story. I scanned the article. One quote stuck out in particular. According to a royal insider, Prince Ethan Nowak and commoner Emmaline Sosna broke off their engagement sometime in the spring. The division is an unexpected blow to the royal family. The insider believes the prince ended the relationship after reconciliations to get over the devastating loss of the King’s Contest failed.
I scoffed. Who the fuck was this royal insider? I certainly didn’t know them. I bet the reporter was making stuff up… but they were right. Ethan and I weren’t a thing anymore. And the press had caught on to that.
Of course they were blaming me. Nobody had any idea that I was the one who’d left Ethan, not the other way around, and it was because the guy couldn’t get over his fascination of running around in tights.
I skimmed the rest of the article. It was a bunch of hearsay and bullshit, but the one thing they’d gotten right was Ethan and I were no longer together.
“How’d they find out about this?” I waved the magazine in the air. “Did somebody tell them?”
“We didn’t say anything, Emma, honest,” Kiara swore. “But the paparazzi have spies everywhere. Everyone at school knows you’ve broken up by now. You two haven’t exactly been acting cozy since you got back, and people have noticed.”
I glanced around the room. Melissa and Morgan were smirking at me from beside the fireplace. Morgan had a brand-new designer purse