how we want to be remembered for winning the war. Letting the elements kill them is not an honourable death, and they are in need of help. Maybe if we help them...the goddesses might shine on the vampires once more.
And let me save my queen.
The tales queen, the wolves and the princes of hell start making the same commands as the noise stops, and I run to Henry, turning him over on his back, checking his pulse. He is alive, thankfully. Kaitlyn might just kill me herself if anything happened to her mates. I look up just as Ayda breaks out of the clouds, flying down to me and landing at my side.
“Good girl. Take me to her,” I demand, jumping on her back and grabbing her reins. She runs fast, flying quickly into the air and taking off towards the city. We pass the academy just as bright white light flashes in front of my eyes, and a blast like nothing I’ve felt slams into us, throwing me off Ayda into the open sky.
Kaitlyn!
Chapter 69
Groggily I wake up, the warmth of someone’s chest against my head lulling me into a false sense of safety as warm air whips against my face. A single wet tear drops onto my cheek, snapping me out of the lull I was under as I look down at the brown horse I’m resting on. I turn my head up to see Riley holding onto me, flying the horse down towards the academy, or what is left of it.
His usually golden skin is deathly pale, and his hands shake as he holds onto me. I’m speechless, lost in why he would bother to save me. He shouldn’t have. He is the bad guy, and the bad guys don’t save the day.
Gods, why couldn’t he just be a typical bad guy? Thinking of him as good at all just hurts me so much more than I expected. Riley was my best friend for my entire childhood, and there isn’t a single memory of my life up to the academy where he wasn’t in it. He was my brother, my friend I told all my secrets to, and I did love him. Just not the way he wanted me to love him. We both found our paths in life, and they led us to opposite sides of a war. I won...but I lost, all the same. Tears fall down my cheeks as his horse lands in the dust of the academy, and Riley instantly falls off onto the ground with a loud thud. The horse neighs loudly, almost knocking me off myself as I struggle to move the reins from around me. The academy looks so much worse this close up, so empty of life and dead of love. The worst place that Riley could have brought me to die.
“Riley!” I shout, flinching as I try to move my arm and notice it must be broken. I awkwardly climb off his horse and kneel at his side, lifting his head onto my knees. I brush his locks of hair from his forehead as he looks up at me.
“I am sorry,” he whispers, covering my hand with his on his chest. I glance down at his stomach, seeing the pouring blood staining his waist and trousers, pooling around us in the dust. “I am happy you have your mates, and I am so sorry I believed the light above. I should have trusted you. I shouldn’t have loved you, because you weren’t mine like that. You were my friend, and I ruined it.”
My chin wobbles as I suck in a deep breath. “I forgive you, Riley Becker. I forgive you.” I burst into tears as he smiles at me, and so many memories of who we used to be flash into my eyes.
“Can we pretend we are back in my car? That everything that happened after, didn’t?” he softly asks me, still smiling. I know he isn’t feeling pain anymore, and that means he must be close to death and his mind is protecting him from the pain of his body. I’m going to lose him in the academy...where I did to start with.
Forgiving him is what he needs in his final moments, and pretending is all I can give him.
“Yes. We finished my drive back to our home after the cinema, and we snuck into my house through the window like we always did so my parents wouldn’t hear. We watched a funny movie together under that