her. But once I was awake, there was never anything but silence again.
I didn’t know if it was just my imagination being cruel to me or if the stars were gifting me glimpses of what was happening to her, but I got the horrible feeling it might be the latter. Thanks to the fucking shadows clouding Gabriel’s Sight, he was having no luck in seeking her out and I’d been starting to consider riskier and riskier moves that could be made to try and find her.
I dressed in a charcoal grey suit with a black dress shirt, pausing for a moment as I pulled the jacket over my shoulders and found it tight around my arms. That thing had been custom made only a few months ago and yet I'd managed to grow out of it already.
I glanced in the mirror at the fabric straining over my biceps and the inch of ankle showing above my shoes before cursing and pulling the suit off. Not that I was really complaining. Last I'd checked, I was on eye level with the piece of shit I called my father but seeing as I'd been making a good effort not to look at him when I was stuck in his company, I hadn't particularly noticed that I was having a growth spurt again. It wasn't all that surprising that my muscles were growing with the amount of training I'd been doing with the other Heirs, wrestling and learning to wield the axe Darcy had gifted me to the best of my ability. But if I was getting bigger in my Fae form then that would be even more noticeable in my Dragon form. And I seriously hoped I was about to become the biggest Dragon in Solaria, even if it was just so that I could watch Father's head explode when he realised his own son had knocked him off of the top spot.
A knock at my door interrupted me as I changed into a black suit instead and I called out for Xavier to come in, knowing he'd been summoned to come to the palace tonight too.
But as the door swung wide and I glanced at it in the mirror, my breath caught.
"Roxy?" I asked, turning towards her sharply and letting the tie I'd been about to put on fall from my hand.
She was wearing a black gown which accentuated the dark rings in her eyes and she regarded me impassively as she stood on the threshold. She was stunningly beautiful as always, but there was hardly anything of the girl I'd fallen for showing in the mannequin model version of her standing before me. There was no scorn in her eyes, no wit on her tongue, even her posture was just so fucking rigid, it didn't seem natural. She was like a painting of herself, all done in perfect proportions but with no life inside her, nothing to say she was anything more than a beautiful decoration designed to be admired and little else. I missed her quick tongue and insults, I wanted her calling me out on having a gold plated bed and a fucking jacuzzi tub. Hell, I'd take her hating me over this...nothing creature that stood in her place.
"Your father said I should arrive with you," she said simply, glancing around my room like she didn't even recognise it.
"You're coming too?" I asked, hesitating where I was despite the desperate desire to go to her.
This helpless void of emotion in her cut me open and bled me out, but until I could get my hands on the antidote to the Order Suppressant my father was dosing her with, I didn't know how to try and bring her back to us. We had to be careful who we trusted to get it for us and it took longer to brew than any of us wanted to wait so Gabriel was in the process of getting hold of some faster from his dodgy Alestrian contacts. I didn't really give a shit where we got it from, I just needed my girl back to herself or it was going to kill me.
"My king wants me there," she said, her eyes shining at the mention of her so-called king, and I had to grit my teeth against the rage that built in me.
"Do you remember when you first came to this academy?" I asked her, taking a step forward but falling still as she flinched.
It was only the smallest jerk of motion