I slide on.
Exhilaration takes over as he cautiously takes us down the long drive ofThetaManor. Over the Cardo, he snorts a laugh. “You have to hold me tight, Ashlyn. Arms around my waist or chest. Here.” He places them where he wants them, up high on his firm pecs. His body heat keeps them toasty warm.
“Leanwithme. Don’t fight the pull. Don’t try to balance against me. Just…match your weight to mine. Move where I move. Shift your hips with mine. We’re one force now, got it?”
“Yeah,” I say, voice shaking.
He reaches back and pats my outer thigh. “Good girl.”
The wind floats out of my lungs as he says it, rippling away like the bare trees blazing by us at top speed as he hits the back winding roads.
It feels like a memory I ache to remember…and fight hard to forget.
Without the thick leather jacket and pants—layers stacked beneath—I don’t think I’d survive it. Even with the shield down, the November wind cuts straight through. Sharp. Icy. Real.
When we pull up to Warehouse 9, the ancient brick structure missing glass and filled with broken asphalt and spindly weeds, my chest tightens. I’m surrounded by guys in fancy sports cars that look like sculptures of metal and plastic, as well as a showcase of dangerous street bikes. Some guys wear brightly colored helmets. Others smoke cigarettes, blunts, or engines. But all of them turn to look.
At me.
I climb off the bike and remove my helmet, mimicking Aiden. His younger brother approaches with a cautious smile.
“Hey,” Henry says, giving his brother a tight handclasp.
“Anything going on tonight?”
“Yeah, they’re setting up a drag race down on the strip in twenty.” Henry’s gaze flicks to me, only for a second, trying not to stare. “Did…you two come here together?” Like he didn’t watch us pull up.
Across the lot, Landon Turner smirks from where he leans against a neon-green custom truck, arms crossed, like he’s watching a soap opera.
“I brought her,” Aiden snaps, tone sharp and final, his gaze cutting across the crowd.
Henry hesitates. Swallows. Eyes grow big. “What about your appointed?”
My heart skips a beat. I knew he’d get an appointed. Iknewit. But I’m still unprepared for the word; a reminder that he’s not mine. And it gnaws at my insides wondering whosheis…
Aiden doesn’t answer his brother. Irritation flickers across his face, then disappears beneath a sheet of ice, like that’swhere it belongs. Stoic and reserved AIC...Unreadable. He doesn’t smooth things over. Doesn’t tell me what to do.
Without his constant commands—the rules I’ve lived under all week—I feel unmoored. Lost.
And completely alone.
He moves forward to join his friends, greeting them with fist bumps and lazy pulls off a blunt. Tosses back a beer like it’s water. Never once glances at me. Even Henry drifts off, vanishing behind the hoods of expensive cars.
“I’m gonna…” I mumble to no one, voice evaporating like the fumes from the revving motors.
It’s notthatfar of a walk to campus from here. And the more I imagine poor Aiden wondering where his prized little pet wandered off to, the more appealing it sounds.
But when I slip into a dark alleyway between two crumbling buildings, the idea doesn’t seem so smart anymore. I consider turning around. Or, better yet, stealing his bike and figuring it out on the way. A slow drizzle of rain begins, making everything wet. And icy.
I spin to go back—and freeze.
A figure looms at the alley’s entrance. Shadowy. Towering. It’s hard to tell if he’s…big. Or if he’s wearing layers. Maybe a sheet?
My pulse pounds so hard, I can’t swallow. Without wasting another second, I scurry toward the other end of the alley.
Footsteps echo behind me. Matching mine. Step for step. I stop to be sure I’m not imagining it.
So do they.