Page 77 of Shattered Omega

I nodded, cupping her cheek. “I won’t do it ever again.”

Only, as I made that promise, I realised I was holding out on something else.

Shit.

This, I realised, was the time. I couldn’t wait. “Get dressed,” I told her, sitting up. Umbra and Ransom had been bugging me to do it all today and yesterday, telling me it was the time, but now I knew for sure it was right.

“What?” Her eyebrows raised.

I grinned. “Get dressed. We’re going out.”

“But it’s late. And Tuesday.”

“I don’t care.”

TWENTY-SEVEN

SHATTER

“Truce?” he asked me as we pulled up to an empty gravel parking lot. We were on the side of a mountain, a decent drive from the city.

It was cold outside, but the heat was turned on, and I peered out the windshield to look up at the clear night sky above. Every star was clear in the night, more clear than in the city.

I’d been quiet the whole way, just existing in his scent of midnight opium and the undercurrent of nerves from him in the bond. I’d never felt that before, and it was strangely comforting.

I pouted, glancing back at him. “You think you can just fuck me real good and I won’t be mad at you anymore?”

“I was hoping it was a start.”

My lips quivered with a smile. “I’ll allow a truce.”

He grinned.

I watched as he hopped out of the door, tugging open the trunk and grabbing a coat, which he handed me. I tugged it on, peering around. The light from the SUV was the only one in the whole space.

“It’s really fucking cold, and I didn’t think this through,” he said. “I just wanted to be somewhere other than the academy. Decebal said this place was great for being under the stars.”

It was possible to see right down and across the whole of New Oxford at night, right to where the city met the sea and the world turned to blackness but for a few ship lights. “It’s really pretty,” I whispered, hugging my coat tight around me as I glanced up to see the constellations above again.

“I don’t mind a bit of—” I cut off, everything wiped from my brain as I turned back to Dusk, to find him down on one knee.

Wait— “W-what are you doing?” I stammered.

He took a black velvet box from his pocket and my pulse went haywire.

What was he doing?

I glanced around the midnight field as it might give me answers. “D-Dusk…”

This was crazy.

No matter what a piece of paper had said, I was… I was gold pack.

Broken.

All wrong.

Dreams stayed in dreams for a reason.