Page 3 of Starlight Mates

Harry laughs. He is too innocent for his own good. “Well, any Vian would be eliminated in seconds if the city rangers came. It was stupid of them to try to attack us. Their numbers are tiny after the war.”

“Maybe they were just lost, wandering, and got lucky. Let’s always think positively.” He shakes his head at me, and I smile at him. We race up the steps into the house. It has a wrap-around porch, and it’s kind of cute. The whole house is almost an off-pink colour, all made of wood from the nearby trees, and the bricks on top match the stained wood. It’s tiny inside but cosy, like a family home should be. We don’t get a lot of space, but they gave me the attic room so I can get away from them sometimes.

Harry’s father is a lovely person, but his Nexus mate is not. She doesn’t like me, and I don’t blame her. If I didn’t pay my way—thanks to the big inheritance I have in bags of cash hidden in dozens of towns around England, France, and Spain—I would be kicked out by her in a heartbeat. I wouldn’t like me either. On the second day I was here, she told me that her Nexus hated me and knew I was trouble.

She wasn’t wrong.

After dinner, where I scoffed down an almost embarrassing amount of barbeque mini steak burgers and chilli salt fries, I head up to my room and lie back on the plush bed. The skylight is right above my bed, letting me have free rein to look over the stars when they appear later. It’s only then do I let myself think about them, my Nexus mate bonds. I let myself imagine what they’re doing, whether they’re okay. I’d know if they were dead, but would I know if they’re injured? Would I know if they’re trapped? Would I know if they hate me?Duh, of course they hate me.Why wouldn’t they?

Near immediately after I was gone, a price was put on my head. Two million to bring me in. Two million pounds for me, uninjured. I heard rumours that the price even went up after a few years, but my father…his gift kept me hidden. He could make people see things, and he used his power to make everyone see a normal human family when they looked at us. We became invisible as long as I was at his side. For the first two years, I was. The next two…well, I would have prayed for anyone to find me.

My Nexus mates haven’t stopped looking for me. They won’t stop.

But I can never, ever go to them. I curl my arm around my pillow as a wave of sadness slams into my chest. I don’t know if my Nexus is sad or if I am, but I get the joy of feeling it all. Do they want to find me to kill me? I think I must fall asleep crying, because the next thing I know, it’s dark out, pitch dark, and stars have burst across the sky. My door slams open and Harry flicks the light on, his hair sticking up in every direction like he just woke up himself. “Gwen, we need to leave. Wake up!Now!”

The panic in his voice aggravates my Nexus, and it wakes, watching from my one eye like a wolf watching prey.Fuck. Not now. Not Harry.No. It slowly slithers back into my mind, and I slowly breathe out a shaky breath. He grabs a rucksack off the back of the door and opens my drawers, throwing clothes into it in a hurry. “Harry, what the fuck are you doing?”

“Vian are here. They’re killing them. There’s too many. The alpha is dead and his family, too.” He pauses to look at me. The alpha had four kids and twenty rangers to protect his house. My skin drains of colour. “Not just the Nexus…the humans. They’re just…j-just draining the entire town.”

That’s what they do…but to drain an entire town? That is unheard of. To kill an alpha? That’s rare. Alphas are the most powerful and rare Nexus among us, and they become the leaders for that reason. We feel safe around them, and there is usually an alpha in every Nexus town or small community. Why are they attacking us?

The Vian usually come in the night, because for whatever reason, they’re more powerful then. They have one power—they drain people. They only need to touch the human or Nexus to drain them of their entire life. Humans, it takes them a second, but they don’t get any power from them. They only do that to be cruel. But Nexus? When they get hold of us, they drain us for magic, and they not only take our life force, adding it to their own, but they take our powers as their own. The more powerfulyou are, the longer you can fight them off. An alpha should have taken hours to drain, and he should have been able to fight off any threat. If they drain even one or two of us, they become powerful and near enough immortal. Draining an alpha? That would make them stronger than they have been in years. Like their leader, who is said to have drained over ten thousand of us now and has lived for hundreds of years.

I quickly grab the clothes Harry throws my way and get changed in the bathroom. Simple black leggings and a crop top that has a picture of a sleeping ginger cat on it. I chuck on my favourite leather jacket and pull on my Ugg boots, a gift from Harry’s dad for Christmas last year that I treasure.

Harry hands me the bag and rushes out, expecting me to follow, but I turn to the bed. I lift the sheets, finding the gap I cut months ago, and reach in until I touch the silver box and tug it out. It’s the only other thing in here that matters. A box. A small, tiny box that fits in the palm of my hand and is completely silver with no lid, no markings or keyhole. I know it’s a box because something rattles in it, but I don’t have a clue how to open it. My mother gave it to me and told me never to open it unless I was going to die. She never gave me gifts growing up, no birthday or Christmas gifts because she didn’t believe in it, but she gave me this.

I throw that in the bag last. Harry is at the bottom of the stairs, shoving bottles of water into his own backpack, and we run out the front door together, straight down to where the car is waiting. Harry’s mum, June, is waiting outside the car, constantly looking around and tapping her foot on the ground. Her blonde hair is now grey, short, and cut round her face. Sometimes she reminds me of my mum, who always kept her hair short too. She frowns at me, but relief marks her blue eyes when she turns them to Harry. “Both of you, hurry up! You’regoing to get us all killed if we stay longer. Thank the Nexus Gods we live on the outskirts.”

“Sorry, sorry,” I mutter, climbing in the car after Harry, and she slams the door shut before getting in the front.

Macsen, Harry’s dad, gives me a soft look. Macsen is Irish, covered in hair from his thick beard to his curly brown and grey locks of hair. He is ridiculously kind. My father wasn’t a kind person, but I always wonder, if he didn’t have my mother as his Nexus or a daughter like me, would he have been? Some of the stories Macsen tells me of my father seem like he is talking about another person altogether. “The important thing now is getting away from here. We are safe and let’s all calm down.”

June huffs, her eyes glowing blue with Nexus magic. She can connect to birds and spy, almost become them. “You’re not seeing what I am, Mac. Drive, for Nexus’ sake.”

Macsen puts his foot down and speeds out of the driveway onto the back road that leads out of town. I clear my throat after ten minutes of the silent drive because I need to know what is happening. I have never lived in a world where I let someone make the decisions for me since I lost my parents. “What’s the plan?”

June meets my eyes. “We’re going to the meeting point with the survivors of the pack. The rangers there will keep us safe and make a plan for relocation. What else would we do, silly girl?”

Panic locks my body down, and I struggle to hold it together. “You have to let me out. I can’t go to the meeting point with the rest of the pack! What if they recognise me?”

June mutters under her breath. “It’s not all about you, Gwenieve.”

Harry touches my shoulder, and I resist the urge to snap at him. “They won’t. Put your hood up and hide behind us.”

Mac clears his throat. “I’ll tell them that you’re a family friend that’s staying with us. That you’re human. I can barelysense your Nexus anyway, and I live with you. They won’t look twice at you.”

“But what if they do? What if they know who I am?” I snap. Hiding is one thing, but trusting a hood and my self-control when I’m scared is another. “My face is everywhere in our communities! No, just let me out and I’ll run in the opposite direction.”

Mac actually looks right at me. “What, with all the Vian out there?” He focuses on the road again. “We got messages through the system that there were at least a hundred, and they’re draining the entire town to find us. You won’t make it?—”

“No, but you don’t und?—”

He interrupts me. Something he never does. “Your father was my best friend, and he made me swear to protect you if he couldn’t. I’m not doing that to his memory, Gwen. You are all I have left of him now. The reward for you is old news, and not many out here would have ever seen a photo of your face. It will be okay. I promise.” I grab the door handle, but it’s locked, and panic wraps its claws around my heart as I sink back in the leather seat. His promises mean nothing.

This isn’t going to end well. I have to run when they aren’t looking, which should be easy enough. I know Mac means well, but he could get all the survivors killed.

We drive for half an hour in silence, only the occasional loud crickets chirping outside, the soft wind whipping past the car. Eventually, June feels like it’s safe enough to turn the radio on, and a song about second chances plays, some hippie seventies music that June loves. I prefer Taylor Swift and anything she sings about heartbreak.

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