Dear Atlas, I’m in Scotland. I’m safe.
But my data cut out, a message popped up asking me to pay for the international plan, and then West woke. The message never sent.
I couldn’t break my promise.
I couldn’t.
West arched a brow. I don’t know why I bothered; in what universe was he going to let me keep my phone?
I handed it over.
“Can’t have you calling Prince Charming.” He shoved it in his pocket and my heart sank. He folded his arms. Every second was strung out, pulled apart and stretched by the prodding, poking way he watched me.
“You haven’t slept in over eleven hours. Get some sleep, Angel.”
“I—” I swallowed, breaking off. Sleep? Here? With him? “I’ll sleep on the floor.”
His brow knotted. “You’ll sleep in the bed.”
Before I could protest, he turned to leave.
“You’re going?” Was he really going to leave me alone?
He paused, slightly looking over his shoulder back at me. Shadows of raindrops slid down his profile, along his prominent cheekbones and the slight arch in his brow.
“Do you want me to stay?”
I said I would get closer to West, I would get everything he had on Grayson so we could be free…but I wasn’t quite ready to lie at that level yet.
My silence was amplified by the dying rain, the tick-tock of drops falling off the towers and turrets.
“You’re right…I should go to bed.”
His deep voice drifted through the low light. “Am I the villain in your fairy tale, Story?”
Yes.
No.
I don’t know.
I turned around and focused on the silky canopy draped over ancient-looking wood posts.
Maybe West was like all of us, and his role had been corrupted, but he is the villain.
He had to be.
With everything he has done to me, to Grayson, there was no other role I could put him in. So why couldn’t I say yes?
I heard his footsteps behind me, and I regretted ever speaking. He’d been so close to leaving.
“I’ll be your villain, Angel,” he said softly, quietly. His breath warmed my neck. I stared hard at the sheets, as if he was a monster in my nightmares I could will away by simply wishing to wake up.
He spun me around violently as lingering lightning cracked across his feral gaze. I struggled against him and his grip turned bruising.
“The princess and the villain have a relationship too.” He dragged me closer until the heat of his lips burned mine. “Even if she hates it.”
Two