Page 7 of Those That Defy the Realm

Clearing my throat I tell Henry, “Anytime.”

I’m saved from any further awkward interaction with him as Ty admits to lacing the bite he gave my brother with some of his venom.

“Rawson might feel a little high for a while.” He deadpans as my parents give him the same disapproving head shake.

“Great,” I bark. “He’ll probably demand you bite him every damn day that you’re here now.”

Ty laughs, clapping me on the shoulder.

My father then offers a proper escape by ushering us all outside to enjoy the evening with a roaring fire and what the weather forecast promises to be one of the first proper Aurora light shows of the winter.

CHAPTER 3

CLAIRE

Dropping my phone onto the bed beside me, I let out a groan for the fact I caved and allowed myself to send yet another message to Henry. This is the fifth one, the last four having gone unanswered.

It's been a few weeks now and clearly, I’ve been ghosted.

You just look desperate.

The thought brings my palms smacking to my forehead. I’ve been trying really hard to shake these thoughts. I’m sure Henry is just busy.

Or has gotten bored of your whining.

Taking a deep inhale, I pull the logical side of my brain to the forefront. Grabbing my phone again, I scroll back through the chain of messages. Our last conversation had been full of witty jibes about pretentious wine snobs and why white should be banned from all interior walls as a colour choice. He’d sent several laughing emojis and had responded mere seconds after each message I’d sent. The conversation had been flowing.

The evidence in front of me does not equate to him not responding to a single one of my messages since.

His presence in my life, small as it was, limited to text on a screen, was becoming a comfort. That was the real issue, I missed him.

Which is utterly stupid because again, we’d gone no further than typing messages through an insipid dating app. One I’d only joined as a last-ditch attempt to hunt down my best friend who’d vanished without a trace more than six months ago.

I’d known Rory since we were kids. Our parents had grown up as orphans of the war together in a home for children whose parents never came back from fighting on the continent. Even more saddening was that Rory herself was an orphan. Her mother had died when she’d been small, and her father had passed away nearly a year before she walked out of our lives with the guy she’d been dating, both to vanish without a trace.

Bree, mine and Rory’s other best friend, had also now abandoned me. She hadn’t disappeared as such, but she was a dancer. And as the best companies were on the continent, she’d left as soon as we’d graduated to pursue her dream. She was smashing it too, already contracted to a prominent dance school, and part of the core line-up for their shows most evenings.

Sometimes it felt like I was getting left all alone on this small island. My home on Froan was isolated from the mainlands and for most of my life I felt content to be here. The history was rich and whilst the city was bustling, it wasn’t huge like some of those on the continent. I could leave if I really wanted to, I could find a job at one of the big corporations in the capital, I suppose. But the idea of that life didn’t fill me with excitement.

Not that my job was currently very fulfilling. I’d had to take a low paying role at a design company which didn’t really align with my style. As Rory had disappeared right before graduation, I’d not been in the best head space through final assessments, nor the interviews right after. And thanks to the minimum wage, I was back living with my parents as well.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful. The home I grew up in is lovely, and I love my parents dearly. But it felt like I was being kept frozen in a part of my life that wasn’t me anymore. The house feels like a constant reminder of who I was, who I’ve lost along the way.

The smallest silver lining was that my current job gave me the time to keep pursuing my search for my best friend. I refuse to give up on her. Running the missing person campaign and following up leads was time consuming, and the authorities had been pretty useless as days had turned into weeks after her initial disappearance. I’m pretty sure they’d written the case off as young lovers absconding to elope or some bullshit.

That wasn’t Rory, though. At least not the Rory I knew. Even if she had been acting weirdly for a while before that night.

Henry had been a surprising beacon of light amongst the dreariness that had settled over my life and was the first man I’d gotten to know since Declan. At least on any deeper level than a purely physical one. When I’d needed some release and my drawer of toys weren’t satisfying me, I’d let the occasional guy into my bed. They’d only had my body.

Declan had been my first and only boyfriend. We’d met on the first day of university and had gotten pretty serious, pretty fast. Until it all came crashing down during the following summer. They say hindsight is twenty-twenty vision, and in Declan’s case that was one hundred percent true. I’d seen none of the signs until I was on the cusp of throwing my life away on empty promises and sweet gestures that only came in the form of apologies.

A knock on my door breaks me out of my spiral before I can do something even more stupid, like look up my ex on social media.

“Hey.” My brother bursts in. “Mum and Dad are eating out tonight before they come home, did you want to order takeout and find a movie to watch?”

David, my older brother, was also back home for the holiday week. Hallow’s Eve was tomorrow night and he’d decided to visit during the break he got from classes. He was in his final year of medical school and although he’d been studying every single day anyway, he said the break from his dorms had been welcome. And this would be his last chance to get home for several months because he was going on a clinical rotation to one of the hospitals in the capital on the mainland at the end of this small respite.

Sitting up with a sigh, I offer him a small smile. “Sure, as long as it’s pizza.”