Sunburst (Starbright Series)

by Rachel Higginson

  That had to be true. Because the alternative was to lose a big piece of myself with him instead.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  It had been a long day. A really, freaking long day. But it was over.

  Well for the most part.

  I flung myself onto my bed, face down. Every muscle and tendon in my body screamed from the abuse I’d put it through. My veins hurt I’d pushed myself so hard.

  Soccer was over, so I didn’t have to hold back anymore with easy practices and human standards. I got to demand the most from my body, push it to every last limit. And I had spent the entire afternoon and evening doing just that.

  Then there was training.

  And it wasn’t like Jupiter ever held back with me. Especially not now.

  He was as single-minded as I was. And our session was made even worse because it had been so long since either of us had seen or heard from Seth. The fragile remains of decency were long erased from the empty place where his soul used to reside. There would be nothing left of goodness to guide him, no moral compass or voice of reason to whisper truth into his ear.

  Three weeks was not that long to a normal person, but alone, with the Darkness and all the evil they had to offer, was more than a lifetime. With my frustrating innocence and straggling naivety, I honestly couldn’t even imagine what Seth had been through recently.

  There was no way to even picture what life was like for him.

  And I was positive I didn’t want to anyway.

  A light tapping on my window grabbed my attention; I flopped my head to the side to make out Tristan’s face through the glass. My light was on, so he was mostly a dark shadow until he pressed his face directly against the glass. I smiled at him weakly and tried to pull myself into a standing position.

  I failed.

  He pointed a commanding finger at me and then flashed a boyish grin. I sighed, because I really didn’t want to move, but I knew I was going to; I dragged my body off the bed.

  I was a hot mess tonight. I was still in my baggy Mead High sweatpants that Piper and I swiped from the boys’ basketball team last year, and a black athletic tank top.

  My katanas were thrown haphazardly on the floor along with a few daggers I’d been working with. The blades looked decidedly out of place among the piles of dirty clothes and random stacks of books. Actually, the middle of my floor looked insanely booby-trapped.

  I decided to keep it that way.

  Carefully stepping over the death trap of sabers, I trudged to the window and opened it to the cool spring night. The weather was heating up, and the nighttime temperatures usually hovered around the high sixties, the perfect temperature for nighttime.

  I half crawled, half flung my body onto the roof and then immediately cuddled up next to Tristan. He glanced down at me just long enough to drop a kiss on the top of my still sweat-soaked head.

  “Rough night?” he asked, clearly enjoying himself.

  “Did you know that Jupiter’s like, a thousand years old?” I struggled to sit up straight and pull my hair back into a better pony tail. It was easy because it was so sopping wet with sweat.

  Tristan chuckled. “I had no idea.”

  “I swear to you, it’s like the older he gets the meaner he gets.”

  “He must have a good multivitamin.”

  “Don’t joke,” I groaned. “He kicked my ass all over the place tonight. It wasn’t even a competition.” My head flopped over of its own accord and landed on Tristan’s shoulder.

  “It will come, Stel,” he promised and in that moment I needed to hear his encouragement. My soul drank his words like water straight from a mountain spring.

  “I needed to hear that,” I whispered.

  He put his arm around my shoulder and pulled me against his firm side. He was so familiar, so natural that I just fit against him without even questioning it. My senses filled with him, like they always did- his masculine scent, his ripply muscles, the way he draped his arm across me. He brushed the tips of his fingers up and down the sensitive part of my side like he had done a thousand times before.

  Tristan was everything I had loved my entire life. We fit together easily, understood each other above all else, and could speak with just glancing at each other.

  He was the only thing I grew up knowing I wanted- more than the Protectorship that I was born to inherit, more than the safety of this planet that I was always afraid I wouldn’t be able to maintain, and more than the obscure future with a Warrior I hadn’t met until recently. Tristan occupied a place in my heart that held past, present and future.

  So what part of my heart did Seth hold?

  Or was it all his?

  Was Tristan merely a rebellious delusion, a last desperate grab for something in my life that I could control when every other independent element had been taken from me?

  “Ready for prom?” he asked in a rumbly, relaxed voice.

  I was relaxed too. We hadn’t done this in a while. It was nice to be next to him, gazing up at the Stars, like we had done most of our childhood.

  “I guess,” I smiled. “I have the dress and shoes. I’m prepared to spend all Saturday shaving my legs and plucking my eyebrows. So, yeah, as ready as I can be.”

  “It takes you all day to…. shave?” he asked, obviously uncomfortable.

  “Um, hello? I’m a girl. Yes, it takes me all day to shave. Besides, I feel like it should- like it’s part of the pre-prom ritual or something.”

  “And the, uh, plucking?” Tristan sounded really uncomfortable but a huge part of me didn’t want to put him out of his misery.

  I sighed, “Honestly, I’m not born with these eyebrows. Plus, I need to paint my toenails and there is other stuff to do. I was just saying, Saturday is going to be a full day of primping.”

  “Huh,” he grunted. “It’s weird to me that you have to shave. Sometimes I forget you do normal things like that. Sometimes you’re just this incredible, out of reach Star to me.”

  “All Stars grow hair when they’re in their human form,” I explained quickly. He was making me feel like an alien. “We’re very human-like in this form. Our bodies function the same way humans do until we light up. What’s weird to me is that when I turn into a human light bulb you barely bat an eye, but the second I tell you I shave my legs you act like it’s the craziest thing you’ve ever seen.”

  “It’s just hard to believe, that’s all,” he said through a grin.

  I decided it was better to just change the subject. “The point is, I’m ready for Saturday.”

  “Me too,” he agreed, but something had changed in his voice. Goose bumps pebbled across my forearms and chest. “I’ve been ready for a long time.”

  I cuddled closer to him and let out a soul-deep sigh. I had been waiting for this for a long time too.

  But then he cleared his throat and I felt his body go tense. I recognized this as Tristan preparing for a serious conversation but when I tried to sit up to meet him eye to eye he just held me against his side.

  “The thing is…. Um, I mean to talk to you about this sooner, but do you mind if we drive ourselves?”

  “I don’t mind,” I assured him. “But why? Piper might be pissed off about it, but hopefully she’ll eventually forgive me.”

  “She’s actually the reason,” he groaned. “She’s still mad at me for that whole lunch thing. “

  “I know,” I tried for sympathy but didn’t exactly reach it. The two had been fighting for as long as I could remember and I was mostly over it by this point. “You should talk to her. You guys need to work this out.”

  “I thought of a better solution,” he grinned down at me.

  “She’s not going anywhere,” I argued quickly. “I’m not getting rid of her so stop asking.”

  “I didn’t ask!” He said defensively and then added, “You didn’t give me the chance.”

  I laughed despite myself and then wrapped my arms around his middle. “Please try to get along with her. I love her too.”
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br />   He made a noncommittal grunting noise but didn’t say no. I tilted my face up and kissed the underside of his jaw because I knew he would make an effort with Piper- for me he would make an effort.

  He looked down at me and even in the darkness I could see how his eyes changed- deepened, darkened…. became something so indescribable and consuming I lost my breath.

  We stayed like that for endless moments, until I knew he would kiss me, until there was nothing else left but for him to kiss me.

  We both leaned forward until there was only a moment between us. My stomach erupted with butterflies and my skin tingled with anticipation. This was it. I had waited for this moment my entire life. Tristan closed his eyes. I closed my eyes. I felt the whisper of his lips against mine.

  Suddenly a deafening rush of air exploded around us, and behind our closed lids the sky illuminated in the brightest, hottest light. I immediately threw my body over Tristan’s and screamed for him to keep his eyes closed.

  The boom of landing hit three times and then nothing. The lights were extinguished and the nighttime resumed.

  “Oh, no,” I groaned. My breathing was extremely elevated and my body was awkwardly thrown over Tristan’s as he lay splayed out on my roof. The shingles were rough under my hands but still intact as I pushed into sitting. “You have to go.”

  “What?” Tristan looked at me like I lost my mind. Fear and confusion mingled in his green eyes and his whole body went tight with tension. “What just happened?”

  “We have visitors,” I shrugged.

  His jaw tensed and he reached for me, pulling me toward him.

  “Good visitors,” I rushed to reassure him. “They’re on our side. I don’t know who they are, but they couldn’t land here if they were Fallen.”

  “You’re safe?” he double checked.

  “Oh yeah,” I agreed enthusiastically while my insides screamed that something wasn’t right. Nothing about that landing was right or acceptable. Something was going on. “But I should get down there, and you should definitely leave.”

  He stared at me for thirty more seconds, debating on what he wanted to do and what he thought I needed him to do.

  Finally he said, “Call me later.”

  Not a request.

  I agreed and then watched him climb down the side of the house like a spider monkey and jog out to his car that was parked at the end of my drive. I stayed there long enough to watch his taillights glow in the dark distance and disappear into the horizon.

  Taking a big breath, I turned around and slipped back in my window. I was filthy, sweaty and disheveled, but I decided to see who was here before I worried about my appearance.

  I slipped down the main stairs because I could hear voices in the living room. My dad was standing in the doorway, his back ramrod-straight and battle-ready. He turned at the sound of my footsteps on the stairs and offered me a bleak smile. The laugh lines around his eyes were pulled tight and his hair looked uncharacteristically messy as if he had been tugging on it.

  “This is my daughter,” he announced, holding an arm out for me. I walked into his half embrace just as he finished, “Stella.”

  “The Protector,” I heard mumbled in reply.

  And then I was before the most other-world, most beautiful and striking Angels I had ever seen. These were not Warriors or Stars. These were the kind of Angels that sat in councils and meetings every day of their life, that never left the lower realms of Heaven. These were the beings I was never supposed to meet.

  My father continued, “Stella, the Council has paid us a visit.”

  My mouth fell open; all of time seemed to stand still and wait for my brain to catch up with that announcement. I knew they were not like us… but I didn’t expect…. The Council was here. On Earth. In our house. Standing in front of me.

  This was either going to be really, really, really, really bad.

  Or just really bad.

  There were three of them, two men and a woman. And they were completely ethereal- so obviously and strikingly not human that I felt a bit mesmerized.

  The woman was tall, well over six feet with willowy arms and legs and pale, translucent skin. Her hair, sleek and straight, held a grayish purple hue, like the color of lightning. Her eyes glowed pure white, shining orbs that had no color, or every color, depending on how you looked at it. She stood fierce, and so composed she seemed more statue than living creature.

  The men differed from each other as starkly as they possibly could and also from my father and what I knew of other Warriors. The first had skin so dark and black, he seemed to be made out of silk. His short hair by contrast was pure white, as were his eyes. He towered just as tall as the woman, but not much taller than her. And he bulked with toned muscle, imposing, and absolutely serious. If the woman reminded me of a statue, this man mimicked a boulder.

  He was terrifying.

  The third and final man at least put me somewhat at ease. He had a pleasant expression and a calming smile. His skin was pale, but not as pale as the woman’s. His eyes were the same luminescent white as the others but somehow warmer and not as clinical. His hair burst from his head in shocking red chunks that seemed to fall wherever they wanted in wild disarray. He was the most classically good-looking of all three, but they were all beautiful in their own unearthly way. The first man looked too scary to really be considered attractive, and the woman was one of those ladies who would be called handsome over lovely, or fine instead of pretty. She appeared to be the oldest present. The third man was actually hot- big dimples when his mouth relaxed into a smile and had a firm, muscled body that wasn’t just simply overwhelming.

  “So, you are the Star of Earth,” the woman began, her assessing eye appraised me with a scrutiny that made me struggle to swallow. She had the strong accent of Heaven. It was musical and lilting, but so completely foreign that my brain struggled to correlate it with the English she spoke.

  “I am,” I tilted my chin up, grasping for confidence that was nonexistent. “And you are….?” I prompted when nobody seemed to want to speak next.

  The woman scowled, her silvery eyebrows slammed down over her shining eyes and her thin lips puckered unhappily. The men seemed equally as stunned by my question, but weren’t as hostile with their reactions. I realized I’d probably spoken out of turn, but I was impatient to get to the point. A sickening feeling of unease had slithered into my stomach and made my insides ice cold.

  “This is Celeste,” the red haired man said helpfully, the same accent as the woman tingeing each of his words. A small smile tugged at the corners of his lips and his white orb-like eyes seemed to warm somehow. “Raphael.” He pointed to monster Angel. “And I am Ariel.” And as an afterthought he amended, “But you may call me Ari.”

  This earned him a scathing look from Celeste, but he didn’t seem to notice.

  “Nice to meet you,” I said politely.

  “Shall we sit?” my dad gestured around the room at which the Council members seemed to take it all in with an attitude of absolute repulsion. My dad was a trained and vetted Warrior, their reactions weren’t lost on him. “Or we can stand,” he added quickly.

  Nobody said anything. This was awkward.

  Were they always like this?

  “We are graced with your presence,” my mom offered magnanimously. “But we would have readily come to you. If you only would have summoned us.”

  “We came to see the Starling,” Celeste explained. Each of her words were spoken slowly, carefully, as if she chose each word specifically, and with each syllable uttered she carried out a particular purpose. “We understand that she is not allowed to leave this…. planet.”

  “That is true,” mom answered. Now she sounded suspicious.

  Something was going on.

  “And your Counterpart?” Raphael was less precise with his words. They came out in a rush of menacing dominance; his accent sounded as overpowering as it did authoritative. “Where is he?”

  The questio
n was directed at me, but I was not about to answer him. That just seemed like an entire cauldron of trouble.

  Thankfully, my dad stepped in, “It will be easier if you tell us what you’ve heard. We can fill in any missing pieces that are left.”

  Ari chuckled lightly and it seemed so out of place in this room filled with tension and stress. In a friendly voice he eased some of the strain between us. “I apologize for our grim arrival, but news has found its way to the Sanctum that is very alarming. We’ve come to find the truth of this matter. We’re not here to harm or even punish you, Starling. We are simply looking for answers that will help us understand our position on planet.”

  I definitely liked him the best out of the three. He put me at ease with his friendly warmth and silky tone. He was different than the cold, military style of the others.

  So I started to tell them what happened, “Seth, um, my Counterpart, in an effort to protect me….” And then I realized I couldn’t say what he had done. I couldn’t tell them how he sold his soul and became Aliah’s lap dog. They would never understand. And worse, they would never believe he could return with his soul still intact.

  Even I didn’t know if that was possible.

  “He’s on a mission,” my dad lied. I flinched, but tried to reel it in since I knew every eye in the room was watching me.

  My dad was lying to the Council. That was not only unacceptable, but grounds for a trial. If he were caught in this lie, he would be taken away and judged as a Fallen. Warriors and Stars usually had no reason to lie, no reason to keep secrets. This would look very badly when- not if- it came out.

  The sick feeling grew to almost an unbearable ache. I hated that my dad was lying, but at the same time so thankful. There was an ulcer brewing in my stomach for sure.

  “On a mission?” Celeste asked with narrowed eyes. “Who sent him?”

  “He went by himself. We had no idea what he was contemplating and would never have allowed it had we known. He was, he is…. he is a special target by the Fallen that occupy this planet. As you know, his parents, Ethan and Sitara were killed by one of their close friends. Aliah has done nothing but pursue Seth since his identity became known in January. Seth took it upon himself to remove the threat from Stella’s life.”