He looks up and down the street quickly, almost like he’s checking for something, and then he comes back toward me. “What is it? What happened?”

It’s hard to breathe. “Bad day.”

He pauses. His attention flicks around the neighborhood again.

And then his hand takes mine.

My breathing stops. His palm is hard. Strong. Warm, but not like he’s nervous. His dark eyes don’t leave mine, and I can’t tell what I’m seeing in them. They’re just so deep, I could drown.

“Come with me,” he says quietly.

He turns, and my feet hurry to follow. My mind is stalled in that moment, though, reeling from the instant his fingers first touched mine.

We cross the grass, come to the corner of the house. The streetlight illuminates the yard, but the glow ends in a sharp line of shadow when it reaches the wall’s edge.

Amar looks back to me. “Deep breath. Don’t let go of my hand. Concentrate on staying with me.”

My brow furrows. His rises in response.

I nod quickly. I draw in a lungful of air.

He steps forward into the shadow, bringing me with him.

The air goes cold. Sharply frigid like a blast from a freezer for all of an instant, and then it becomes cool. Mist-like. Darkness blurs in front of my eyes like rushing fog on a moonless night. And then it’s over.

I stagger onto a grassy slope. We’re on a hill at the edge of a dark forest, and a swath of silver-touched grass is spread out ahead of us beneath the bright moon. In the distance, lights glisten. The city. We’re miles from town.

“You all right?” Amar asks.

I tug my focus to him. “What—” I swallow hard. “What was that?”

“Shadow-crossing. It’s one of the ways we get around.”

My head moves in a nod, as if those words were anything approaching normal. His mouth tightens.

“Over here.” He doesn’t let go of my hand when he starts toward the tree line.

I follow. A park bench comes into view amid the shadows, tucked away beneath a massive oak tree. I can see the dull line of a sidewalk behind it, the concrete weaving a serpentine path through the woods, and I realize we must be in Glacy Park, the nature preserve outside town.

He sits down on the bench, and I join him, but then his hand leaves mine. I battle back a surge of disappointment.

“So what happened today?” he asks me.

I tuck my hands away inside my sleeves and bundle my arms tightly against my stomach. I don’t know where to begin, so I don’t. “It’s nothing.”

He’s silent.

The words come anyway, grudgingly. “Some guys today. Friends of that boy that I… It’s not important.”

“Did they hurt you?”

I can hear an edge in his voice, cold and sharp as a knife.

Heat Level:

• Medium (1-2 sex scenes)

Page count: 796

Series status: Ongoing

"Skye does a fantastic job of making her characters appear real. While reading this book, I felt like I was there witnessing everything as it was happening!!!" - Sue, Amazon reviewer

“I absolutely love this book. I couldn’t put it down.” - Angel, Amazon reviewer