Alaric Storm jolted awake from the nightmare. His parents' voices still rang in his head as they plotted to tear him away from Violet, and chain him back under their control.
His vision was hazy at first until the shapes above came into focus — a white ceiling cluttered with planets and constellations, suspended in their slow, glow-in-the-dark orbit.
His pulse spiked.
There was only one place designed like this. His room in the North Pack.
No way.
The constellations were the same ones he'd plastered across his ceiling as a boy, born from his obsession with the universe. He had never taken them down. Just like the half-broken gadgets, notebooks, and scraps of experiments scattered across the room, relics of childhood that had followed him into adulthood.
But right now, Alaric didn't care for any of it. His heart pounded in his chest like the hooves of a horse as he sat up. Without wasting a second, he shoved the sheets aside and strode straight to the window.
