“When we were kids we were pretty close. Loch is short for Mialloch, obviously. He used to call me by my last name, Ward, it was sort of an inside joke, since Ward means protector and I saved him from getting bullied a couple times when my Dad and I first moved down to Aeden. That’s how we became friends. But then we had to split tracks in school, and his parents made it pretty clear they thought I was too human, too common, to hang out with Mialloch outside of school. He started hanging out with the other council kids, and I threw myself into my training. That’s when he started calling me Vye.” Alec sighed. “Do we really have to talk about this?”
“I’d like to, yeah. I understand you, in here, I really do.” I touched a hand to my heart. “But I’d like to actually know more about who you ar
