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“You can hate me all you want, Victoria,” I tell her. “But you only know what he lets you see. I know the parts he hides from everyone else. And he’s never going to want you the way he wants me. He never has, and he never will.”

She tries to grab my arm, but I snatch her wrist mid-air and squeeze, hard enough to make her gasp.

Her eyes go wide.

“Don’t touch me,” I say simply, my grip unwavering. “Ever.”

My other hand drifts to my hip, where my dagger is hidden beneath my dress, one breath away from unsheathing it.

Because Victoria has no concept of the connection between me and Aerix. Of thelovebetween us. She has no idea that he’s let me touch him where no human ever has before.

“You think he loves you, don’t you?” She shakes her head, like she thinks I’m pathetic. “You actually believe he cares.”

“He does care,” I say, and the certainty in my voice seems to unnerve her even more.

“Night fae don’t love.” She laughs as she repeats what Aurora told me in the garden. “They possess. They consume. They destroy. But they certainly don’tlove.Their kind isn’t capable of it.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

My breaths quicken, and if I keep touching her for one more second, I swear I’m going to stab her.

So, I release her, and she stumbles back, rubbing her wrist.

Sophia rushes toward Victoria, checks her wrist to make sure she’s okay, then turns to me.

“We don’t want to hurt you, Zoey,” she finally says, quiet and desperate. “We just don’t want to be sent to the barns.”

“I wouldn’t let that happen to either of you,” I say, although it’s mostly directed at Sophia—not Victoria.

Victoria’s face contorts with renewed fury.

“You wouldn’tletit happen?” she hisses. “Do you hear yourself? Do you think you control him now? That you can make decisions about our fates?”

I blink, taken aback. “That’s not what I meant.”

“Then whatdidyou mean?” she demands.

“I meant that I can talk to him,” I say, impressing myself with how calm I sound. “I can make sure you’re both protected.”

Victoria shoots me a glare that could burn me to ashes if she had any magic.

“We don’t want your protection,” she says, stepping in front of Sophia, as if trying to keep the younger girl safe. “We don’t want your pity, your favors, or whatever you think you can bestow upon us from your exalted position as the prince’s favorite plaything.”

I meet her glare straight on, amused that she thinks she can actually intimidate me.

“In case you missed it, Jake and Matt werekilledbecause Aerix didn’t like how they were touching me,” I say, since even though Aerix didn’t kill them, no one here knows it. And in the Night Court, perception is everything. “If that doesn’t show you how much he cares about me, then I don’t know what will.”

Victoria balls her hands into fists so tight that I’m surprised she isn’t drawing blood.

“And what happens when he grows tired of you?” she asks, her voice suddenly quiet.

The question stings, but I refuse to show it.

Because Aerix loves me. He carved his name into my skin. He returned my dagger. He whispered promises against my lips that I believe with every fiber of my being.

And he’sfae.Which means he can’t lie—not about any of it.

“That won’t happen,” I say firmly.