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"Just Kai torturing the matron," Harvey replied casually, still hugging his twin. "She wouldn't remove the shields, so he got creative."

Kai was here—they wereallhere. My heart soared, a lump swelling in my throat.

"Are the shields down on all the cells?" I asked.

"All of them," Harvey confirmed, scanning me from head to toe and raking over my soul in the bond, feeling every sore spot and weakness.

I squeezed his arm and leaned up to kiss his cheek as I brushed past him and through the door, reassuring him I’d be okay.

Emlyn refused to be parted from my side even when I strode down the hall to the next cell door. I still didn't know how to use my curse marks' magic, but I didn't have to.

"How's your shoulder?" I asked Em.

"Strong enough," he replied with a narrow-eyed determination. "Move back from the door, Verena."

"Thought you'd forgotten about me," her reply came, as sharp as a viper's fang. And then: "I'm out of the way."

Emlyn brought my hand to his lips, fanning a kiss across my knuckles before he let go and threw his entire body weight into the door.

This time, it flew open so hard it rebounded off the wall. Fuck! I rushed forward, forgetting how to breathe until I caught the solid door and stopped it slamming into Em's face. My hands hurt like a bitch but my mate wasn’t bleeding or unconscious so that was a win.

"Oh, what thefuck?"Verena demanded, her voice harsh and biting. I didn’t know what I’d expected, but it wasn’t a red-haired teenager with freckles, cute pigtail braids, and an adorable pouting mouth. She was short as fuck, but maybe that was because she was thirteen, and dressed in beaten up jeans, a Led Zeppelin shirt, and ragged black Converse. "I thought you wereadults."

"I'm a hundred and forty four years old, thank you very much," Emlyn rumbled, striding over to her. "Now come on, we're getting you out."

CHAPTER28

"Who's she?" Kai demanded when we reached him, his eyes going past us and fixing on Verena. She was hard to miss with her blazing red hair and tough-bitch attitude.

"This is Verena," I replied, not quite able to take my eyes off the woman he'd tied to a chair and bound in so many snakes that there were pale bands all over her body where blood couldn't flow. There was a fat white stripe across her throat; her watery green eyes bulged, her mouth open on sharp, choking breaths.

"We're keeping her," Em added firmly.

"Who'sthis?"I asked Kai with a raised eyebrow, descending the final step onto the landing where Kai had bound the woman. There was a little desk where she'd obviously been stationed, probably to watch over prisoners like us. Kai had trashed it, and thrown all her files and knickknacks to the floor. Possibly to scare her. Probably for kicks.

"This is Sofia," Kai said cheerfully, his stare intense as it ran over me, then Wane, and finally Emlyn. "She just brought down the shields for us. Very nice of her."

I rolled my eyes at his coyness and stalked over to him, linking my hands behind his inked neck and dragging him down for a kiss. The noise Kai made when I kissed him was definitely not PG, and highly inappropriate considering there was a kid behind us. I quickly pulled away, giving him a warning look.

"Thank you for getting us out."

A certain wildness in him softened, the fine edge of madness leaving his eyes. "Any time, my rose." He kissed my cheek and let go, his attention snapping to Verena when she made a gagging noise. "Got something to say, Verona?"

"Verena," she hissed, glaring heatedly.

"I know," he replied flippantly, his arm sliding across my back. "Just wanted to annoy you."

A weight fell off my shoulders at his easy acceptance of her. None of us had spoken about it, but Em was right. She was a foster kid with zero family, and now she was embroiled in this Cronus bullshit. We were keeping her. At least until we found her a safer place than with us.

"Let's go," Emlyn barked. "Before Aphrodite notices we're gone."

Cold went through me at the thought of her catching us. Again.

"We should be ready to fight," Wane warned, shadows flickering at his shoulders. "She probably already knows we're out."

"Not necessarily," Harvey disagreed, brushing his brother’s shoulder with a tawny wing. "We didn't come alone."

I gave Harvey a sharp look. "Why do I have a bad feeling about this?"