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I lure the caramel off the spoon with very deliberate twirls and laps of my tongue. “Yours or mine?”

The breath he exhales is so very like a sigh.

“What about Aleana’s?” I murmur and toss the clean spoon onto the bench. It clatters beside the untouched plate. “Who will go to hers?” I narrow my eyes at him, at the weariness he wears,the darkness of his kohl lines, “or are you so determined to stop her from finding that with a male?”

A snarl is quick to crawl up his throat.

He moves for me in one fluid step, then he’s an inky tower of shadows, looming over me.

“Why don’t you mind your own concerns?” he hisses at the shell of my ear. I keep my cheek to him. “This business with Aleana, it has nothing to do with you. Since you know so little about it, you might consider keeping that pretty mouth of yours shut.”

“Your sister—” I start, firm.

“Mysister,” he cuts me off like a hot blade through butter, “deserves more than anything Rune can ever offer her.”

My jaw sets and I readjust the plate. But I don’t take it into my grip and storm out of the kitchens, though I should. I stay—because I ache for his attention. I yearn for the fight, because at least hespeaksto me.

Keeping my cheek to his burning gaze, I lift my chin, smartly. “You have no right to determine that for her.”

“No?” his growl deepens. “I was separated from my evate for a decade, and I took lovers. Fleeting affairs.”

White hot rage erupts throughout me.

My nostrils flare as I slowly draw in a calm, soothing breath, and I grapple onto any thread of rational thought that I can reach.

I, too, had other lovers in our separation. And I’m all too aware of the Comlar whore.

Still, I itch to knee him right in his male-hood.

“And all that time,” his tone drops, still gravelled, but softer, “my mind, my thoughts, my soul wereconsumedby you. If youfool yourself for a moment that I thought of anyone but you in those intimate times, you are a fool, Nari.”

The spears of rage start to fade. Flutters soothe my insides as the tensions in my shoulders ease.

“Rune will always yearn for her—his lost evate.” Daxeel’s hand rests on the edge of the bench. “He will not think of Aleana as he chases his own pleasure in her,” and at those spat words, I flinch, “and she will accept it because she thinks that’s all her worth is.”

Shame burns my cheekbones, hot.

I keep my gaze tucked down.

But Daxeel isn’t done. “If my sister is the evate of a male, then so be it. She deserves nothing less than devotion. But I have been the male with the lost evate, and it never leaves—no matter what path Rune takes in life,whohe takes, it will never be enough to fill that void in him.”

He snatches my chin, hard, and tugs it to align our faces.

A hiss escapes me on instinct.

But his growled warning overpowers me. “Stay the fuck out of it, Nari.”

And just like that, I’m silenced.

Whether it’s his threatening tone or the command of the contract, my throat tightens on any response I might have.

I swallow back a gulp, then tug my chin out of his grip.

His fingers slip away, grazing over my skin before he draws back a step.

I feel his stare run me over.

A moment passes before, softer, he says, “My bed.”