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Reyna laughed incredulously and though she was three strides away, it was like she'd done it right in my face.

I lunged for her on instinct, that laugh twisting my insides violently. Even when it was sarcastic, it pulled at my chest painfully.

Reyna backed up and my throat went tight.

I'd accomplished nothing but made her scared of me, and I'd never hated anything more.

"I'm not scared of you," she said softly, as if she could read my mind.

"Then explain," I half pleaded. "If you aren't scared of my reaction, just talk."

Reyna's answering silence made me feel insane. This wasn't adding up.

Then, another frustrated sound broke from her chest and she headed into her kitchen, stomping like the ground was angering her.

"What are you doing?"

Reyna ignored me. She flung open a cabinet and started throwing random knick knacks on the marble countertop, clearly in search of something.

Finally, after there was a solid pile of clutter on the table, she found what she was looking for.

Reyna lifted up on her toes, which sent an urgent lash of desire through my stomach, and gatheredsomething into her arms. She turned, finding my eyes through the darkness immediately.

Without having to say anything, I knew she was demanding my attention. She'd never lost it.

She started slamming things down on the table pointedly, starting with a coiled ribbon, made of a fabric I recognized, one that was only made on Olympus.

Then she grabbed a card. One I knew had my handwriting on it and dropped it on top of the ribbon.

And after that, she waved a bouquet of dried, preserved red roses in my face, taunting me with the flowers I'd once picked out for her, before dropping them carefully onto the pile.

It was everything I'd given her before our first date.

Carefully preserved.

My jaw loosened just a beat when Reyna threw her arms out wide and looked at me expectantly. Like her keeping what I gave her was supposed to be the answer to all my questions.

"I can't read your mind, Reyna," I said. I wished I fucking could. Then I'd know if she felt even half insane as I did. "What are you trying to say?"

Reyna let out a exacerbated "Ugh!" and started towards me. I backed up on instinct, refusing to touch her if it meant she'd be shocked by my power.

But Reyna was too quick, crashing into me forcefully and twisting her hands into my shirt.

Something dark started twisting around my middle when Reyna looked up at me with wide, desperate eyes. And when she raised my hands to her face, laying her own hands over my palms and pressing them so hard into her skin that I was forced to look at her, pain shot through my chest.

Reyna was clearly struggling, her mouth opening and closing over empty words. Her eyes held onto mine with a tight grip. So tight I was forced to watch in horror as the blood vessels in the whites of her eyes strained so much they started to pop, red marring the perfect surface.

“Stop,” I half begged. Reyna relaxed slightly, the strain in her gaze softening. But she didn’t drop the desperation, just kept looking at me like she was pleading with me for something.

Pleading with me to understand.

It took a second, but then it clicked. She wasn’t refusing to answer me.

She couldn’t.

Reyna seemed to catch on to the realization, nodding her head half an inch like she was struggling against a stiff neck.

She reached for me, as if her hands would solidify her words. Cement the fact that she would never betray me.