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Kai eyed me knowingly. Sorin didn’t know that Kai had the ability to resist magical mind-meddling himself, nor that it verylikely meant he also had the means to engineer a solution to break Jace and Drake from Sorin’s thrall as well.

“But even if that happened and I lost them as my acolytes, there will always be others I can influence, others I may not even need to influence, because you can’t comprehend the extend of the revulsion that has spread throughout the supernatural community toward half-breeds lately. The Unity Council has even been working withPuritasin their desperate bid to seek out Chimera Circle and finally end those maniacs and stop their creation of yet more disgusting half-breed beings. Where the Guardian Movement has failed, it has created an underhanded alliance between the Unity Council and those whom I serve, whom I believe in.” His eyes gleamed with sadism. “The blood of half-breeds will flow. It’ll soak the earth, andPuritaswon’t stop until every last one of them is put down, until their sullying presence no longer weighs on the supernatural world.”

Kai and I snarled at the same time.

And then I was charging at Sorin, just as Kai was also calling his power.

But neither of us connected with our target.

A blast of silver power shot through the room and radiated out, blowing Kai and I back across the space.

I heard Kai grunt as he slammed into the brick wall, then ricocheted off it and landed hard on his back.

Being dragon, it didn’t faze me as much, and I was able to absorb it, then go to him quickly and help him back to his feet.

He stumbled and choked.

And then we looked out to see the source of the intervening immense blast.

There Ariana was, standing between us and the three chairs binding our captives, her magic radiating out all around her.

She glared at us as she retracted her magic, then folded her arms across her brown suede jacket, cocking her hip in her bootcut jeans, and definitely looking none too happy.

“Fuck,” Kai rasped. “Give a man some warning before you tear through his ward so brutally.”

“You left me little choice.”

I eyed Kai. “I thought you said you cloaked us.”

“I did.”

“But in his attempt to keep it off my radar, he used traces of my magic that he stole at my party that night. I was able to latch onto it and access beyond the cloaking.”

“There shouldn’t have been a reason for you needing to do that, to track us down,” Kai told her. “You were holed up in the library studying all night along with Nyx who’s reading up on all matters Guardian Movement to prepare for his upcoming apprenticeship with Warlow.” He stepped forward, trying to hide his wince from the effort because of the toll her blasting against his magic like that had clearly taken on him. “Unless, of course, you missed me that much, Ari.”

“Don’t even try it, Kai,” she said, holding up her hand. “Nyx felt you. He reached out with his Incubus senses to check in on you like he usually does, and what he felt nearly overwhelmed him. The need to punish. Unadulterated hatred. The intent to do severe and long-lasting damage. So much fury. Even the destabilization of your magic. You, Kai. It’s unheard of for somebody as in control as you.”

“Ariana, listen—” I started.

She cut me off. “Andmurderous intent.” She looked between us, shaking her head. “What were the two of you thinking?”

“We were dealing out justice.”

“Torture isn’t justice.”

“It will be when I inflict the same upon them,” Sorin spoke up, darkly amused by the scene, and the formidable forces of Kai and I being reprimanded.

Ariana threw out her hand, and with a spark of her magic, Sorin’s mouth clamped shut.

“Nyx didn’t want this,” she told us.

“As an Incubus, he can feel others’ pain as his own, so doing it himself, or being a part of it would have hurt him,” I pointed out.

“I dealt with this bullying of theirs,” she said. “It was done. What you were doing here is just escalating the situation.”

“I respectfully disagree,” Kai spoke.

“As do I.”