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“Marlise was thesexual partner,right?” Nyx asked. He looked out at me with amusement. “Kai used to play that sort of thing very close to the vest, all respectful and everything with the approach ofa gentleman never tells.”

I sprayed some of my drink across the table. “You’re kidding?”

“Nope,” Nyx confirmed. “Absolutely true.”

“What the hell happened to you?” I asked Kai, stunned.

Nyx made a show of whispering, “Ariana Martel happened.”

“Can we not?” Kai said, tensing up now, and no longer taking it all in his stride. “Especially drop the Marlise thing. Before Ari comes back.”

“I doubt she’d care,” Nyx told him. “When you fucked Marlise was years ago, long in the past.”

“Marlise Leroux?” Ariana’s voice came, and I shot a look over my shoulder to see her now approaching the table. I was so relaxed that I hadn’t even registered the approach. Maybe it was the alcohol also dulling my senses.Andme unleashing earlier, which took a lot out of me and tended to put me in a lulled state for a good long while.

As she took a seat beside Kai, she eyed him curiously. “I liked her. She was sweet and a talented sorceress, too. I believe she’s one of the Maven Coven’s most revered new-generation magic-wielders now, yes?”

“She is,” Kai admitted.

“And your ex.”

Kai did a double take. “You knew?”

“I might have kept an eye on you.” She winced. “More than you realized.”

Oh, no.He looked far too pleased about that. We were never going to hear the end of it, I could just see it now.

“Stalking me, sweetheart?” he said, slapping his hand to his heart. “I’m honored. All this time and I really was irresistible to you, hmm? You just couldn’t let me know that.”

“Do you want me to stop letting you know it now?” she bit back at him, but with humor.

He reached out and played with her hair. “Aww, that won’t be possible. I’m engraved far too deeply under your skin now.”

“Shut up,” she said, laughing, then batting his hand away.

“See?” he told her, before planting a soft kiss on her cheek. I heard him whisper,“I’m just kidding around, sweet Ari.”

She beamed out at him.

And she wasn’t the only one.

I liked this side of him.

Although, with him whispering, he was clearly still having issues acknowledging it beyond her, or maybe even to himself. There was a level of vulnerability to it—especially emotional vulnerability—and Kai didn’t like that, as I’d learned both from observing him and from Nyx. The way he gushed about Kai often had other things leaking out in the process. Luckily for them, all of that was safe with me.

It always would be.

They were mine now. Just as I was theirs.

“How about you?” Nyx put to Ariana.

She arched an eyebrow. “Me?”

“Kai said you were with an Ancient vampire-sorcerer, right?”

“That’s right.”

“Who?”