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Jaxon flinched. “You mind-linked them while I was tracking?”

“I did. The moment the boys were teleported back to Maven Academy via my magic, they left—for Meforian Forest. So I sent Mia and Lucian along to reason with them. We can’t risk interference with what we’re about to do. One of them was already severely wounded. Mortally wounded, actually.”

I saw Ryker react to theboyfriendsaspect, but he didn’t speak to it, keeping his focus on the immediate situation.

“Can you keep control of the wolf, Jax? Or do you need to hang back once you lead us to Ari’s location?”

“I’m not hanging back. This is our daughter we’re talking about.” He clenched his fists. “I can keep control. For her, I will.”

Ryker nodded, then laid his hand on his shoulder. “All right. Let’s begin, then. Let’s bring her back to us.”

Jaxon tensed.

“What is it?” Ryker asked him.

“She knows, Ry. She knows what we’ve been keeping from her. She also took back her full power without assistance from any of us in a bid to push us away.”

Ryker swallowed. “We’ll see to it. We’ll fix it. We’ll explain everything.”

“Yeah,” Jaxon murmured, nodding, and wanting to believe it so badly.

To believe that it could actually be fixed.

But inmyheart of hearts, I honestly wasn’t sure it could be.

Damage had been done. Profound damage.

And, sometimes, no matter how hard we tried, the scars of that would remain.

3

~Kai~

Once again, Celestial power had conquered me.

Harmed me.

Dominated me.

Almost fucking killed me.

Worse, this time—it had almost taken Nyx’s life as well.

I couldn’t… I couldn’t stomach it.

But I was being forced to.

They needed me to.

Ariana was missing—taken by that True Celestial they called Cassius. I had to keep my focus on that, on bringing her back to us.

The spell I’d imbued my Aetherbound Scepter with was supposed to have been a defense against immense power, exactly like that which Cassius had displayed.

But he’d come in too hot. He’d caught us all off guard.

So I needed to make improvements, needed to add something more to the failsafe. Off the top of my head, that would involve fine-tuning the scepter to detect a Celestial threat in advance and react at speed that rivaled my own.Thatwouldhave prevented the shitshow that tonight had turned out to be. Cassius had trounced all of us within seconds.

I wouldn’t allow that to happen again.