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And the longer they were here in front of me as a direct reminder of all of this, the nightmare that had come before, the nightmare that was coming my way in the very near future, the more worked up it was making me.

I didn’t need a massively long and deep talk with my entire family right now.

I needed comfort.

And with the way things were currently, only my men could give me that.

So, in the next second, I smiled sadly out at Grandfather, Dad, and Pops.

And then I teleported out.

5

~Nyx~

“Ah, damn, much better. Yeah, this is really hitting the spot,” I groaned, as I devoured another dark chocolate wild berry bar, trying to take as much pleasure as I could from the melt-in-my-mouth taste.

I was overcompensating.

Maybe a better term was sublimating.

Or simply just eating my feelings.

I hadn’t stopped snacking since I’d woken up about an hour ago from Kai’s sleeping spell. Fortunately, entering that deep of a sleep had actually worked to speed up the healing process, and I’d awoken with absolutely no signs that I’d even taken that brutal hit from that True Celestial maniac earlier.

I was sure that Kai had intended it to work that way on my injury. It had been a two-birds-with-one-stone thing for him—keeping me out of the line of fire, especially when I hadn’t been at my best,andassisting with me getting better faster.

When I’d come to, I’d found a note on my pillow from Kai informing me that he and Vorzyr were at Kai’s cave lab, and to come along if I felt up to it.

So, of course I’d headed down there.

And now here the three of us were.

I was sitting on the edge of the stone table that was chocked full of Kai’s experimental apparatus—beakers, vials, shimmering tubing, burners—chomping away on my chocolate bar while I waited for the concoction I was working on to cure. In the meantime, I was supervising Vorzyr who was standing over a test tube containing a small amount of Ariana’s magic and trying to use his Primal Celestial Resonance on it.

Kai was several feet away with the Unity Council test of Ariana’s levitating before him, while he pulled and weaved its golden threads and shifted the symbols, text and sigils around, while weaving his own magic through it in the form of rose-gold sparkling threads.

He hadn’t stopped for the last hour since conjuring me some food, along with some ribs and the Ashtone Whiskey that Vorzyr liked. Kai hadn’t even conjured anything for himself, but that was no surprise, because he couldn’t eat when he was stressed out.

Obviously, I was the opposite where that was concerned.

I’d just gorged on four chocolate bars with no stopping in between.

They’d filled me in on what had happened in Meforian Forest, them running into Mia Snow and Lucian Black—or more like Mia and Lucian positioning themselves there intentionally as obstacles in their path.

And hearing about the awfulbargainthat had been struck was weighing heavily on all of us. It was bad enough that Ariana wasn’t here right now. I mean, I had every confidence that Cornelius, Jaxon, and Ryker would be able to bring her back, to get her out of that maniacal True Celestial’s clutches. Their power set individually was insanely mammoth. And together it was a whole other thing. Not to mention, Ryker’s defensive magic could cut through pretty much anything as far as Iwas aware from the many rumors and tales of his exploits over the years. And he was like Kai in that he found out-of-the-box solutions to complicated and seemingly unconquerable problems.

And there was obviously also Ariana herself. Her power was incredible.

It was being discounted so much as well.

Like, did she even need saving? Did she need a search party out there on her behalf?

I got the urge from her family to protect her. We were all feeling the same sentiment toward her. But that urge was overshadowingherand whatshewas capable of.

I knew that was one of the reasons that Kai and Vorzyr had agreed to stand down.

Theydidn’t discount her. They saw not only her power, but her capability to wield it and control it.