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“To trick ourselves into feeling better?”

“No. Tomakethings better in actual reality,” Kai told him. “And to take some of the pressure off Ari at the same time.”

I nodded along. “She needs to know she’s not alone. But with something as heavy as this, words won’t be enough, especially not for her, and especially not after she was so recently lied to by her own family. It has to be in actions that we demonstrate that to her.”

I felt him coming around, calming down, wanting to fall into it. “Just… if we lose her…”

“You won’t,” a wondrously familiar voice sounded from across the cave.

We all spun to see Ariana standing in the doorway.

We’d been so caught up in our tense and weighted conversation that none of us had felt or sensed her approach at all.

There she stood, looking disheveled, her expression tired and weary. Her long, golden waves were wilder than normal, all over the place. Her jeans were caked in mud and what looked like ash, too. Even her black, lacy tank was tainted with it. Her well-worn brown suede jacket was hanging off one shoulder, as she slumped against the cave wall.

She was mentally exhausted, not physically, I realized quickly as I continued to study her.

And then the root of that hit me.

At full force.

Her emotions cut into me like hundreds of knives dipped in holy water. Yeah, unfortunately, I was more than familiar with how that felt.Damn, it was… a lot… coming off her. I could barely breathe through it. And, for me, those feelings were secondhand, something I was picking up, not like they were to her. It had to be virtually crippling for her.

Yet, there she stood, her lips quirking into a smile as she looked out at the three of us.

As she not only managed to stand there, but also offer us affection, and connect with us.

“Are you hurt?” Vorzyr asked, going to her in quick, urgent strides.

She held up her hand, which stilled his approach. “I’m unharmed,” she assured us.

“Did your family overpower Cassius?” Kai asked.

“No. He let me go and they showed up after he’d already taken off.”

“Taken off? Just like that?” Vorzyr queried.

“Yeah. He said what he needed to. He told me about a bargain that my family made to… I can’t. I can’t get into it right now. I’m sorry.”

“Mia and Lucian revealed the whole deal,” I offered up, wanting to spare her.

She arched an eyebrow. “Huh… well… good. It’s out all around then, isn’t it?”

There was so much bitterness in her tone. But it was superseded by a whole lot of grief and hurt. It was almost fucking drowning her, threatening to pull her into the undertow.

As Kai went to speak, I shook my head, willing him to let it be for now.

I grasped Vorzyr’s wrist, and as he turned, I was able to indicate the same to him.

“What do you need, sweetheart?” Kai asked.

“Yeah, what can we do?” Vorzyr asked.

She had us tensing as her eyes darkened, and then she pushed off the wall.

“No more talking. Just be with me.”

She shrugged off her jacket, letting it simply fall to the floor in a heap, starting to bare herself to us.