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“Tell me why you have to follow their path?” I cupped her cheek. “If you’d done what they wanted, the Hartlock line would be gone. Now it’s your choice to live how you want, your choice of how to honor the legacy of your name. Or not at all. The future is entirely yours, Tully.”

Tully leaned into my touch and her scent rotted in my nostrils, thick with loathing.

“It doesn’t feel like enough. For them to die for nothing.”

“They died for you, Tully. For the entirety of Starhaven, but I’m sure you were in the forefront of their mind.” I faltered and blew out a breath.

Guilt pricked my stomach.

“I didn’t believe the police when they came to tell me. I’d only just turned eighteen. It still seems unreal to think about.”

“It was an accident, wasn’t it?”

“One of the HLA rebels thought my parents had weapons and killed them both. They were just bringing food and begging to stop the hostage situation.”

I dragged Tully against me. “They were the catalyst to the end of it all.”

“That’s what the history books will say.” She muffled bitterness against my chest. “My dad grew up there. That’s why they were so determined, it was personal. They said the city needed them, but I needed them too. And everyone wants to tell me how amazing they are, and all I can think about is how much I hate them for not choosing me and making me the coward.”

Her shoulder blades trembled under my flattened palm. How deeply our parents wounded us. I knew the pain she nursed, because I had my version. Not as traumatic, but just as thick with neglect.

“It’s not fair to judge your worth on a decision you made when you were barely even an adult.”

Color flushed Tully’s cheeks. The only sign my words cut through her determination to stay small. I knew how much it hurt to shed the weight our parents put on us. It took me years. But if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t be as successful as I was now. My weight was still a sore point, but Tully made that ache softer each day.

“Let me wash your hair?” I asked.

“What?” Tully fluttered her hands to her pink cheeks.

“Come on.” I motioned toward the door. “Let’s go to the nest.”

Tully made a noise of protest, but I took her hand. A comfortable silence settled over us, and her scent softened as we got closer to her nest. I turned the taps on and sprinkled in salt mix made especially for omegas, and a generous dollop of bubble bath mixture. Only then did I speak again.

“You don’t need to do this.” Tully plucked at her sleeves.

“Oh, Tully, I’ll tell you a secret. This is more for me than you.”

She whipped off the hoodie, and I swallowed a groan as her silky skin was revealed. She turned around and dragged her purple panties down her legs.

“Because you get to see me naked?” She stepped into the sunken bath with a coy smile.

“An undeniable treasure, but no. Caring for you is a privilege I will never take for granted.”

Tully’s gaze flickered with tentative warmth before she ducked underwater and soaked her hair. I lathered it with shampoo and massaged it into her skull. My clothes were getting soaked, but it was worth it.

All the tension rolled out of Tully and she melted into my careful hold. I put a hair mask in and remembered what Walden wanted me to do. Convince Tully to attend the gala.

“Is there something you want to do with your life, but you’ve not pursued it?”

The pale column of her neck bobbed.

She let out a soft sigh. “I used to make these documentaries. I’d follow my parents around and record, pretending I was some famous filmographer.”

“Really?” I almost salivated. That footage would be priceless now. “Let me guess, your parents didn’t approve.”

Her laugh echoed in the bathroom.

“I guess they weren’t wrong. The pipeline from documentarian to cam girl was surprisingly swift.”