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She kept steering me toward the kitchen. “Billie, you can barely get down the stairs. You’re not getting anyone. Tiber is back. He went with him. Kaden might not need him, but Mason might.”

* * *

There was a soft rap at the back door, and Luisca got up from the kitchen table where we’d been waiting for someone to come back. A woman from the community was at the door. She glanced at me before saying, “Luisca, can we talk for a minute?” and then took a step backward.

Luisca stepped outside. Kaden had been gone for hours already. I didn’t know if he was in a ditch, or Mason was. I could feel him, but it was distant, and my knowledge of Kradix mating intuition was too sparse to determine if that meant he was miles from here or bleeding out.

Luisca came back alone and sat back down at the table.

“As soon as Mason heard Kaden was back and in a rage, he ran for it, deeper into the untouched areas. Kaden and Tiber were spotted heading after him.”

“I don’t know if this is good or bad. At least he didn’t kill him, right?” I asked, hoping Luisca had a better read on the situation.

Her blank look didn’t make me feel confident. She shrugged and threw up her hand.

We were still at the table when I could feel him getting closer. “He’s on his way back.”

“You feel him?” Luisca asked.

“It’s… Yes.”

“I thought I felt something too, but I wasn’t sure if it was in my head.” Luisca was wringing her hands, as if afraid to hope it had been true.

“You’re changing,” I said. At least there was one glimmer of light in this dreary situation.

Not long after, Kaden and Tiber walked in.

“He ran,” Tiber said.

Kaden’s eyes went to me, to my hunched form, and I could see his muscles and tendons strain so hard that I wasn’t sure they wouldn’t break. The air in the room was heavy enough to smother a small child.

Tiber walked over, laying a hand on Luisca’s shoulder. Their eyes locked. He knew she was changing. He felt it too.

“Let me help you upstairs,” Kaden said. “Wrap your arms around my neck so I don’t have to touch your back.”

He was already picking me up, not giving me a choice but to do as he asked. He carried me upstairs without speaking, putting me down gently.

“Let me see,” he said.

As if I hadn’t felt the tension in every inch of him as he carried me, I could hear it in every word he spoke.

“You saw—”

“I want to see it again. I want to make sure it’s healing. I don’t have the same access to supplies here, but I can get them if needed.”

I unbuttoned the shirt I had on, afraid he’d rip another one if I didn’t.

“Why?” he asked.

“Why what?”

“Why did you agree? Why would you willingly let him do this to you? Is this because of your grandmother? Are you trying to hurt yourself?”

I pulled my shirt back up. “You didn’t see the crowd forming. It felt like the only choice at that moment, not that you deserve an explanation at all. I was the one here who had to make the choice, and I did it.”

“Well, now instead of tension, there’s going to be a death, because I’m going to kill him as soon as I find him.”

“You can’t. It wouldn’t be fair.”