Page 103 of Claim Me

I may not be able to see Kaspian around Nox right now, but his ire is burning so hot that the entire room is filled with it.

“No.” Nox’s response shocks the hell out of me. As does his protective stance. “No, I’m not going to do that. Not when you’re this close to falling into a blood rage.”

“Excuse me?” Kaspian somehow sounds even angrier now. “I am yourking. You will do what I say, when I say it.”

“Almost always,” Nox concedes. “But not when you’re behaving this way around our mate.”

Kaspian huffs a laugh. However, it lacks humor. “She’s not our fucking mate,” he says, his words dousing me in a bucket of ice water. “It’s afucking spell.”

My lips part.Oh, no…

“Isn’t that right,Miss Doyle?” Kaspian asks, his tone taking on a silky quality that draws goose bumps along my arms. He peeks around Nox, his dark eyes swirling with savage intent. “Care to enlighten them, or shall I?”

A soft squeak leaves my mouth in response, words failing me.

H-how?

How does he know?

What’s he going to do?

What…? What will Bane and Nox…?I glance at my phantoms, the two men who just spent the last however many hours making me feel so special, socherished, my heart thundering in my chest.Is it…? It’s not… They’re not…

But it feltsoreal.

Everything was so intense. So beautiful. So…so much like a dream.

Kaspian makes a noise in his throat, one that sounds incredibly ridiculing.

A sound I deserve, I think with a wince. “I… I didn’t…”

He scoffs again. “Didn’t what? Didn’t mean to string us all along with this ruse?”

“What are you talking about, Kaspian?” Bane asks carefully, his demeanor as calm as ever. And somehow that seems to break my heart even more.

He’s always been so kind to me. So understanding. But after this… after Kaspian tells him the truth…

“The Outcast Coven patriarchs tied Fallon’s soul to Klas’s—wait, no,Nikolas O’Neely’s—soul using dark magic. When we executed him, the spell fractured, and Fallon’s soul attached itself to four new mates.”

Kaspian’s sharp-tongued summary shoots ice through my veins.

How does he know all of that?

Nox slowly turns to look at me, his blue eyes assessing. “Is that true, Fallon?”

My heart cracks a little more at the way he asks me that—as though he’ll trust my response over his own king’s words.

But it’s the worry in his expression that slays me. The worry that Kaspian may be right. Bane wears a matching look as he gazes at me, both phantoms waiting for me to confirm their king’s claims.

I swallow, my vision blurring as my inner turmoil threatens to break free.

How did I go from enjoying the best night of my life to experiencing the worst moment of my existence?

Because this hurts more than the ceremony that bound me to Klas. Hurts more than all the torture Klas inflicted upon me. Hurts more than the suicide verdict and my unexpected visits to the death plane.

This… this ishell.

Having my hope shattered in seconds.