Page 119 of Claimed By Fangs and Darkness

Responsibility rested on my shoulders, and the tattoos on my arm, hip, and back provided a steady supply of momentum.

The conversation had been sidetracked to strategy for Etherdale border patrol, but I knew it would eventually return to the next phase of my subterfuge.

As much as Kylo hated it, what lay bound in the center of this twisted, tangled web of power, secrets, and violence wasme.

37

KYLO

“What are we going to do aboutthat?” Harmony asked, nodding to Aster’s official letter in front of Evie.

“Has he written to you yet?” Bexley asked.

Evie nodded, and I stiffened. She hadn’t mentioned that to me. And the idea that she would keep something like that to herself poked at my deepest fears and wounds.

She quickly met my gaze. “Just to say he enjoyed our time together, essentially. He asked when he could see me next, and I haven’t responded yet.”

My mind snagged on the wordessentially, the paraphrasing triggering an instinctive need to know exactly what the fuck Aster had written to Evie, word for word.

I enjoyed strategizing. Solving problems. Exploiting weaknesses and executing plans. But now that Evie was involved, there was this massive block in the center of the chessboard. An Evie-sized obstacle I wanted to avoid despite its inevitability.

“How does it make you feel to know that Juliette is like you?” Blade asked, his features tinged with softness as he asked Evie something so sensitive.

The table looked equally curious. Besides Phineas, my innermost comrades were highly empathetic creatures. The best revolutionaries were.

“Conflicted on some deep level,” Evie admitted. “But trauma isn’t an excuse. Traumatized people choose to fight for goodness every day—that’s the entire foundation of turned clans, right?” Her next exhale was heavier. “I don’t know how much of Juliette’s behavior is clever puppeteering or the result of years of manipulation. And I’m not sure it’s productive to figure that out. She’s violent, she’s riding on a sudden influx of power, and she is capable of killing masses of people. She needs to be eliminated.”

“Agreed,” Phineas said. His eyes were closed, hands clasped in his lap, lips in a perpetual frown.

He was one of the most amusing creatures in the realm, entirely unintentionally. Sometimes I wondered if he was the way he was because he’d seen far too much from behind his veil of shadows.

“That makes sense,” Harmony said to Evie. “I’m sure it must’ve been difficult being around the born. You did exactly what you were supposed to do, though,flawlessly.”

Evie smiled slightly and nodded, but she looked uncomfortable under this blanket of praise. As if she didn’t think she deserved it. I worried she might blame herself on some level for Juliette’s proximity to Princeton. She needed to understand that however Juliette entered that space, she would’ve done so regardless of Evie’s presence there. That mission had nothing to do with her, especially if Conrad and Aster werealreadyin some shady alliance.

“Okay. Take out Juliette. Find proof that Aster and Conrad are involved in this potential coup—or their own separate powerplay, perhaps—and use it to destabilize and split born forces,” Blade summarized.

“Unless it proves easier to merely destroy them and crush their little dreams before they even have a chance to chase them,” Harmony muttered.

“Destabilization might benefit us in ways we can’t yet fathom,” Phineas said, voice as calm as a stoic sage. “Even after Etherdale is ours, a mad, paranoid king makes the prospect of hidden enemies excellent fodder for psychological warfare.”

Every once in a while, someone glanced my way, expecting me to speak up the way they were accustomed to. But I couldn’t say it—I refused.

I let Blade do it instead.

Blade’s eyes flickered from mine to Evie’s. “You can’t return to the born until after you’ve recovered from the turning ritual. Princeton needed three days minimum, sometimes longer, before he could wield any amount of his power again. And you need to gather your strength starting, well,today.”

Evie frowned. “That’s so much wasted time,” she said.

I gripped the armrest, irritated that she was already fighting against taking care of herself. And worse, she wanted to harm herself in order to be with Aster again as soon as possible.

My tattoos burned, and a sudden charge of dark power in the air had all attention turning toward me.

I still didn’t speak. Evie reached for my hand where it gripped her thigh.

“Juliette needs to be taken out before the turned of Ravenia unmask and rise from the underground. That’s only a month away,” Blade said. “If you think you can do this, then we need to craft a plan.”

“I can,” Evie said, squeezing my hand. She perked up, her back straightening, her own power a current that traveled through her skin to mine.