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The kindness made Carys’s breath catch. She hadn’t realized how much she needed the support until she was standing there, trembling in the other woman’s embrace.
“It broke my heart when my brother left home all those years ago,” Nova said as she released her. “The best part of my world was suddenly gone. I imagine that’s only a fraction of what you must be feeling now.”
Carys led her inside the room and they sat down on the edge of the bed. “I feel like a fool, Nova. He lied to me. He left me, and now, to make it all worse, my father and the rest of the Order are talking about Rune—Aedan—as if he’s the enemy.”
“But you don’t believe he is.”
“I know he’s not.” Carys saw the same conviction in Nova’s eyes. “You don’t believe it either, do you?”
The Breedmate’s blue-and-black hair swung against her shoulders as she shook her head. “Aedan may be a Riordan by blood, but he’s nothing like that clan. The brother I knew was strong and noble. A good man. From all that you’ve told me of Rune, I have to believe my brother is still a good man.”
More than anything, Carys wanted to believe that too. And, in that moment, she felt an overwhelming gratitude for Nova’s friendship. It meant the world to know that she had someone to lean on if she needed understanding and support, the same way Rune had looked to his little sister as the beacon of light in his dark existence so many years ago.
She gave her new friend’s hand a reassuring squeeze. “He loved you very much, you know. He regretted that he left you behind and never went back for you.”
It took Nova a moment before she spoke. “Did he tell you that?”
Carys nodded. “When he took me out for our date, Rune told me a bit about how he grew up. He told me there was a fighting pit at his father’s Darkhaven. Rune had been made to fight in it from the time he was a boy. Life or death matches, all for his father’s amusement. For years—until he finally worked up the courage to leave—the pit was Rune’s own private hell.”
Nova closed her eyes as if feeling the pain herself. Her voice was quiet. “I had no idea about any of that. But I know firsthand how monstrous Fineas Riordan can be.”
“When Rune told me about the pit and what he’d done to survive, I couldn’t imagine how he was able to endure it. I asked him if there was no one in that house who cared about him,” Carys said. “And he told me about you. He wanted to protect you from knowing what he was going through. He didn’t want you to see that part of his life.”
A soft, unsteady breath slipped past Nova’s lips. “Aedan made me feel loved when the rest of my existence was fear and pain. He didn’t know what had been happening with me, either. I was too ashamed to let him know. God, how foolish we both were, trying to put on a brave face for the other.”
“You did what you had to in order to protect yourselves,” Carys said. “And, as much as it hurt me tonight to find out the secret Rune was hiding from me, I can’t condemn him for it. I only wish he’d trusted me enough to tell me. He could’ve asked me for help.”
Nova’s gaze was solemn, sad. “Given what I know about my brother now, I think he would’ve left Boston for good, rather than ask for help. Neither of us were taught to reach out to someone else. That’s why I kept my secrets from Mathias as long as I did. I locked myself behind my own protective walls, thinking my past would never find me there. Hoping I’d be safe if I started over, if I pretended everything that had happened to me was just a bad dream.” She let out a humorless laugh. “But you can never outrun your past or the demons that live there. No wall we build is high enough to keep them away. They always catch up sometime. You have to stare them in the face without flinching before they’ll ever let you go.”
Nova was right, of course. And Carys didn’t doubt for a second that if Rune hadn’t already understood that truth, he knew it now.
Her fear for him deepened when she considered that possibility. Her dread grew colder, as heavy as a stone.
In her heart, Carys knew that was why Rune had walked out willingly with his father’s thugs. He was going with them of his own free will, most likely back to the hell where he’d been raised.
Back to face the monsters of his past.
Carys could only hope Rune survived whatever he intended to do . . . and pray that the Order hadn’t already condemned him.
CHAPTER 28
Lucan sat at the head of the table in the Order’s massive war room later that night. Seated around him were nine of his district commanders and their mates. Three other command center leaders were dialed in via video displays on the large wall monitors in the room.
As Chase wrapped up his report of what had happened in Boston earlier that night, a few muttered curses traveled the group, but the reaction of the most seasoned warriors was grim silence.
“Poor Carys,” said Elise, Breedmate to Tegan, one of the Order’s founding members. She was also Chase’s former sister-in-law, and a woman who’d endured her fair share of heartache and loss in the past. “How is she handling all of this?”
“I saw her in the drawing room with Brynne and Jordana when we arrived,” said Alexandra. She and her mate, Kade, were the last to arrive, having come in from Lake Tahoe. “Carys looked exhausted, and she was pacing the room like a caged animal.”
Tavia sighed. “She hardly spoke on the flight down. She’s hurt and confused, of course. She’s as shocked as we all are, but she believes in Rune. She loves him.”
Chase scoffed. “She’s blinded by her emotions when it comes to that male. That blindness might’ve gotten her killed.”
“Or maybe it was love that saved her life tonight.” This from ebony-haired Corinne, who was seated beside Hunter, her Gen One warrior mate.
He glanced at her tenderly as she spoke, which was a feat in itself, since the former assassin had been raised by his brutal handlers to think that emotion was weakness. He’d overcome that training, just as Corinne’s long-lost son, Nathan, had overcome similar abuse through his newfound love for Jordana.
“Corinne’s right,” said Tess. “And it’s obvious that Rune—or Aedan—must care for Carys too. After all, he tried to protect her from Riordan’s men.”
