Page 80 of Knotted By the Triad

“You are her,” I told her.

Zuri turned in my arms and looked up at me.

“You're Zuri,” I told her. “The files say you were divided. Part of you lived there, and part of you lived here. When you died there, that part of you returned here. You woke up in the part of you that was here in our manor. Now, you’re whole, returned to the realm you were born in. You’re Zuri Bane, our mate. There is no other.”

Her eyes searched mine as if she were trying to decide whether she could believe something that simple after everything she'd just heard. My dragon purred inside me.

Mate.

I brushed my thumb across the tears on her cheek. “You're Zuri Bane, the one my dragon purrs for.”

For a while, none of us spoke. Zuri remained against my chest with one hand clasped in Daemin's while Kai stood across from us, giving her time to absorb what she'd learned. Eventually, Zuri looked at him. Kai's expression had changed.

She noticed it too. “There's something else, isn’t there?”

“Yes. I found records showing how some of the children became part of the experiment. Yours included.”

Zuri straightened in my lap. “What does it say?”

“There are authorization documents.” Kai removed a page and placed it on the desk in front of her. His expression hardened as he pointed toward the signature at the bottom. “Orion Bane.”

Zuri stared at her father's name. The hand resting against my arm went completely still.

“He signed off on the experiment?” she asked.

“Yes. He knew what the experiment involved when he gave them permission to use you,” Kai told her. “He signed off, saying he understood the risks.”

A growl rolled through my chest, and this time I made no attempt to suppress it. Zuri had been an infant when someone decided she could be divided into pieces, and the man who should have protected her had willingly handed her over to them. She stared at her father's signature for a long time before finally lifting her eyes to Kai.

“Why did he do that to me?” she whispered.

My heart broke for my mate.

CHAPTER TWENTY

ZURI

“The records say your father agreed because he believed the experiments would benefit the Bane Clan,” Kai told me. “His authorization is there, Zuri. He knew they intended to use you as a subject.”

I stared at him. I knew Orion Bane was a piece of shit, but this was too much. This wasn't drugging a grown woman and forcing her into a marriage because his preferred daughter had run away. I had been a baby.

A fucking baby.

Zian's palm moved slowly over my back. He hadn't stopped touching me since Kai started explaining what they'd found in the warehouse. His dragon was purring for me, and I was grateful for it.

I leaned farther into him and breathed deeply. Black tea and vanilla filled my nose, the vanilla warm beneath the stronger scent of tea, and some of the pressure in my chest finally eased. Daemin still held my hand. His thumb rested over my knuckles, warm and soothing.

“So he knew they were experimenting on children,” I said. “And he gave them his own.”

“Yes,” Kai said.

I laughed once, but there wasn't anything funny about this. My father could probably find a way to justify throwing a newborn into a volcano if somebody promised him the Bane name would look impressive carved into the side afterward.

“What's going to happen to him?” I asked.

“We're going to deal with him.” Kai rested one hand on the open file. “But not right now.”

My eyes narrowed. “Why not?”