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For one deranged second, I wanted to wrap Tessa to my chest and squeeze her. I didn’t, obviously, but fuck, Freya needed that. Needed a friend like her.
If the Grayshell-Westerlund alliance was anything to go by, Tessa would throw her neck on the line just as quickly as Freya if it meant keeping the other safe.
“Cyrus?”
I blinked, registering my name on Freya’s tongue, and fuck me, that did something unwelcome to my chest.
“Huh?”
Her eyes narrowed, but Tessa just smirked back over her shoulder. “Her eyes are up here, Prince.”
“Very funny. What’s up?”
Freya jerked her head toward the shifter. “Tell her what you told me.”
“I’m sure your recap was adequate.”
“But you do the textbook recitation thing so well.”
“Was that a compliment?”
I could’ve sworn her lips twitched before she caught herself. Voice built of sin and seduction, she purred, “I would never.”
Sighing, I ran my hands through my hair, shoved it back into a bun, and began.
We’d just reached the bit about Zeus when raised voices from the mess hall had us exchanging worried glances. I reached for Freya just as Blaz grabbed Tessa, and we shifted through the shadows and down the hallway.
“What are you saying?”
I caught narrowed jades. Is that…
August, she confirmed solemnly.
“I’m saying that I had a baby. I’m not an invalid.” Soft. Feminine. Ethereal in a way that could only be Aphaea. The fertility goddess hadn’t been seen since Adrastos attacked her in the battle that sent our best healer into The Middle.
“Weeks ago,” August emphasized.
“And I healed, not only in The Middle, but with the Witches of the West tending every ache and pain.”
“Fae, you know why I’m doing this.”
“We do,” came Alec’s monotone voice. “And it’s bullshit.”
“I loved her first, goddammit.”
August’s voice was tight, pained. “I know.”
“Then act like it!” Metal scraped over concrete, and I glanced back at a solemn-looking Blaz and the concern tightening G’s face. “It’s nearly autumn, and we don’t have anything to show for it. They’re going to break her.” Fae’s voice cracked.
“Winnie—”
“Deserves to grow up in a world worth living in, August. That includes having her godparents in the picture.”
“I’m following her wishes.”
“Fuck her wishes,” Fae snapped. “I love her—and you—but so help me, August, if you tell me one more time that my best friend is in agony for me, and that’s why you keep diving headfirst into chaos alone, we’re gonna have a problem. And I don’t give a flying fuck what fancy title the other covens have given you. You’re still ours. Just like her.”
“Fae…” August sounded like he’d taken a punch to the gut.
