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Plan in place, I lurch forward, but my shaking legs don’t want to cooperate, and I stumble, almost falling to my knees.

Vae catches me before I can fall.

“Come sit down,” he murmurs, urging me to turn and head back to the table, where everyone else waits—watching me.

Judging me.

“I’m fine,” I snap, shoving him back.

“Dax—”

“I said I’m fine!”

My shout echoes through the room; Idril jumps, flinching away from Caelan and darting panicked eyes around the room. They land on me, and she shrinks down, shoulders inching up to her ears like she’s trying to disappear.

Caelan turns, pinning me with a glare. His eyes meet mine, and I’m swallowed whole by the need to talk to him. To fucking fix this now so we can move forward and put the last two weeks behind us.

I need to explain. Make him—them—understand.

“We didn’t know!” The words escape, but before I can explain what I mean, Caelan scoffs. This time, when his eyes meet mine, they’re full of absolute hatred.

The naked disgust renders me mute. At my side, Vaelenor chokes on a strangled sound of anguish and steps forward, raising his hand in supplication.

“Gods, I⁠—”

I follow his gaze, assuming he’s addressing Caelan, but his eyes aren’t on our brother.

They’re on Idril. And they’re brimming with pain.

He turns his gaze to me with haunted eyes full of accusation. His expression twists into anger, and I suddenly know exactly how this is going to play out.

“You swore she was lying,” he shouts, shoving a shaking finger into my chest. “You said— I told you. I fucking begged you—how many times, Daxen?”

His words are a jumbled, stuttering mess, but he keeps going.

“I fucking told you, over and over. I said we needed to be sure. I said—How many times did I say that? And you—you fucking swore.”

I swallow thickly, trying to choke down the ball of emotion in my throat. I can’t deal with both of them right now. I need to put out one fire at a time, and Caelan’s the priority. Ignoring Vae, I turn back to my brother and try again to plead my case.

“You don’t understand the position we were in. We had nothing to go on but the facts as we understood them, and the word of an Omega we didn’t know and couldn’t trust. We made the best decisions we could with the information we had.”

There. Concise. Logical. To the point. It makes sense, and it’s the truth.

Caelan stares at me, unblinking. Then he bends over, scoops up his Omega, and stands. At first, she protests, but he leans down and murmurs something that has her relaxing into his arms as he stalks across the room and retakes his seat from earlier.

He stalks right past Vae and I like we’re not even here, and despite taking the same seat as before, he makes a point to move both it and the seat beside it as far away from where Vae and I were sitting as possible.

With no other choice, Vae and I reluctantly return to our own seats. The room is so silent I can hear my own heart pounding.

Caelan places Idril on the chair to his left, positioning himself as a barrier between us and leveling me with dark, onyx eyes full of judgment.

“Why would Idril lie? Explain it to me, Daxen. Tell me why you think she’d lie, knowing the truth would come out eventually. Tell me, brother, why you treated my Mate like a prisoner. Make me understand.”

Every word lands like a blow, demanding an answer while serving as a condemnation.

Idril shifts, and like he’s attuned to her every desire, Caelan moves so she can peer around his frame. Her bright blue eyes are wet and glistening with tears. The way Caelan looked at me hurt. The way Idril’s looking at me is so much worse. Never before—not once in my whole fucking life—have I wanted to shrink beneath someone’s gaze until I disappear. Until I no longer fucking exist.

There’s no disgust in her bright blue eyes. Only pain. Pain and betrayal and heartbreak. And no matter how much I want to… I can’t look away.