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The sight of them, and the tingle of their fury on the air, quickens my breath and makes my heart race. There’s a kind of savageness hanging between us that reminds me of the wilds, of the hunt, the chase, the kill.
My fingers itch to reach for the dagger in my holster, but I wait. As of right now, I don’t think their anger is pointed at me.
I glance at Kian and swallow. I know I’m about to be read the riot act for revealing something I knew was a secret. But he’s not even looking at me; he’s looking at his brothers. A muscle ticks in his jaw, and a thin trail of blood oozes down his shoulder from the gash. He looks angry, but more than that he looks ashamed.
Ashamed of me.
A painful ache spreads through my chest. Kian’s fucking ashamed of having been with me. With his mate.
I didn’t know I could hate him more than I did. But, oh look. I do.
Malix takes a single step forward. He looks pleasantly deadly as he asks, “Care to explain?”
Frost’s usual empty expression has been replaced by something akin to anger. It morphs his delicate features into something monstrous as his smooth, calculating tones filter through the room. “What is she talking about, brother? What happened three years ago?”
More blood trails down Kian’s bicep. His voice almost sounds robotic as he admits, “Amora and I shared a night together.”
Malix’s eyes narrow. They look like violet fire in the sunset-drenched gloom. “And you failed to tell us… why?”
“It never came up,” Kian says gruffly. “It happened before Quinton had us join forces. Back when we were still solo, searching for weaknesses in the barrier between realms.”
I snap my head around to stare at him. “Weaknesses between the realms?”
It scares me how easily I can forget they’re the enemy—until one of them says something like this and reminds me that my only goal in life is to see them bleeding out on the pavement. It terrifies me what they would do if they found those weaknesses.
Kian ignores me, still speaking to his brothers. “It didn’t mean anything. It was just one night. It didn’t seem important to tell you when the three of us joined up later.”
The ache in my chest turns to a knife cutting deep into my heart. It didn’t mean anything. To him, maybe. But at the time, it meant everything to me. Every minute of every day since we shared that night, I’ve had to come to terms with the emptiness, the raw emotions, the sheer fury he left me with.
I growl, ready to tear him into tiny pieces on the bathroom floor.
But apparently, my anger isn’t the only anger in the room.
Malix clenches his hands into fists at his sides and snarls, “So you betrayed us.”
Kian bares his teeth. “I did no such thing. Frost? Back me up here.”
But Frost shakes his head, stepping up to stand beside Malix. “You’ve had dozens of moments to tell us about that night since she showed up in Oscura. You chose not to. I’m not sure what else to call that but betrayal.”
Kian scoffs. “Don’t be dramatic. It happened a long time ago. It’s ancient history.”
That comment just pisses me off even more. I whirl on him. “Is it?”
“Yeah, it is,” he replies dismissively, not even sparing me a glance.
So I punch him in his wound.
Blood spurts beneath my knuckles. Even though the punch itself likely wouldn’t be enough to hurt a man with muscles like Kian, the wound is raw and angry. He grunts and doubles over, one hand clapping over the bloody mark on his skin.
Then all hell breaks loose.
Malix launches over the mattress and plows into Kian’s abdomen with one massive shoulder. The two men fly backward into the bathroom, where the shower curtain collapses beneath them. The tension rod crashes to the ground in the split second after they slump over the edge of the tub, fists flying.
I stare after them in shock, surprised by the sudden violence. While I’m frozen to the spot watching the two men grapple in the tub, wrapped in the shower curtain, Frost races past me. For a moment, I think he’s going to stop the fight.
But he just joins it.
Frost grabs Kian by the hair and hauls him out of the tangle of limbs and shower curtain. Even though he’s leaner than Kian, he’s clearly just as strong, and he knees Kian in the abdomen, knocking him out the bathroom door right toward me.
