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“Maybe you should ask yourselves what would have made me leave.” As if she knew I was talking about her, Eden stretched, pushing hard against my kidney and making me flinch.
Noah was there in a heartbeat, his hand on my shoulder, eyes blazing with worry. “Are you all right?”
“Yes, it’s just my daughter and her daily kidney punches.”
“Ourdaughter.” He grinned, his expression not one of a man plotting to do terrible things to an innocent baby, but of a father, filled with love.
“Christ, Sunday. You’re fucking huge.”
I gaped at Kingston. “How very dare you. I am pregnant with your spawn, asshole.”
He had the grace to blush. “No, I just meant. It’s only been a few weeks, but to look at you, it seems like it’s been months.” His smirk was prideful. “Are you sure there’s only one? Did we get multiples on the first try?”
I was so fucking confused. Why were they acting like she mattered to them? “I don’t understand.”
“Well, you see, my sperm are as Alpha as I am...”
“No. I don’t... You...” I sighed, trying to put my words together before I said something I couldn’t take back. “I left you all to save her. Fromyou. I heard what you were planning to do with Cashel. I won’t let you kill her.”
“This is what comes from eavesdropping,” Noah muttered. “You missed the most important part of that conversation.”
Alek staggered, sitting down hard on the ground. I whipped around, well, as fast as I could turn this cruise ship of a body around. “Areyouall right?”
He waved a hand. “Just a little tired. Carry on. You were just getting to the important parts.”
I finally looked at him.Reallylooked at him. My demigod was unwell. His skin was pale beneath his natural tan. His eyes dull, face waxen. “Alek, what the hell happened to you?”
“It’s just the cost of admission, Sunny. I’ll be fine.”
“Cost?” I turned to the others. “Explain. Right now.”
“Look at you, already perfecting your mom voice.”
“Kingston...”
He schooled his expression but couldn’t do anything about the amusement sparkling in his eyes. “Lilith brought us here. Through the doors in her rooms. Alek paid the price for us all. She fed on him. Deeply.”
“You mean, like the door that took us to the forest when we...” My cheeks burned at the memory of the first time we’d come together, when he’d given me his mark.
“She gave us all our fantasies... but my power was what she was after.” I hated the exhaustion in Alek’s voice.
It hit me then, the truth of Lilith’s special rooms. The price she’d demanded for their use was high for a reason. “No, not fantasies. She gave you your heart’s deepest desires. You wanted to mate me, Kingston. Which is what happened the first time you stepped inside the room. Caleb...” Feeling the building tension, I kept that revelation about our night together to myself. “Never mind.” My nights with Noah were less obvious. We’d spent more time in the lower level ofIniquitythan any of the others. “Noah, what did you want?”
“You. It’s always been you.” My heart gave a happy lurch. “And this time, when we went through, the three of us had one common desire above all else. To find you.”
“And so Lilith brought you here.”
“Power like that is beyond Lilith’s ability. That kind of magic...” Kingston began, but his brow wrinkled as the words seemed to escape him.
“Reeks of the divine, doesn’t it?” Noah mused.
It certainly seemed to. So simple and yet pure. If there’d been anything else they’d wanted more, the magic never would have worked. It was almost like a test. And they all passed. Still, I couldn’t help but wonder, would they have been able to find me if I hadn’t destroyed the shroud? Just how heavy-handed had fate been? And just which deity was getting their hands dirty?
“It also hurts like the whip of a wyvern’s tail to the face,” Alek grumbled, pulling my attention back to the present. His eyes were ringed with dark circles, his voice labored.
“Come inside. You need to lie down.” I held out a hand, but Kingston stepped in front of me.
Alek gave a weary nod, which only sent another bolt of panic through my heart. Kingston helped him up, and we all shuffled into the cottage.
