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“Don’t feel too bad,” a voice spoke up from beside me, making me jump.
When I turned and peeked open one watery eye, I saw an unfamiliar woman standing there. She was pretty, with dark brown skin and a tight braid going over her shoulder. She was also looking at me with more sympathy than one would normally give a stranger. My angel rustled her feathers once, for a reason I couldn’t fathom.
“It’s hard, but those Paras would have killed you the first chance they got, no matter what they might have said,” she continued. “Them ending up dead instead is just their karma.”
Then, she placed a hand on my shoulder and patted it reassuringly. “It’ll be okay, Aria. Just breathe through it. You have too much to grieve over for this to be where you break.”
The action and those words made me cry harder. When I was nearly done sobbing, I felt her hand lift away, and I asked while wiping tears out of my eyes, “How did you know that I…”
But by the time I opened my eyes and looked around, she was already gone.
I blinked. I guess I would never know how she’d known what I was upset about… or how she’d already known my name.
Auren turned the corner just then, mouth set in a firm line. He hadn’t let it show as much as Sariel did, but Mikey’s death had visibly compounded the stress already put upon the man, and I could see it in the way his shoulders were hunched. When he saw me, though, he paused in his march-like walk. “Aria? Are you okay?”
“No!” I blurted out, embarrassed when yet another flood of tears joined the word and he made an odd noise at the display.
I didn’t know what it was about this one event, but when piled on top of Neo’s death, Mikey’s execution, Marilyn’s torture, and everything else that was going on, it was like a dam had burst inside of me and refused to be rebuilt.
He hesitated a moment, obviously uncomfortable with my breakdown, before carefully tugging me into a hug. It’s so precious that I started to laugh mid-sob; he did a full-body shudder at the sound.
“Do you want to tell me about it?” he asked.
I did, so I did, feeling Sariel gently checking in on me via our bond all the while. Somehow, I knew he was trying to find me, and that just made me sob harder into Auren’s shoulder.
The weight of Maria’s devastation pressed heavily on my chest, threatening to drown me—and Gabriella had been justoneperson. A single person whose loss had let loose enough pain and memories that I couldn’t even bring myself to walk home without a breakdown. How was I supposed to survive an all-out war if I couldn’t even handle this?
“So she’s a security risk, then,” Auren mused at the end of my story. He flinched when I jerked up to glare at him. “Sorry, I know. It’s terrible, Aria, but… I would rather you personally slaughter every single Para you meet than hesitate and get yourself or any of our people hurt because you thought that we could change their mind.”
The words stung and soothed all at once. I nodded jerkily in agreement. He patted my back awkwardly, looking awkward as I tried to rein in my sniffling.
It would have been hilarious if I wasn’t so heartbroken.
“Sorry, Auren. I know you were in the middle of something,” I warbled out, sounding hoarse even to my own ears. “You were doing the walk.”
His eyebrows dropped so far that his shades shifted hilariously. “What walk?”
“The ‘I’m in a hurry, get out of my way’ walk. You only do it when you don’t want people to bother you.”
That earned me a chuckle, and when I rubbed at my face and stepped back, he put his hands on my shoulders and squeezed.
“You can always bother me,” he said, hesitated, then tentatively continued. “Things have been really shitty recently, but it’ll all be okay in the end, Aria. You’ll see.”
With those words of wisdom, he gave me a hurried goodbye and carried on in the direction he had been going.
Sariel had stopped prodding at the bond as much when it’d become clear I was draining out all of my broken heart to Auren. When I touched it again, though, he felt still but irritated.
Your brother gives surprisingly good hugs,I confided, feeling his amusement immediately. It helped me relax some—he wasn’t upset that Auren had been comforting me, then. Whatever had stopped him from getting to me in time to do it himself was.
I caught Zuzanna on my way to you, and we’re having a little chat.
Guilt that the witch was probably getting chewed out by my overbearing mate pinged down the bond. He must have rolled his eyes from the way it wriggled oddly in my chest.
I get to give her shit for that, pup. She shouldn’t have ambushed you at a time like this. At the very least, you deserved a heads-up that Maria was around.
Even his mental voice was growly, obviously angry on my behalf. It helped to smooth down some of my ruffled feathers—literally, on my angel’s part.I don’t know if she did it on purpose, honestly.
He scoffed.She should have had some self-awareness, then.
