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After I kiss the tip of her nose, I pull away and dress us both with a wave of my hand.
“Ronan?” Kari curls her fingers around mine.
She wants reassurance. I don’t know if I can give it to her.
I sigh. “If there is a way for us to be together that ensures you won’t be at risk, I’ll seize it with both hands and never let go.”
“No. This can’t be it.”
Kari throws her arms around me. I hold her just as desperately.
I know I should release her to keep her safe, but now that the time has come, it’s killing me. She’s become my heart. My everything. If the curse forces me to give her up, I have no idea how I’ll bear it.
I kiss her, my lips lingering on hers, feeling my heart beat with hers—until a disturbance in the air jars me from the moment.
Quickly, I thrust Kari behind me and whirl to face the threat. Instead, I find Tynan. Another whoosh, and Bram stands beside him. Others follow. A bloke with wavy brown hair and resentment broiling in his very blue eyes, a hulking wizard with a nearly shaved head and an angry mien, and a sophisticated-looking male in Savile Row tailoring. He holds the arm of one of the biggest humans I’ve ever seen. With black hair and goatee, along with an expression to match, the warrior is clearly one I shouldn’t fuck with.
“Ronan.” Bram rears back in surprise. “We expected an empty room since Kari promised me a place to hide from my meddling sister… Anyway, this is Caden MacTavish, Ice Rykard, and Simon Northam, Duke of Hurstgrove.”
“Just Duke, please,” says the one who looks like he’d stepped out of GQ.
“The big warrior is Marrok. I think you know everyone else. Care to stay while we discuss the latest?”
Shock appears moments later, fashionably late, looking both sharp and annoyed.
Then the truth hits me.
I whirl on Kari with a glare. “Despite the danger and all the ways I’m trying to protect you, you’re letting the Doomsday Brethren meet here?”
Chapter Ten
Ronan
“I am.” Kari holds up a hand to stop my furious sputter. “And before you say anything else, you made me promise not to Bind to you. You have no say.”
Technically, she’s right. Damn it to hell.
I grab her arm. “I only want to protect you.”
“I need your love far more.” She yanks from my grasp to face Bram. “It’s all yours, gentlemen. I’ll lock up the front so you’ll have privacy and?—”
Without warning, the door crashes open, cutting off the rest of Kari’s words. I whirl at the intrusion. The sight stops me cold.
Mathias’s witch, Rhea, clad as scantily as ever, stands in the doorway with a smug smile, flanked by a pair of hooded figures.
Automatically, I step in front of Kari. Rhea won’t get a second chance to kill my mate.
“Fuck,” Shock curses to my right. “Always making an entrance… What the hell are you doing here?”
“Your presence is requested,” the witch drawls. “Call it a family emergency.”
“Since when is Mathias family?” Bram mutters.
Jaw clenched, Shock shoulders his way past the others and approaches her. “Think you’re my mummy now?”
She shakes her head, her dark curls gliding over her pale, half-exposed breasts. “No. Your conscience, who answers to a higher power.”
Mathias actually fooled some people into believing his intentions are good?
