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"Tell ainst his hold, thrashing wildly "Let ut knotted at the anguish in her eyes But if he let her go now, he he He couldn’t be certain where she’d go And if it wasn’t the Crystal Realrip on her jaw, forcing her to look at him A sheen of perspiration da anywhere until you tell led to pull herself together though her breaths reether with a faint tremble that told him she was close to tears She blinked hard, pulled in a shuddering breath, and e" She tried to look away "Thear frowned "I didn’t think anyone knew you were alive" Those who knew the truth had a way of dying beneath Melisande’s sword Or being dragged back to the Crystal Realar stared at her, struggling to fill in the blanks Since when did the Mage attack Ilinas?

"He’s attacked you before?" He stilled "When, Ariana?"

She glanced at hio"

"You’re lying" Goose bu crashed over hiht?"

When she didn’t answer, he squeezed her jaw harder "Ao" She uish in her eyes "He all but destroyed us The moonstones were all that’s kept us safe I don’t knohy he couldn’t sense an to roll down her cheeks "But now he knows"

Kougar reeled at the implications "It was never dark spirit that attacked you, but a Mage?"

His breath lodged in his throat as his world flipped upside down, as Ariana rewrote thousand-year-old history in the space of seconds Twenty-one years ago he’d learned the Ilinas weren’t extinct That Ariana still lived Twenty-one years later, he was still reeling from that revelation But this rocked him even more Because if Ariana hadn’t been attacked by dark spiritshe wasn’t soulless The woan to shake

"Why didn’t you telldown her cheeks "Kougarit was a long tio"

"Why didn’t you tell me?"

"Because I should never have mated with you in the first place!" Brown eyes snapped open, desperation and anger in their depths "If I’d never taken you to e would have had no reason to attack us Nearly two-thirds of ar" She shook her head, a bleakness in her eyes that ain, all will die He’ll win"

His head pounded Only one thing shone through the chaos, crystal clear She wasn’t soulless

The hand holding her wrist spas her to aze "Take off your contacts"

"I need both hands"

And the moment he released her, she’d try to escape

"Open your eyes wide"

She ht him as he released her jaw and plucked out the soft discs, one after the other, tossing theaze to his with a slow, thick sweep of dark lashes Defiant eyes Brilliant blue eyes he’d drowned in once upon a tihtly His cat had known all along

His chest caved as if beneath the swing of the sledgehaone at all She never had been

He should feel relief Maybe even joy

Instead, he couldn’t breathe Everything he’d believed for a thousand years was a lie That she’d been infected by dark spirit and destroyed her race That she’d died That she’d loved him

She’d wounded him physically Emotionally Intentionally With a cruelty beyond comprehension Then walked away

He stared at her, at the stranger he’d loved, histo rewrite those two short years they’d been together

His cat growled at hiht This Ariana was the woo But she’d never been the woht she was That woman would never have ripped his heart out of his chest and walked away, leaving hirieve for a ht she ould never have been so cruel

Raw anger sparked into fla for her bound wrist Sheat him like finely honed blades, ten tiony of betrayal

His hand claht, her fine bones close to breaking beneath his grip And he didn’t care White-hot pain seared hishe’d believed was a lie His e His love

Goddess He couldn’t breathe Tipping his head back, he struggled for control, struggled to think The past couldn’t be undone But the future

He released her wrist to grab her shoulders in the sarip His jaw ached fro to free my friends"

"I can’t! I can’t turn to mist"