She could run, but I’d always catch her. Drag her back to me.
She would never get away.
Because you couldn’t run from your destiny, and I’d already decided she was mine.
Arabella lunged toward our room. “Orion is about to lose it, do something!” she screamed as she entered.
Oh, I’d lost it all right. She’d find out how unraveled I was.
I opened my lips.
If she didn’t want me when I was nice, then I was done pretending.
Gold metal clicked as it floated off my ears and separated into the shards of a crown above my head.
I sucked in air.
Opened my vocal cords.
And began to si—
Oomph. Two bodies slammed against me. A hand slapped over my face, and my arms were restrained and pinned behind my back.
“What are you doing?” Corvus snarled, silver eyes frantic as he stared at me with horror.
I tried to push Scorpius off me, but his grip was rock-solid, and he used the couple inches of height he had on me to wrench my arms back further.
There was nowhere to go.
My mates boxed me out and blocked my view of Arabella as the door slammed. She’d disappeared inside our room.
I wanted to scream.
My sweetheart was so close but still out of my reach.
Corvus’s face shattered. “Are you okay? Is there something we can do to help you? Was it the fall? Did it make you worse?” Flames danced atop his skull, and he crushed me against his chest.
Corvus trembled against me while Scorpius stood stiffly.
“I’m fine,” I mouthed as I forced myself to relax. “I’m fine. I just got a little worked up. It was nothing.”
I let my head lull forward and nuzzled it against Corvus’s chest tenderly. I gave him what he needed.
Melted against him.
I gave him my obedience.
Corvus slowly relaxed against me and whispered, “Thank the sun god.”
Scorpius’s punishing grip turned into a firm embrace, and my Protector and Ignis stopped constraining.
They clung to me desperately.
I’d done the right thing.
Ever so slowly, I forced my vocal cords to untense and rebuilt my mask. The crown clicked back onto my ears. I pretended for my mates’ sake that this was what I wanted. All I needed.
Sometimes I felt like the worst Revered in history.