Page 69 of Tangled Hearts

Ryder spoke, but I stopped listening. Closing my eyes, I tried to keep my tears at bay, but my heartache was too much.

“Blondie.” Soren’s voice was close to me, making me flinch. “We didn’t know it was you, she didn’t give us any details other than we needed to steal a princess and that she needed it done by Beltane.”

Soren knelt in front of me.

“She didn’t give us many details and she never said her name,” Ryder said quickly. “We didn’t know it was you, I swear it.”

“Sunshine, we came for our friend. The one you met at the castle,” he said looking panicked. “She was the reason we looked for the Oria, it was just a coincidence that we had been hired to take you.”

Their feelings were varying degrees of panic and fear.

“How did you get that necklace? The one Gray wore to get in?”

“We took it from Katarina and her mates. A man tried to take her with that necklace since she was trapped just like you. Our information about Oria came from a man saying there was a barrier and we needed something powerful to get through,” Gray said. “So when we saw what the necklace did, we took it in hopes that we could use it to get the Oria for Katarina.”

What they said sounded true, but she had put the seed of doubt in me and now I couldn’t even trust my own feelings.

“Feel the bond, Blondie,” Soren said. “Trust it. Whatever happens, this is what she or Tay wants. We would never hurt our mate.”

Closing my eyes, I felt the bond. It was strong, tinged with worry and unease, but if I searched a bit more, I felt their love. It tied all of us together and now I felt a faint pull to Max.

The bond tied us together, our tangled hearts were always supposed to be together. I opened my eyes as a few tears escaped.

“In every lifetime,” I said, trusting the bond.

He was right, they wanted us apart and would say anything to make me doubt them because we were stronger together.

20

GRAY

When Oria fainted on us, we all panicked. She was breathing, but she was unresponsive. We felt magic was at play, but we didn’t know if it was a mental attack on her or if someone had purposefully made her faint to make her easier to get to.

Soren and Ryder argued about what to do as I stared at my Sunshine. The bond was muted, almost like there was static, but I could still get glimpses of it every now and then. Her breathing was even, she didn’t look or feel like she was in pain.

That’s when Ryder remembered the vial Addie had given him. Ryder and Soren argued again, but I was tired of waiting. I took the vial and gave it to her. She woke up, her face morphed with pain and she shot straight up into a sitting position.

Her face was down, not looking at us and when she wanted space, I just about forced her to speak to us, but I knew something bad had happened. The bond felt chaotic with all of her emotions ranging from sadness to anxiousness.

That's when we felt her fear and since the attack, she had been sitting on whatever was bothering her. Even now that we were all in the living room, she hadn’t explained herself, but asked about the potential job we had been called to do.

Taylin or Laima was behind this because how would she have known about the job, but more importantly we didn’t know it was about her. Now her actions made sense but what was most important was that she trusted us.

“In every lifetime,” she said.

“It will always be us in every lifetime,” the guys and I said together.

“Laima either pulled me into a dream or pulled my mind somewhere else,” she said, looking vulnerable. “She told me about the job and said she gave you the necklace.”

Ryder growled as Soren tensed right next to me. Before they could say something stupid I said, “Why didn’t you say anything immediately?”

“The way she explained it made sense and made it awfully suspicious,” she said, biting her lip. “I've been taken advantage of all my life. People have moved me like a pawn on a chess board. I knew she might be lying, but I couldn’t fight the fact that you guys could also be lying too.”

“No one could go against their mate bond,” Ryder snapped, but when she gave him a pointed look, he muttered sorry.

“I had no idea what a bond was before you. I don't know the ins and outs, but I do know that everyone has always used me for their benefit and not even you are immune to that,” she said, glaring at Ryder. “You can’t tell me that you didn’t have the thought of selling what I could make at first, or even have thought about it now.”

“I… I was too busy ignoring the bond to think of keeping you prisoner for my own gain, but even then, I talked about selling what you already had.” Ryder tried to defend himself.

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