Page 16 of High Noon

His cheeks flamed. Yep. He likes Yarrow.

“She was able to unlock all of Kael’s encryptions,” he deflected quickly.

My brows shot up. “She outsmarted Kael?”

“So it would seem.” Maru was proud. He gave a sly grin that was quickly erased by a yawn.

How could he be tired? There was no way I would be able to sleep, knowing that Enoch was out there hunting my counterparts. I ignored the anxious thrumming in my chest. He would kill Abram. As awful as he’d been to me, I knew now that some of it was due to his training and conditioning. Kael turned him into my enemy, erasing some of the actual events that pitted us against each other, while reinforcing others. He trained Abram to hate me. Trained him to kill me. But I didn’t understand why.

Abram came pretty close a few times back in the arena. On multiple occasions, he would’ve ended me if it hadn’t been for Maru’s intervention. Although I only remembered a few close calls, I realized they were just the tip of a bigger iceberg I could only now comprehend because I’d looked beneath the water’s surface. Somehow, time travel awakened something in Abram that Kael could no longer suppress.

The fire slowly died down to a glowing pile of embers. Maru nudged me. “You should rest.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “It’ll be a long day tomorrow.”

He laid down on a fur Kohana provided and I stretched out on another. I closed my eyes, listening for what felt like hours, until Maru’s breathing became slow and even. When I opened them again, I found that Kohana’s were fixed unflinchingly on me.

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