Page 66 of The Powers of Nyx

Ivy had been keeping the mystery mate from us. Every time he reached out, she’d hidden it, until it became too much. And I didn’t know how to feel about the secrets. Maybe it was our fault for the way we reacted to him, but it also pained me knowing she didn’t trust us enough with it.

I pressed my lips together and pulled back just enough to meet Ivy’s stare. “Do you think you’ll be okay here for a little while?” I asked carefully. “The kids will be up in a bit...”

“Yeah, of course. I’m not some broken doll, Adrian.” Her dark eyes searched mine for a moment, like she wanted to say more. But the door to the bedroom opened, and the children entered, diving onto the bed, while Thea moved a little slower, bags in hand.

I turned back to Ivy, who had a soft smile playing at her lips. “I’ll be back soon,” I promised. “Everything will be okay.”

“I know.” She curled an arm around my neck and pressed a gentle kiss to the corner of my mouth, which earned us a chorus of gags. When she pulled away, she laughed. “Don’t be too long, okay?”

“We won’t, Sweetheart.” I glanced at the kids and pointed to Maisie. “Take care of your sister.”

The six-year-old jumped to her feet on the bed, her pink pyjama set wrinkled and already stained with last night’s dessert, but she bounced over to Ivy’s side and dropped down beside her. “Got it!”

With one last kiss to her forehead, I forced myself away from Ivy’s side. The weight of her stare followed me to the door. I looked back as it closed behind me, heart squeezing at the sight of her, tired and scared, but surrounded by her sisters.

Fuck, I hoped time with them brought her some peace.

I scraped a hand through my hair and made my way out to the family room where the rest of the team waited. Tension filled the air between us as I joined Rowan on one of the sofas across from Elias and Maeve.

“Ivy and the kids are settled,” I said, leaning back with a groan. “They’ll be occupied for a while.”

“And she seemed okay?” Rowan asked carefully. Anyone else outside of our team, I might have felt a twinge of annoyance at being questioned. But deep down, I knew he belonged with Ivy just as much as the rest of us.

I nodded and spared him a look. “Yeah. As good as she can be. Scared, obviously. This whole mystery mate thing is weighing on her.”

“Understandable,” Maeve replied, voice tense. “Did she say anything else?”

“No.” I scrubbed a hand down my face and released a heavy breath. “I know she feels bad about not mentioning it.” But it was more than that. It meant in some way, she didn’t trust us—me.

Elias grunted, and I shot him a look. “It’s not like we’ve been helpful regardinghim,” he said, sitting back and crossing his arms.

Rowan laughed darkly. “Yeah,” he mused, “threatening him wasn’t smart. The consequences of our actions.”

I stiffened, and the tension thickened. But he was right. We’d openly threatened the bastard more than once. Ivy probably didn’t feel comfortable talking about him, and I didn’t blame her. We’d made it known how we felt about him—about his absence and subsequent visits—and what we thought his motives were.

“We isolated her,” I murmured, shoulders dropping in defeat.

“We cannot dwell on this.” Maeve stood, drawing our attention as she paced. Despite hiding her emotions before, sheseemed to be unravelling now. “We know what we have to do. Wemustfind this mate.”

Elias leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees as he took each of us in. “Sir Lazarus was right. We should have been doing more for Ivy. We should have fucking found him by now.”

My gut twisted. Lazarus was one of the few mates I rarely interacted with. Even when I’d been living in the Queen’s Wing, our interactions had been sparse. My father was my primary caregiver, just like Lazarus for his daughter. He’d always been at my mother’s side, like all her mates, but he was seen as her most loyal.

And the deadliest.

“Lazarus is an ass most of the time,” I muttered. “Don’t let him get under your skin. He just wants to prove he’s the standard. That if you can’t live up to him, then you can’t possibly be good enough for the Queen.”

Elias met my eye. “But he had a point, Kingsley. There’s more we can do,” he said darkly.

“Reach out to your contact, see if they’ve found anything,” I replied. “Maybe Lazarus made sense. But we’re not him. Wearen’tmy mother’s mate circle. They’ve always operated differently. Separately. But we’re a team. We need to act like it.”

Maeve slowed her pacing, eyes narrowed. “That aligns with the Seer’s hand in our creation.”

Relief flooded me. The last thing I wanted was to be like my mother’s mate circle. I loved my parents, and I cared for my siblings, but there’d been so much disconnect between us during my childhood that it’d made my life isolating and lonely. I was lucky I had my youngest sister, Lyra, there. And for a few years, the twins, before they’d found their mate and left the palace.

Maybe it was too much to be thinking about our...dynamic before we’d even seen Ivy crowned and we’d been knighted asher council. But I feared, after this morning’s meeting, we might drift apart.

Beside me, Rowan sighed. “He isn’t a villain, as much as we wish he were. At least, we shouldn’t paint him as such. For Ivy’s sake.”

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