Page 166 of Ulune's Daughter

“Luca, I can’t find any wound that caused all this blood?—”

I look over at Luca. He meets my eyes. The left side of his face is scorched and sooty. His hair is blond.

My mind aligns their faces: Lawson’s scorched on the right, Luca’s on the left. Perfect mirror images, they make one face under that shock of sweaty, matted blond hair.

A single face.

As realization hits me in a sickening wave, Luca says, “He was stabbed. A Mirk blade punctured his lung. I sealed it so he wouldn’t bleed to death but he needs a healer.” He lifts his hands, bloodied to the elbow like his brother’s. Like histwin’s. “I’m all out. I used everything I have pulling Rhodes back from the Mother.”

“You’re twins,” I blurt.

Under the blood and soot, Luca goes white. His hand, resting on Rhodes’ chest, trembles.

“And you and Rhodes?” Pieces slot together in a picture that makes my stomach roil. “How long have you been together?”

“Since our freshman year,” Luca whispers.

I look up at the twilight sky to keep tears from falling. Clench my fist against my stomach to keep from hurling. “You’re all students. All three of you.”

Luca doesn’t answer me. I focus on him again through a wet blur. “Why? Did you-did you do it to sabotage me? So, my career at Bevvy would be over before it even began? To eliminate me as your competition?”

“No!” Luca bursts out. He looks as panic-stricken as when he begged me for Rhodes life. “Kellan, no! I’d never sabotage you. It wasn’t me. I never lied to you?—”

“You lied to me every day!” I shout at him. “You lied by omission! You knew-did you know everything? Did you know I was involved with Rhodes or did he keep it from you like he kept you from me?” I press my hand against my temple. “No, surely Law told you?—”

“I knew,” Luca says, his pale green eyes searching mine.

“Did you all ... I don’t even know what to call what you’ve done. Did you conspire ... together? Laugh at what you were doing to me?” My voice cracks and the ground rumbles under my shins. “Did you have some grand plan to fuck me over?”

“No! There was never any plan. We never tried to fuck you over. You’re my fated mate, too. I wouldn’t ever hurt you.”

I rise to my knees, my hands curling into fists, claws cutting into my palms. “Never hurt me? Luca, youknewfrom the beginning how I felt! I told you there were lines I’d never cross. Maybe Law and Rhodes didn’t know but you knew from the first day?—”

“It’s a stupid fucking rule,” Luca snarls. “We’re all adults?—”

“It doesn’t matter if you think it’s a stupid rule!” I yell. “What matters is breaking that rule could end my fucking career! And you knew it right from the start! But you did it anyway?—”

“Don’t you lump me in with them.” Luca raises a hand, his index finger shaking like a leaf in a hurricane, pointing at me. “Don’t. I never lied to you. I told them to come clean with you. I abided by your fucking rule even though it meant they got to be with you and I didn’t.”

“Are you seriously saying that to me? You want me to feel sorry for you that you only deceived me behind my back while they did it to my face? You arenotinnocent, Luca?—”

“Neither are you,” he spits. “Caileán knows everything. She’s told Law it doesn’t matter. That it’s his fuckingdevotionthat matters, not his deception. Caileánisyou. She’s told Law that a hundred times. So somewhere in there, you already knew everything. About Law and Rhodes being students. About Rhodes and me. About Law being your damn cat.”

I squeeze my eyes closed as his words jackhammer my heart.

Whitey. My little hero.

The picture becomes so clear. Why Whitey followed me home and stayed. Why he was jealous of Rhodes. Why I woke up sated even before I started sleeping with Rhodes?—

I hunch over as my belly clenches. My throat burns. I gag and spit out a mouthful of bile that eats away at the grass like acid and sinks down into the black soil.

“Get out,” I whisper, my claws digging into the grass. “Get the fuck out of my realm.”

“Kellan—” Luca begins.

Beside me, Lawson groans, deep and pained.

I lift my head and glare at Luca. “Help me take them to the healers.”

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