Page 150 of Claiming Pretty

Ty and Ciaran might be executed right here, right now. Or worse, one of them might do something reckless, something that would get them killed.

“The Sochai will be safe,” I promised, my voice cracking. “Your secrets will stay buried. You can keep your plans, build your new society. Just let us go.”

It felt like dying. The words left my mouth, but they left a part of my soul behind with them.

This was a retreat, a surrender of everything I had fought for. Justice for Liath, for those missing girls, for myself.

I was choosing Ciaran and Ty over those girls. Over justice. I was letting the world burn—for them.

And while it felt like dying, I knew there was no other choice I would ever make.

Quietly, I said, “I know you never wanted to kill me.”

Ebony’s gaze softened, just barely, and for a moment she looked more human than the monster I had come to fear. Her voice, when it came, was quiet, carrying a weight of regret that almost broke me. “Let’s not talk about what I wanted.”

We stared at each other across the dim tomb, the air between us thick with unspoken words and shattered dreams.

The silence was oppressive, broken only by the faint drip of water from the stone walls in one damp corner. Each drop echoed, an ominous reminder that time was running out.

I hated her. I hated what she’d become, what she’d done.

But as I looked into those pale eyes, I couldn’t deny the trace of sympathy clawing at my heart. She was twisted, corrupted by her own pain, but for a time, she had been something else to me. I had loved her.

I couldn’t reconcile that love with the revulsion churning in my gut, and it tore me apart.

We had both imagined a bright future with the other, one where she was my mother and I was her daughter. That dream, fragile as it had been, had shattered tonight.

It was gone, along with the last shred of hope I’d held for us.

And yet the ghost of it lingered, tugging at the edges of my resolve.

The glimmer of emotion in Ebony’s eyes was gone as quickly as it had appeared. She dragged her hands roughly over her face, wiping away the tears before they could fall. When she looked at me again, the cold, unyielding darkness had returned, a shield of ice encasing her heart.

“I’ll make you a deal,” she said, her voice sharp anddetached, as if the moment of vulnerability had never existed. “I’ll let you leave…”

My heart stuttered with hope.

“You… andoneof them.”

The ground beneath me felt like it was falling away. I barely registered the words, their weight too much to bear.

One of them.

It was a choice no human being could make. And yet she demanded it of me, her voice calm and indifferent, as if she were asking me to pick out a loaf of bread.

“What?” I whispered, the word barely audible, as though saying it louder would make it more real.

Ebony smiled, soft and venomous, like a snake coiling for a strike. She tilted her head, her pale eyes cold and calculating. “You heard me, darling.”

I turned my gaze to Ciaran, his cheek bloodied and his jaw tight with rage, then to Ty, whose calm facade cracked under the weight of realization.

Both of them looked at me, their expressions a heartbreaking mixture of defiance and desperation.

I couldn’t choose.

Howcould I choose?

For one to live, to carry my heart with them, while the other was left behind, condemned to the Sochai’s twisted clutches. To Ebony’s clutches. The thought tore through me, ripping me apart at the seams.

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