Page 155 of Claiming Pretty

Tears blurred my vision, mixing with strands of my damp hair plastered to my face.

“Ty, let me go!” I screamed, my voice raw with desperation as I punched and kicked out, but he only grunted and shifted my weight.

“Ciaran!”

I saw him—my Scáth—just as Ty turned toward the passagetomb.

Ciaran’s jaw tightened, and his head dipped, turning away as if hiding the agony he couldn’t keep contained, his hand flexing uselessly at his side. He wouldn’t even look at me, and that hurt more than anything. It was as though he’d already resigned himself to his fate.

The jagged doorway of the tomb loomed closer. Each step Ty took brought me farther from Ciaran, farther from the brother he’d sworn to protect, and I lost myself in mypanic. I kicked harder, screaming his name with everything I had left, but Ty’s grip didn’t falter.

“Stop it, Ava,” Ty muttered, his voice hollow, like he couldn’t even bear to hear the sound of his own words.

“No!” I thrashed, clawed, and shoved against his back, but it was like hitting stone. I begged him, cursed him, accused him of cruelty, of heartlessness.

“I’ll never forgive you, Ty! Let me go! Ihateyou!” My voice broke on the word, a sob tearing from my chest.

Ty flinched under me, his step faltering for the first time. The smallest crack in his resolve.

And it shattered me. I knew, deep down, that he wasn’t heartless. He was just as broken by this as I was.

I knew my words hurt him, cut him as deeply as a blade.

But I had no other weapon, no other way to fight back, so I wielded my grief and rage against him, hoping—praying—it would be enough to stop him.

But Ty was stronger, his grip like a vise as he carried me through the doorway and up the slick stone stairs, one determined step at a time. Each one echoed in my ears like a death knell.

With every step, Ciaran’s figure grew smaller, swallowed by the dark of the tomb.

“Scáth!” I screamed, my voice breaking as I reached for my shadow, who was already vanishing from me.

Ty kept climbing, his pace steady despite my struggling.

My fists pounded uselessly against his back as my world narrowed to the doorway—the one that would seal my fate. The one that would leave Ciaran behind.

My heart shattered when he appeared one last time in the fading light of the tomb, guards holding him back.

“Ava!” His scream echoed in the passage, raw and filled with every ounce of love and anguish he felt. “I love you!”

Something inside me broke at those words. A fury I hadn’t known I possessed burned through me, blinding in its intensity.

No. I wouldn’t let this happen. I couldn’t. I would not condemn another brother to prison, to pain, because of me.

Before I could think, I drove my knee into Ty’s stomach with all the force I could muster.

He grunted in pain, faltering as the air rushed from his lungs. His grip loosened, just enough for me to slip free.

I hit the stairs hard, the jagged edges biting into my skin, but I scrambled to my feet before Ty could recover.

“Don’t shoot her!” Ebony’s voice rang out, sharp and panicked, as the guards lifted their weapons toward me.

I didn’t care.

All I saw was Ciaran, his bloodshot eyes locking on mine, his expression a mix of anguish and love so profound it felt like it would break me.

I lunged for him, my hands outstretched—

And then came the pain, sharp and blinding, as something struck the back of my skull.

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