Page 236 of Of Sins and Sacrifice

“I don’t under?—”

“Blood will tell,” she mentions before her gaze moves past me, her head tilting to the side.

“You should not be here,” she states suddenly, but she’s not talking to me. I turn, but no one is there. “It is not nice of you to come here uninvited.”

The air thickens and a wave of pure electricity sweeps around us.

Suddenly, her eyes are back to normal and she jumps back, startled.

“I apologize again if I said something wrong,” she murmurs, her countenance withdrawn.

“What did you mean by that?”

She shakes her head. “I don’t know either. Sometimes I just… see things.” She gulps down. “There is someone after you, Minnie. Someone very, very powerful. You should fortify your mental shields.”

“Who—”

I don’t get to finish my question because she vanishes. One moment she’s there, the next she’s gone.

What… this room is supposed to be full of inhibiting runes. How did she do this?

Was she even real?

As I stare at the empty space, I wonder if perhaps I didn’t make her up.

But the things she said… How could she know Mine is sick?

Yet what she said about the House of Moirai continues to ring in my mind long after she’s gone. I’ve never given much thought to the fact that I might have a fated mate, someone other than Mine.

Fury grips me in a tight vise. No, that cannot be. There cannot be anyone but Mine for me.

Would doing what she said, cutting my thread of fate, allow me to be with Mine without worry?

More doubts spring to my mind. I don’t know whether I should pay attention to anything she said. But it wouldn’t hurt to investigate, no?

After all, I would do anything to be with Mine. Even cutting all the fated ties to my world.

The same pricking sensation washes over me, and as I gaze down the railing, I see Cerenios in the middle of the ballroom, dressed in a new suit, his eyes on me.

I gasp and fall backward. Scrambling out of the crammed space, I almost fall down the stairs in my attempt to flee. But as I reach the bottom, I come face-to-face with him.

“What were you doing with her?” he rasps out in a harsh voice.

I stare up at him bewildered.

“Who?”

“Arwyn. Why were you with her?”

The girl… She was real then.

“I—”

“Come.” He grabs my hand and pulls me away from the crowd toward a hidden door. As soon as he steps in front of it, the door opens and we’re out of the ballroom.

The absence of the inhibiting runes is immediately noticeable as a whisper of power tingles in my fingertips. But if I have my powers back, then so does he.

By the Source, he can andmightkill me.

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