Page 91 of Mystic's Sunrise

“Well, well, well…” she purred, and her voice was honey laced with venom, smooth and deadly and smug. “Looks like you forgot to mention something,Kain.”

His real name—Kain.

The one I’d only ever heard whispered in the dark, in memories, in things he couldn’t bring himself to share.

It hit me like the wind being knocked from my lungs.

I turned to him slowly, my heart pounding in the back of my throat, my breath stuck somewhere in between disbelief and fear, and all I could do was look at him and hope—hope that he would speak, that he would deny it, explain it, make any of this make sense.

But he didn’t.

Mystic—myMystic—was silent.

Jaw clenched. Eyes hollow. Fists tight at his sides.

Nothing.

Not a word. Not even a lie, and I think, in that moment, I would’ve taken a lie over this silence. Because silence felt like an answer I didn’t want to hear.

I looked around the room, my gaze catching on Brenda, on Thunder, on the men who had fought for me, stood by me, carried me out of hell.

But all I saw in their eyes was pity.

And pity burned like shame.

A laugh tore from my chest, but it wasn’t a laugh at all—it was cracked and hollow and bitter, and it tasted like something dying on my tongue.

“Who is she?” I asked, and I knew my voice was shaking, but I couldn’t stop it.

The woman finally turned her gaze to me like I was a fly buzzing around her meal, annoying, insignificant.

And she smiled.

Sharp. Perfect.

Cruel.

“Oh, sweetheart,” she said, her tone syrupy and condescending, “I’m hiswife.”

The word stole what breath I had left.

Wife.

I stared at her, at him, at the space between us that had once felt like safety and now felt like betrayal carved into air.

I swayed, dizzy, my hands curling into fists at my sides just to keep myself upright, because everything inside me was collapsing and the room was starting to tilt and I didn’t know which way was up anymore.

I turned back to Mystic, begging him without words, just with my eyes, with my whole heart screaming inside me. “Tell me she’s lying.”

He opened his mouth—And closed it. There was pain in his eyes. Yes. But no denial. No soft words. No desperate plea. Notruththat could save us.

Nothing.

And that—that—was the moment I broke.

It wasn’t the woman. It wasn’t the word. It wasn’t even what she said next. It was his silence.

The man who had seen me when no one else did.

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