He shakes me. “You’re lying, Serena! What are you not saying? I am so tired of the secrets!”
“So am I!” I shove back. “You’ve kept your fair share of them, and look what’s happened!”
“I lied because I care about you!”
Which is exactly what I’m doing now.
But he keeps pushing. “If you weren’t my mate, you’d feel nothing when you looked at me. And you don’t feel nothing. Do you?”
Of course, I feel something. Even knowing what I do, I feel compelled to be close to him, the same way I do with Zadyn. And Kylian.
What kills me most is the fact that there is still so much love between us. Love that I am crushing beneath a steel-toed boot.
“Stop fighting it. Stop fighting me. I don’t care what the Fates say, I don’t care what the gods say. I don’t care if they made Kylian or Zadyn your mate, because in my bones I know that you are mine. I know that I could never belong to anyone else because I have always been yours. So don’t you dare tell me I’m wrong. Don’t you dare tell me it’s over.”
His mouth slams into mine. And before I can protest, I’m kissing him back so hard it hurts.
It isn’t gentle. It isn’t kind. It is fueled by desperate need, by grief, and stubborn defiance.
I break away, shoving out of his arms and sprinting off—my heart beating out of my chest and my cheeks streaked with stinging tears.
It’s official.
I’m swearing off men.
Should have done it a long time ago. But my middle name is pushover.
I am a pushover for all three of them.
My mates. All of whom hate each other and will probably very soon end up hating me.
How is this supposed to work? What are holidays going to be like? Are they supposed to share me? How is that fair? Am I supposed to rotate beds every night for the rest of eternity?
Fuck this. And fuck you, universe. Fuck you, Fates.
I asked forone. One person to spend my life with. Notthree.
I asked for a love as easy as breathing. Turns out knowing who you’re meant to be with is just as complicated as spending thirty years blindly guessing.
So thank you. Batting a thousand here.
You are doing the right thing,Furi assures me.
Sure doesn’t feel that way.
It makes sense now—Furi telling me to stay away from Jace and that I belonged to another. She had been talking about Zadyn. She hadn’t known about a third mate until I did, let alone that it was Kylian.
I push open Zadyn’s door to find him peering out the window. The fires from the attack are still going strong, eating their way through the hills below. He glances up, and the desire to rush to him and bury myself in his warmth slams into me.
“How’s he taking it?”
“How you’d expect.” I trudge into the room, hiding my face in my hands. “This is such a disaster.”
The conversation with Jace keeps playing on a loop in my head. And it tastes like regret. But the fact is, bad things do happen whenever we get together or come close to it. And lately, being around him feels more nuclear than being around Kylian.
We were doomed from the start.
Zadyn’s arms fold around me, easing some of the tightness from my chest.
