I’m about to turn back around when I hear Ryatt say, “If that were true, then you wouldn’t have brought her here.”
I freeze. He’s talking aboutme?
“Auren is not a threat,” Slade all but growls.
My heartbeat begins to drum heavily in my chest.
“We all saw her in that ballroom. If that’s not a threat—”
“She won’t do that here.” Slade sounds so sure, but my entire body goes slick with anxious sweat.
“You don’t know that,” Ryatt counters. Slade starts to reply, but Ryatt cuts him off. “Youdon’t. And I want her gone.”
A sharp twist of pain jams in my stomach, and I look away, though instead of my gaze catching onto Lu again, this time I see the villagers. See all the people who I could hurt if I lose control.
Suddenly, fifty-seven doesn’t seem like such a small number.
Shame crawls up my neck and grips me by the throat.
“It’s not up to you, Ryatt,” Slade says, his voice gone low with the kind of anger held beneath the lid of a simmering pot. “And she’s making progress.”
“Yeah?” Ryatt snips back. “If she’s making so much progress here, then why haven’t you told Auren the truth? Why haven’t you told Auren about her? Are you ashamed?”
There’s a long, heavy pause.
That heaviness falls through my stomach like a rock down a well, cracks echoing in my ears every time it slams against my nerves.
Why haven’t you told Auren about her.
Told Auren about her.
About her.
The rock lands hard, shattering into the spoils of dread.
Her.
CHAPTER 34
AUREN
Ryatt’s sentence is still reverberatingin my head when a hand at my elbow makes me jump. I whirl around to find Lu standing at my side with a frown on her face. “What...”
“I will when she’s strong enough. I can’t overwhelm her with this,” I hear Slade say.
Lu’s black brows vault upward when she realizes I’ve been eavesdropping.
“She—”
Lu clears her throat. Loudly.
I’d glare at her, but to be honest, I don’t want to hear anymore.
Why haven’t you told Auren about her?
Are you ashamed?
There’s a pause, then footsteps, and then I feel him right at my back.
