I looked at each of them in turn, these four men who had destroyed me so completely. Three weeks of agony. Three weeks of feeling them try to replace me with other women. Three weeks of whispering and stares and complete isolation.
Something cold and dead had taken root inside me where my heart used to be.
“Leave,” I repeated.
“Jupiter, honey—” Percy started.
“Don’t you dare call me that,” I snapped. “Get out.”
“We’re not leaving,” Eris said, stepping forward. “Not until you hear us out.”
They didn’t understand. They couldn’t see that it was too late, that they’d broken something inside me that couldn’t be fixed with explanations or apologies.
The calm shattered. Rage exploded through me like a supernova, and I scrambled to my feet, standing on my mattress so I towered over them.
“GET OUT!” I screamed, my voice raw and savage. “GET THE FUCK OUT!”
They flinched but didn’t move. My magic surged in response to my fury, starlight coalescing in my palm, forming a jagged shard that pulsed with deadly energy.
“Jupiter—” Percy stepped closer, hands raised placatingly.
I hurled the starlight shard past his head, deliberately missing by inches. It struck the wall behind him with a sizzlingcrash, scorching a black hole through the stone. The acrid smell of smoke filled the room.
“I HATE YOU!” I screamed, my voice breaking. “I hate all of you! You didn’t even give me a chance to explain! You just believed the worst of me and threw me away!”
Tears streamed down my face now, but I was beyond caring. Three weeks of bottled agony poured out of me in a torrent.
“I’m going to find a way to break this bond if it kills me,” I snarled, another shard of starlight forming in my palm. “And then I’ll find a shield that won’t fucking break my heart the first time someone lies about me!”
“We deserve that,” Draco said quietly, not flinching away from my rage. “All of it. We failed you.”
“You did more than fail me,” I hissed. “You destroyed me. I felt everything—EVERYTHING—you did with those women. Every kiss, every touch, every time you tried to fuck them to forget me.”
Aiden made a strangled sound, his face ashen. “Jupiter, we didn’t know?—”
“Bullshit!” I hurled the second shard, this time at the floor between them. It exploded in a shower of silver sparks. “You knew exactly what a bond meant! You knew I could feel you! You just didn’t care!”
Percy looked physically ill, his hands shaking. “We thought you were blocking us. We thought?—”
“You thought wrong,” I cut him off. “And now you want what? Forgiveness? To pretend none of it happened?”
“We want a chance,” Eris said, his voice breaking. “A chance to make it right.”
“There is no making it right,” I said, my voice dropping to a whisper as exhaustion suddenly replaced the rage. I sank back down onto the bed, all my energy drained. “It’s too late.”
“Don’t say that,” Percy moved toward me, reaching for my hand.
I jerked away from his touch. “Don’t. Don’t you ever touch me again, Percy.” I tried to breath through my nose, desperately stifling a sob. “I can’t do this right now. I need you to leave.”
“We’re not giving up on you,” Draco said quietly. “On us.”
“There is no more us, don’t you get that? Maybe there never really was. It’s not like you chose it in the first place. I don’t know what I even expected. Maybe this whole thing was my fault for believing I could be this lucky.
Percy’s eyes were swimming with tears. “Baby?—”
“I said LEAVE!” I shouted, my magic flaring around me in warning.
They exchanged glances and slowly backed toward the door.
