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Arlo laughs. “What, you’re going to kill me for telling the truth?” he snaps. “Just like you tossed a match at her mother’s feet for not falling in line?”

Kylian doesn’t answer with words; when he moves, he launches with supernatural speed from the bed. His hand catches Arlo by the throat, slamming him back against the paneled door with a crack so sharp the wood splinters.

I leap after them, the sheet still clutched to my chest. “Stop! Kye—”

He ignores me. “You will not speak about what you do not know just to hurt her. If it happens again, I will open your chest so you can watch as I rip your heart from it.”

“Let him go.” I try to wedge myself between them, but the obscene strength in Kylian’s arm is like steel. I don’t want Kylian to kill him, but there’s no look of mercy in his eyes.

Arlo claws at Kylian’s wrist, gasping, all his bravado vanishing as his face splotches red and purple. Kylian’s grip doesn’t weaken.

My magic spikes—cold and blinding—but I bury it quickly. “Please.”

Kylian’s nostrils flare, fury radiating off him, but the hand loosens.

Arlo collapses, retching, sucking air. The moment he gets his voice back, he snarls, “And this is who you would trade for me? This bastard? One that will kill the people you love.”

“Only when they are trying to hurt her.” Kylian snarls and moves a step forward, but I wedge between them.

“Hurt her? I’m trying to save her from the likes of you! I’d never hurt her. I’d fucking kill for her! I fucking have!” Arlo admits, and my eyes widen that he would admit that so easily to a man who could order him killed for it.

Kylian is unfazed by his words as he leans in, making them eye level. “Killing for someone is easy. I’d fucking die for her. Can you say the same?”

The fire in Arlo’s eyes is hot enough to scorch. “What kind of question is that? Of course I would!”

Kylian scoffs. “Even if she loves another?”

I swallow thickly because that is a cruel question to ask.

Arlo glares at him.

“See, now that is the difference between you and me. You keep thinking I stole her choice, but she is the only one with a choice. She is all there is for me. Yet I stepped aside and let her be with you, knowing it might kill me, knowing it would doom my kingdom by doing so.”

Arlo glares at him. “If it wasn’t for your vampire compulsion, she would want nothing to do with you!”

“Enough!” My word cracks the air as I clutch the blanket tighter, finally stepping away from Kylian’s orbit. “You think you know what any of this is? You don’t get to judge something you can’t possibly understand.”

Arlo’s hand swipes at the back of his head with a grimace, pulling away fresh blood on his fingertips. He looks from his hand to Kylian like he may swing on him.

“Arlo, look at me.” His eyes shift, and I suck in a deep breath. “I chose this. You want the truth? I asked him to mark me.”

There’s shock, confusion, wariness in his blue gaze, but the distrust holds.

“So you could throw away every dream we had for that fucking monster?” His arm gestures vaguely at Kylian.

“Arlo, I love you, I always have and I always will. But those were your dreams. Beautiful, perfect-for-you dreams. They were never mine.”

I see the wound my words have carved, but he needed to hear them.

“He’s brainwashed you, and you’re to blind to even see it!”

Kylian’s gaze flicks to me for the briefest second, something unreadable passing through his expression, before it hardens again and returns to Arlo.

“I’ve never taken her choice,” he says.

“That’s a fucking lie—”

“No,” Kylian cuts in. “What’s a lie is you pretending you ever gave her one.”