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Kahn ignored the taunt. “No one threatens Randa and lives. The Light Phases will make sure Ben and Saxon are both dead men.”

“Maybe the human’s already a dead man. Maybe Sax killed him, for some reason. Maybe that’s why you can’t find him.”

“For his sake, he’d better hope so. However Saxon killed him, I could make it worse.”

Isaacs chuckled, an unholy sound that fed on suffering.

“Tell me about Randa and Parald.” Kahn ordered abruptly. That was the real reason he’d cornered the Air Phase. Isaacs had information that no one seemed willing to reveal.

Silence.

Isaacs’ face became unreadable. He didn’t make some wiseass remark. He was just… quiet.

Kahn’s stomach knotted. Randa was already pissed about the Light Phases asking questions about her past, and here he was doing it again. But he had a real bad feeling, and he needed to know the truth, if he was going to handle this right.

“I would like to think she was with Parald willingly.” He tried, because he was fucking praying for that at this point. The alternative was so much worse. “Did she want to be with Parald… or did he force her?”

More silence.

Kahn squeezed his eyes shut. “Shit.” He whispered, as all his darkest suspicions became fact.

“Shit.” Isaacs agreed without expression.

Kahn took a deep breath, his head pounding. “How long did he have her?”

“A week.”

“Shit.” He brought his arms up to squeeze the sides of his head, his brain on fire with rage and images of what must have happened to her over those seven days.

“Whatever you’re thinking, it was worse.” Isaacs assured him flatly.

Oh God… Kahn crouched down, so he could rest his forehead on his knees. “I want him dead.” He ground out. “I just want him fucking dead.”

“He is fucking dead.”

“I want to be the one who murdered him.”

“We all want that.”

Kahn swallowed, trying to think. “And what the hell is the matter with you, letting the entire realm think she was in the Air Palace by choice? She’s being attacked with eggs and called a whore!”

“Job knows what happened. Gion and the Water Phases. Saxon and some of the Air House. Probably, Sullivan Pryce suspects.” Isaacs’ voice was unapologetic. “If Randa wanted more people to know, she’d tell them herself. I won’t break her confidence.”

Tonia hadn’t wanted anyone to know, either.

Shit, shit, shit.

“What am I going to do?” He whispered to himself. “How do I fix this?” Kahn was someone who liked to fix things. Take them apart and make them better.

“You don’t fix it. You survive it.” Isaacs moved closer, crouching down so they were at eye level. His white-blue gaze saw very little and far too much. “That’s how you get through anything. That’s how you become indestructible. You just keep on surviving, no matter what.”

Randa had said something very similar, the first day the Light Phases had come to Mayport Beach. Kahn met Isaacs’ milky eyes. “You told her she could survive Parald.”

“And she did.” Isaacs smiled without humor. “You learn a lot about survival in the Air House. Randa and I have experienced shit that we will never discuss. We’re still here, though. Parald’s not. We won. So now we just lock up the darkness and move on.”

“You can’t exist like that forever.” Kahn knew that better than anyone. “You can shove it down, but the darkness eventually comes back up. It calls you, until you’re Gone Wild. That’s already happening to me and you. You want it to happen to her?”

Isaacs paused, as if he knew full well what that expression meant. His great-uncle had been a Light Phase. Kahn remembered that. Remembered this man as an undersized boy, with too-fancy clothes, and bookish ways, and a snotty attitude. The other Light Phase youths had been larger. Stronger. More physical. They’d tormented Isaacs whenever he came to visit. All but massacred him on the training fields. Left him bruised and lying in the dirt, at the end of endless days.