Page 55 of Harbinger

“He’s good, I’ll give him that.”

“Kai, if that’s what you actually did—”

“Fuck, I had to!”

He jolted at my explosion.

It wasn’t exactly like me.

But things were… building up.

Not just this thing with him and the dragon. It was the fact that I’d gotten so close to reaching Ariana again, only for her to literally run from me, and then shut me down.

For her to let that fucking fear rule her and overcome everything for her again.

Only for me to fucking lose her to it once more.

I slammed my fist down on my bed. “The stakes are too high to allow anything to be off the table!”

He started shaking his head at me, pain and disappointment vying for top billing. “That’s definitely the wrong answer, Kai.”

“I know how personal it is to you because of your own issues when it comes to repression, but—”

“But nothing. This won’t end well. And joining forces with Vorzyr to get what you want, and whatever it is that he apparently wants from her… it’s fucking dangerous. All of this is. It’s fucking madness. You can’t control everything. And she falls into that category.”

“I don’t want to control her.”

“Then, what exactly is it? What’s at the root of this obsession that you have with her? You’ve never said and whenever I’vebrought it up, you’ve just shut me down or changed the subject like you always do when you get close to emotional vulnerability.”

“Stop.”

“I can read emotions, Kai, yet I’ve never been able to when it comes to your fixation withher.You guard it so tightly. So possessively, actually. You’re crushing on her, yet you also resent her? I don’t understand that. And I wonder if you even do. So, doing what you’re doing, something so despicable and extreme as using her fears of her own powers against her, I want a fucking answer,andI want to make damn sure you actually have one too.” He stepped up to me, getting rarely aggressive, because this subject matter hit so deep for him. “So fucking tell me. What the fuck do you want from her?”

“Everything!” I found myself yelling back.

“That’s not what you’re gonna get by approaching things this way!” he bit back at me just as fiercely.

“You don’t fucking know that!”

He stepped back, shaking his head again. “All you’re gonna do is cause a shitload of pain. For herandfor you. And it looks like you’ll be taking me along for the ride as well. So think long and hard about it, all right? Reassess it all, at the very fucking least.”

Before I could get a word out, he pushed past me and stormed toward the door.

I spun. “Where are you going?”

“I can’t be around you right now. I need to process what you did.” He threw the door open. “And you should do the fucking same!”

He actually startled me as he used his magic then—from his sorcerer side that he hardly ever employed—and slammed the door shut with a bolt of his vibrant-blue fire, the force of it rattling the entire room.

“Fuck,” I gritted out, slumping down onto my bed. “Fuckingshit.”

10

~Ariana~

Excitement bubbled up inside me as I took in the beautiful shimmering silver palatial estate before me.

The home to Grandfather and Gramps.

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