Page 39 of Legacy

Before I could get a word out, V told me, “We woke up and Nyx reported that he felt a massive rush of deep, heartfelt emotion from you, Kai. If that’s not enough to shock somebody wide awake, I don’t know what is.”

Nyx held up his hands. “I was just worried when you two weren’t there when we woke up, so I reached out with my senses.”

“Aww,” Ariana said, stroking my hair and face, then telling Vorzyr, “Don’t tease him about that.”

“Yeah, I see your point. Getting all of that from him is a rarity. We want to encourage it.” He grinned at me. “For all of our sakes.”

Before I could deliver a verbal sucker punch as I was highly equipped to do, Ari took to kissing all over my face, murmuring, “We absolutely do want to encourage it.”

I looked out at V as she soothed and titillated me at the same time, and I flashed him a shit-eating grin.

He rolled his eyes and Nyx chuckled.

When Ari pulled away, she winked at me, then went to V and Nyx, wrapping an arm around each of them. “I meant what I said. The promise I made.”

“I know you did,” Nyx said, nuzzling against her.

“I’m here for it, gorgeous,” V told her, running his lips over her hair and breathing her in.

She pulled back and gazed out at all of us, a noticeable melancholy coming over her as she sighed heavily, then said, “And in the spirit of that, I’m ready to talk about what happened with Cassius.”

Well, then.

That had come about much quicker than I’d anticipated.

Things were absolutely changing with her.

Evolving.

She really wasn’t running anymore.

This was the Ariana Martel I remembered, the one who’d been lost to me for so long.

But now she’d returned. The real her had risen.

And it was everything.

8

~Ariana~

“So, he threatened you,” Vorzyr growled.

It wasn’t even a question. It was a definitive statement, how he’d interpreted and catalogued what I’d just told them all about my interaction with Cassius.

“No, he threatened the three of you.”

Vorzyr scrubbed his hand over his face at my response as he stood rigidly behind the couch while I sat there on the edge after finishing conveying everything to them.

Kai was leaning against the wall beside the fireplace, his arms folded across his chest in a quiet, contemplative state as he clearly worked to analyze everything I’d said in his carefully controlled and calculated way. He was decked out in his leather trench coat with the collar turned up, a fitted black shirt beneath that gave way to his go-to black dress pants and his leather boots. His brown crew cut with the waves on top was styled perfectly again.Andhe was clutching his Aetherbound Scepter.

He was at the ready.

But Vorzyr had taken it several steps further than Kai had, making it clear he was on the offensive in every way. He’d useda mixture of his red magical flame and his shifting power to clad himself in actual armor.

He looked like an ancient war god. Matte-black plating clung to his broad, powerhouse form in sculpted panels that pulsed with a crimson undertone matching his magic. The suit moved like a second skin. A deep red cloak draped from his shoulders, the texture akin to dragon scales.

It was clear that, to him, we weren’t just talking about battling what had come our way, but that we were already actually at war in his mind.

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