Page 28 of Mantle

Me pulling away.

I had developed a track record of doing that.

I’d done it with Kai for a long time, pulling away when we were younger.

And I’d done it in the beginning of our foursome relationship.

But that was then.

No more.

Things were different now.Iwas different.

There wasn’t that need to shut down, or to really pull away.

I’d honestly just wanted to be able to get my head on straight, and that had been the extent of it.

Because now… now I wanted to share with my boys.

The highs and lows. My accomplishments and failures. My hopes and fears.

What troubled me.

And, in this case, what troubled me greatly.

There was only one exception to that—Sylas Morgrave’s warning.

I couldn’t tell my men right now, not after what had just happened with Ketheron, how his blood had been so incredibly dangerous and detrimental to me.

Not until I had an answer, until I’d found some way to ensure my death couldn’t actually come to pass. I couldn’t bear to put that on the guys after everything else we’d been through without having a solution first.

“It was intense,” I told them. “That a being like Ketheron exists is dire enough without the added aspect of him apparently existingjustto kill me.” I sighed. “But you also saw and heard him. He didn’t want to be that. He doesn’t want to harm me.”

“He did already,” Kai pointed out, just as I’d been expecting. “He poisoned you.”

“In a misguided attempt to heal me when he crushed my throat accidentally. He wasn’t used to his own strength. It sounds like he’s been isolated and kept from physical touch.”

“Intentions are just a small part of it, sweetheart. He still did it. He still harmed you. Twice in the space of a few moments, actually. And he was still sent here to kill you.”

“And yet, we have the means to rise above our natures.”

“This is different. What he is, Ari… he’s a killing machine. One essentially programmed to killyou.We can’t overlook something that monumentally horrifying just because hemightnot want to fulfil said programming.”

“He’s not a robot. He’s fully sentient. You saw for yourself.”

“We don’t know that for certain. He did demonstrate that to some degree, but he was also screaming out about not wantingto do something thattheywere clearly ordering him to, and then he lost the battle and took off on whatever that disturbing mission from on high was.”

“He was experimented on, Kai,” Nyx murmured. “Brutally, from what he mentioned.”

“I know. I know he was. And I agree that it is brutal that happened to him. But none of that negates the threat that he poses to Ariandthe entire supernatural world. The Guardian Movement is so concerned that your Underveil Shield is being erected immediately. They’re in a frenzy, snapping into action, taking immediate steps because he’s such a formidable threat.”

“And as such aformidable threat,perhaps the way to approach it, to approachhim, isn’t through aggression or fighting threat with threat, fire with fire,” I told Kai.

Nyx shifted on the bed and regarded me curiously. “You want to try to reach him?”

“He already feels a connection to me. That was made abundantly clear.”

“To reach him would involve drawing close to him, likely even being in physical proximity,” Kai warned.

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