Page 250 of Blood and Ruin: The Complete Series

Made? That’s not possible. I had a mother. He said it himself. She gave birth to me.

“My mom—”

“Was a vessel who contributed to your birth.”

“Fuck,” someone whispers, but I can’t tell who. My brain is overloaded with Draven’s words.

I shake my head, trying to hold on to anything I know is true. “I look like her.” My green eyes and dark hair are a mirror of hers.

“She helped create you, but your birth did not come from aunionof any kind. It came from the product of power and the source of the Underworld itself.”

But she was still my mother… wasn’t she?

Kai, Rion, and Axel start drilling Draven with questions, but I can’t hear anything past the loud ringing in my ears.

You were created.

Draven's words play over and over in my head.

Created, not born. Like an object. A soulless… thing. Did I even have a soul?

My eyes widen as I glance at each of my guys. Jax and Luka and their matching scowls as they stare down Draven. Rion as he stands involved but stays quiet, listening to everything around him, absorbing it all. Axel as he tries to start a fight with Kane and Kai… Kai as he forces Draven to tell him everything he knows.

If I don’t have a soul, then how can we…

My chest gets tight at the thought of not truly being theirs. The room closes in on me, the guys too focused on Draven and shouting at him to notice I need out.

I take a step back and another and another until I’m heading out of the room. Luka finally notices, calling out to me, but I can’t hear him past the loud thrumming in my ears.

I head out of there and back upstairs. I’m not foolish enough to try to run away, but I need time. Time alone to think, to try to figure out all this mess inside my head.

I find my room, closing the door behind me. Walking to my bed, I sink to the floor. Everything runs through my head, but it’s like a fog is blocking it from processing. I can’t think or focus on one thing.

Why didn’t I know? Were there signs that I should’ve seen? My mom’s smiling faces flashes before me. Image after image of us spending time together. She always had time for me. She even sang me to sleep when I was afraid of the dark. Me, someone who is supposedly created from that very thing.

I glance down at my hands, thinking I’ll see something different, but they look the same. What if I really didn’t have a soul?

I rub my chest as the band around it squeezes tighter.

The door thrusts open, slamming into the wall as Kai and Rion stalk in. Releasing a harsh breath, I push myself up, standing in front of the bed.

“You’re not doing this. You’re not pulling away from us again. I won’t let you,” Kai tells me, his voice resolute.

“I wasn’t…” I shake my head, the knot in my throat growing. “I just need some time alone to digest all this.”

“As a family, we work as one, meaning we solve our problemstogether. We help one another. You don’t get to hide from us and take that on by yourself. That’s not how this works.”

“That’s not…” I squeeze my eye shut.

I open my eyes just as Kai moves in front of me, reaching a hand out to the side of my face. He looks down at me with a frantic energy in his eyes.

“Stop trying to fight everything alone. We’re here now.”

“Kai… I’m not… whole,” I beg him to understand. “How can I be when I was…created? My mother wasn’t…” She wasn’t a supe, and this other side of me… “I’m…” Kai’s eyes flash with resolve. “Ours. You’re ours, Kiarra. Created. Made. Whatever you want to call it, butyou are ours,andeverypart of you was made for us.”

Made… That the problem. I was made not born. I was created, so how can something molded by hell itself have a soul?

“Kai…”

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