But she took one step back, her head swaying back and forth. “I… I don’t know what to do with this. I thought… I thought we…” She trailed off, swallowing. “I need… I need a minute.”
Her shoulders hunched as she turned away from everyone and left the room.
Titus took a step to go after her, but I called out, “No. Don’t.”
He glanced back at me as if I’d lost my mind. “Are you fucking kidding me right now?”
“Sol needs to do it,” I said, gritting my teeth at how hard it was not to follow Claire myself. “He needs to fix this.” I looked at him. “You’re either in our circle or you’re out, Sol. No more waffling. No more distrust. You fucking fix what you just did, or you leave. Your choice.”
I couldn’t stand there to see what he’d do.
Couldn’t think beyond the beating of my heart.
Because if he didn’t go to Claire and heal the pain I felt radiating from her soul, I’d fucking kill him.
Which meant I needed space, too, before I did something we’d all regret.
I grabbed my brother—who was seething just as much as I was—and forced him to follow me outside. “I need to talk to you.”
“Now?” he demanded.
“Now.” I had his shirt gripped in my fist as I all but yanked him outside. Sol’s bullshit notwithstanding, we had Elana to worry about and a trap to discuss. One I now regretted igniting because it meant she’d be here sooner rather than later.
And after that show in the living area?
Yeah, none of us were ready.
Which meant we needed a plan B.
“I want to talk about contingency plans,” I told him.
He snorted. “Why?”
I met his storming gaze. “Because we’re going to need them for when Elana realizes I’ve cut off her access to the death fields.”
His eyebrows lifted. Then a curse tumbled from his mouth.
“Yeah. My feelings exactly,” I muttered, running my fingers through my hair. “We’re going to need backup.”
He huffed a laugh. “Brother, at this point, we’re going to need a fucking miracle.”
For once, I hated that he was right.
Sol
Well, now I’d really fucked things up. I’d never seen Claire look at me like that, and I stood like an idiot in the destroyed living room.
Fix it.
Exos’s last order to me before he dragged his brother out of the room, although a part of me wanted Cyrus to try and take my head off. Prove me right. Prove what the Spirit Fae were really capable of.
Yet, if all Spirit Fae were evil, then that meant Claire was evil, too.
In my heart, I knew she wasn’t evil at all. And neither was Exos or Cyrus.
Which left me with one option—to figure this the fuck out. And, as Exos had said, fix it.
Clenching my fists, I gathered the courage to go after my mate. I’d hurt her deeply, and raw emotions ripped through the bond-mate circle. An apology wouldn’t be enough, but I had to start somewhere.