Page 170 of Infernal Bonds

“It wasn’t a question.” I took a step toward her. “But you’re mistaken.”

She planted her hands on her hips. “Oh, really?”

“Really. And I think if you set aside your emotions, you’d agree with me.”

“How am I mistaken?”

“Father believes you aren’t worthy of your rightful place with us.”

Her throat worked with a swallow. “My rightful place?”

“You’ve bonded with Ash. It appears your tether with the others is strengthening. You belong here.”

I refrained from mentioning myself. We could never be. I wouldn’t allow it. She’d be safe with my brothers, not me.

She pressed her lips together and looked away.

“I don’t think you are inferior, but I know nothing more than what Quinfina revealed to us. That alone makes you a liability to Father.”

She tugged on the hem of her skirt—the same style of skirt that taunted me and made my fingers twitch as if they possessed a mind of their own. “I’m sorry I implied you were a bad person.”

Before I knew it, I’d taken a step closer.

My shadows moved beneath my skin, unsettled.

She finally lifted her head to look at me. “And I meant what I said in the living room,” she added, moving past the apology before I could respond. “I can’t transform. I feel nothing. No surge of power. No changes in my body. Nothing.”

“Then you’ll agree to Father’s tests?”

Her mouth twitched, the only sign that she disliked what she was about to say. “Yes. I wanna know who I am.”

“Good.”

She turned to walk away.

“Father has also instructed me to inform you that until we know more, you’re not allowed to leave the palace grounds or the area around our home.”

She froze in place, her hands curling into tight fists at her sides. Slowly, she turned to me. “Excuse me?”

Her frustration perplexed me. She’d agreed to this very condition prior to the incident that followed the Divine Fortune Ball.

“Cornaith might have you all under his control, but not me. I agreed to the testing, but I was told I wasn’t a prisoner here. And now you’re saying I’m bound to this place like a prison?”

“You agreed to—”

“I compromised to make y’all comfortable. I didn’t want any of you to get sick or my bond with Ash to suffer because he thought something had happened to me while I was in Alonia too long.”

“I fail to see why you can’t continue to compromise.”

She dropped her head back, exasperated. “Ugh. Really? You don’t see the difference between having a discussion with me and offering a compromise I accepted versus your jackass of a father demanding I fall in line like the rest of you? I thought you were more intelligent than that.”

The insult settled but didn’t sting. She was right. Several incidents this month had tried my patience, but I had to agree with her assessment. I’d allowed too much to interfere with my mind. I needed to put an end to it before someone paid for my ineptitude.

“I can see the difference.”

“Then you can understand why I won’t comply.”

“No. I can’t.”