61. Harlow
“What the fuck do you mean, Dr. Bloom?” I demanded, narrowing my gaze on Elias as something cold twisted in my chest.
Sina’s eyes snapped to mine. “You didn’t know?” Disbelief sliced through her voice. “You expect me to believe this is some kind of coincidence?”
“No, darling. I didn’t fucking know .”
She let out a sharp, brittle laugh. “What, next you’re going to tell me they’re both real therapists?”
I eyed Eli again with suspicion, maybe he was, I wasn't sure. But how the hell would I know? It’s not like I’d talked to the raven much over the last decade.
I shook my head once, sliding my gaze back to Sina’s hostile one. “No, Nikolai is definitely not. But Eli…” I lifted a shoulder. “Maybe he picked up a new career he forgot to mention.”
Rafe moved toward her carefully, but she crossed her arms immediately, the warning clear before he could take another step.
“I didn’t know, honey,” he said quietly. “The first time I ever heard about you was the night you met Kiron.”
She didn’t fully relax, but something shifted. Just a fraction. Her shoulders dropped.
“I believe you, Rafe.”
I huffed. “Oh, so you believe the bear but not me?”
“Bear?” Her gaze flicked between us.
Rafe gave a grim nod in confirmation.
Kiron growled from across the room, low and dangerous. I could see how close he was to the edge. His shoulders were hunched, breath shallow, control fraying. Sina noticed too.
“Ki, are you okay?” she asked softly .
I fucking hated it. I hated her fear more than anything else. She was the queen of this hive, and no one in this room would ever hurt her.
“Sina, we might be monsters, but you have complete dominion over us,” I said.
She eyed me for a moment, her shoulders slowly relaxing before she crossed the room and wrapped her arms around Kiron’s middle. He sagged into her like he’d been holding himself upright on pure will alone.
“You’re not the only one who’s been left out of the loop, princess,” Kiron muttered into her hair.
Jealousy flared hot and sharp. Not because my best friend was holding my girl, but because she’d believed Rafe so easily and comforted Kiron without question. Me? She looked at me with rage. And I wasn’t sure why.
‘She knows about me,’ Ghost reminded me, and I cringed.
Yeah. She was probably making that connection, wasn’t she?
Ghost paced beneath my skin, restless. He wanted to shift, curl around her, soothe her the only way he knew how.
Not now , I warned him.
“Sina,” Elias murmured. “I didn’t tell anyone about our sessions.”
Every head in the room snapped toward him.
I pushed off the shattered bookshelf, boots crunching over broken glass. “Hold up,” I said flatly. “Sessions. As in plural ?”
Nik was already moving, fury rolling off him in controlled, lethal waves. He grabbed Elias’ face, fingers digging in hard enough to bruise.
“How fucking long have you been keeping this to yourself, Eli?”
“About a year.” His eyes never left Sina.
Nik’s grip tightened. “Why?”
“I knew she was our mate,” Our? I frowned, rubbing my jaw as he continued, “and if I’d told you from the start, you never would have accepted her. ”
Sina went still.
“Blood mate,” she repeated slowly. “You all keep saying that like I’m supposed to know what it means.”
No one answered.
Her eyes flashed. “Explain it. Now .”
Elias exhaled quietly. “A blood mate is a human who has touched death and came back changed. Not everyone survives that kind of trauma with their soul intact. The ones who do carry a piece of death with them. It alters their blood.”
Sina’s face went pale. Across the room, Rafe went rigid. Their eyes met for one charged second, and something silent passed between them. He knew exactly what this meant. Exactly what she had survived.
Her throat worked. “Alters it how?”
“It makes it compatible with creatures like us,” Elias said gently. “Vampires. Beasts. Things that were never meant to bond with humans.”
The room went dead silent.
“You’re saying my blood is… what? ” she asked.
“It anchors us. Calms the beast and strengthens the bond inside a hive. Without a blood mate, vampires eventually lose control of what we are.”
Kiron’s jaw clenched. Rafe looked like he wanted to cross the room and hold her, but he stayed where he was.
“That’s why hives fight wars over them,” Elias continued. “Why mateless hives hunt for them. And why Nik was terrified of bringing you into this one.”
Sina stared at him, her expression hardening by the second.
“So you manipulated my entire life, because my blood is useful to you?”
Elias’ jaw tightened. “No. Because you’re the only thing that might save them. ”
Ghost stirred again, irritation bleeding through his instinct to protect our mate. Elias had crossed a line that demanded blood. I didn’t disagree, but this wasn’t my call.
Sina slipped free of Kiron’s arms and stalked across the room toward Elias. I smirked. God helped him when Sina was pissed.
“I told you about Logan and… Keith . I told you everything .”
“I didn’t betray that trust, little feather.”
“Don’t call me that .” She snapped angrily. “You pretended to care for a year, Bloom.” Her voice dropped, rough and wounded. “I don’t even know what to call you now.”
“You can call me anything you want, little—”
He stopped himself. His back stiffened.
“Why? You wouldn’t answer Nik, so answer me. Why keep them from me for a year? Did you just want me all to yourself?”
“They weren’t ready then.”
“ Bullshit ,” I cut in. “I would’ve accepted her immediately.”
Elias’ gaze met mine, guarded. Calculating. “I couldn’t risk that, Harlow. Not after what happened to Clarissa.”
I flinched. He wasn’t wrong. None of us were proud of who we’d been back then.
“Fine,” I ground out. “You’ve got a point. But Rafe?” I jerked my chin toward him. “He would’ve been the safest choice. Why didn’t you tell him?”
Elias pushed out of Nik’s space, running a hand through his curls.
“You’re right. Rafael would have been a good choice. But I chose Kiron.”
“Me?” Kiron barked. “What the fuck do you mean you chose me?”
But Sina spoke before he could .
“Elias got me the job at Jack’s. He knew I’d meet you eventually.” Her voice broke just enough to hurt. “How could you do that? I’ve never felt more manipulated than I do right now.”
“I’m sorry, Sina,” Elias said. “It was never my intention to hurt you. I did what I believed was best for the hive.”
“No. You did what was best for you.” Her laugh came out broken and sharp.
She scrubbed angrily at her face, wiping away a tear like it offended her.
“I trusted you.” Her voice shook, the anger cracking open to something raw underneath.
“I was so fucking broken, Elias. You knew that . You watched me fall apart on that couch week after week, and you let me. You let me care about you. Trust you. ”
Elias opened his mouth.
“Don’t,” she snapped. “Don’t explain it. Don’t justify it. You don’t get to soften this.”
Tears slid free despite her effort to stop them, and she looked furious at herself for it.
“I can’t believe you kept this from me. From all of us.” Her gaze dragged slowly around the room, landing on each of us in turn. “You all kept things from me too.”
“You could have told me about your dragon, Kiron,” she said, meeting his eyes.
Kiron stiffened.
“But you didn’t.” Then her gaze cut to me, sharp and knowing. “You could have told me about Ghost too, Harlow.”
Ghost went deathly still inside me. The silence was unbearable.
“Sina—” Nik started.
She lifted a hand without looking at him. “I think I’ve had enough surprises for one day, don’t you, Nik?” Her voice trembled. “I need space. ”
“You can’t leave the manor,” Nik said tightly. “Not with Keith still out there. It isn’t safe.”
She stopped at the door, her back to all of us. For a second, I thought she might turn around.
She didn’t.
“Fine.”
The word was flat. Empty. Worse than screaming.
She opened the door and stepped through without looking back. It closed behind her with a soft, final click.
No one moved.
I stared at the door long after she was gone, something sour and sick twisting in my chest.
“We all fucked up,” I said. “We should have just told her everything from the start.”
Rafe nodded slowly. “She still doesn’t know our venom will seal the bond permanently either, does she?”
No. She didn’t.
And I, for one, wasn’t going to keep anything from her ever again.