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Thia tightened her grip. “My aunt Mari always says that family isn’t about the blood you share. It’s about the people willing to bleed for you.”

Those words brought a lump to her throat and she wasn’t sure what to make of them. This wasn’t the kind of attitude she was used to. In her world, family was the first to bleed you, and strangers bled you out totally. Honestly, she couldn’t imagine the world Thia and the Hauks described.

“Mari sounds like a very wise woman.”

Laughing, Thia patted her arm. “He is very wise. And our extremely large family is always willing to grow even bigger. So welcome to it.”

Thia’s naive sweetness confused her. “That’s not very Andarion, is it? I thought blood was the only thing that mattered.”

Hauk grunted. “It is and it’s not.”

Sumi sighed at his evasive answer. “I think you two like messing with my head.”

Thia wrinkled her nose. “It is fun toying with new people. But back to your question, while it is rare for Andarions to adopt, it’s not unheard of. Again, it has to be initiated by a female who is willing to bring the child into her lineage… it’s why I’m still allowed to be princess even though I’m a bastard.”

“Thia!” Hauk snapped. “You would make Kiara cry with that statement, and rile your father.”

She rolled her eyes. “It’s true and we all know it. While my grandmother has been extremely loving and accepting of me, I see how she looks at Zarina.”

“Zarina is an infant,” Hauk growled.

“And she looks Andarion. Fully.”

Hauk paused. “Is that what’s been bothering you?”

Sumi saw the tears in Thia’s eyes before she blinked them away.

“Forget I said anything.”

Hauk started for her, but Sumi held her hand up to stop him.

“Why don’t you two go on ahead and let us catch up in a few?”

Hauk considered it for several minutes before he nodded. “Illyse, stay with Thia.” Then he motioned for Darice to follow him.

Sumi gave them a decent head start before they resumed their trek. “Zarina is your sister?”

She nodded. “I love her. But she’s so strange-looking with her Andarion eyes and thick black hair and claws. None of my brothers were born like that. They all look human.”

“Does it bother you that she’s Andarion in appearance?”

“No.” She brushed at a tear that fell down her cheek.

“Thia? What is it?”

More tears fell as her lips quivered. “Since she was born, I get so jealous sometimes that I want to lash out and hurt her, and I hate myself for it. She doesn’t deserve that from me. Like Hauk said, she’s just a baby.”

Sumi couldn’t follow the girl’s logic. “Jealous of what?”

“Everything.” Sobbing, Thia held her hands up to her eyes as if she were physically trying to stop her tears. “It was bad watching my father and stepmother with my brothers. Seeing what life was supposed to be like. You know?” She ground her teeth. “It just rams home how wrong my childhood was, and makes me so mad at my mother for her part in it, that I want to go back and confront her for it. Why did she have to sleep with my father and then, knowing she’s pregnant with me, marry his stepbrother, who hated him? Really! Why would she do that? Aksel was such a sick, demented bastard. I don’t understand why she didn’t gut him the first year they were married and save us both years of misery.”

“Oh, Thia. Pray that you never understand that fear.”

“How do you mean?”

Sumi cupped the girl’s face in her hands. Gods how she wished she didn’t know how easy it was to get sucked into an inescapable nightmare. To feel trapped and lost, and to have no one to help, and no way out. To be so desperate for love that you’d accept insults and blows for any semblance of it.

She still couldn’t believe she’d done it, not once.

Twice.

“Thia, you are headed down a bad path. One I walked before you, and I’m here to tell you that it sucks in ways you can’t imagine. So long as you keep this anger inside, it will infect you. You have to let it go and move on. Life isn’t fair. It’s not supposed to be. It’s just better than being dead.”

“You don’t know.”

“Girl, I do. I know exactly what it’s like to be angry at the gods who put you here. Furious at the ones who were supposed to protect and love you, but instead were focused on their own selfishness and consumed by their own pain to the point they didn’t care what happened to you.” Sumi swallowed. “From what I’ve heard, your father and stepmother sound wonderful. They love you.”

Her lips trembled. “I know. Kiara has always treated me like a blood daughter. But I just want what they have.”

“You do have it, sweetie.”

“No. I have the same demons inside me that my father has, and I know it. I’ve seen humanity for what it is, and I know how tenuous safety can be. How fleeting.” She knelt down and buried her face in Illyse’s fur. “I always feel like an outsider in my own family. And I know it’s not really true, but I can’t stop it. It just hurts to know that I could have been their real daughter, instead of the one they were forced to raise. Sometimes I just want to run for the door and not look back. Ever.”

“Thia —”

“Sumi, it’s not what you’re thinking. I was a teenager when my mother died… brutally. I’d only met my father one time, just hours before it happened. I didn’t know him. At all. He didn’t know me. And he died that night, too, protecting Kiara from my stepfather – who my father killed while rescuing her. In the blink of an eye, everything I knew was gone. Violently ripped away. And suddenly, everyone around me was a complete stranger.”

Thia swallowed hard. “It was so surreal to be thrown into this giant, unrelated family. And they’re not normal. My stepmother notwithstanding, they’re very scary people. And having been raised with very scary, highly volatile and violent people, I was terrified of them all. And my dad, while he tries, he’s so skittish around me. Like he’s afraid he’ll break me if he touches me, and he never knows what to say. Not that he speaks much to anyone. But still…”

She looked up at Sumi. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to dump this on you. It’s just those bodies brought back memories I wish I could burn out of my mind.”

“Yeah. I noticed you didn’t flinch.”

Drawing a ragged breath, Thia stood. “As I said, Aksel was a psycho bastard. It seemed like every other day my mother was cleaning blood out of the carpets because he’d killed one of his men for something… like sneezing while he was talking.” She laughed bitterly. “I feel as if my entire life has been one poorly written melodrama.”

“Sweetie, we all feel that way at times. Trust me.”

“I guess so.” Thia pulled her sweater tighter around her as they walked. “My father tries so hard to protect me. It’s suffocating. And it wouldn’t bother me nearly as much if I didn’t see the differences between how he treats me and how he is with my siblings.”

“What do you mean? Does he love them more?”

“No!” Thia said quickly. “It’s not that. Because he’s wiped their butts and spoonfed them from birth, he’s… well, as relaxed as he can get. With me, I can tell he feels like he owes me something. I can see the guilt in his eyes every time he looks at me, because he wasn’t there when I was little to protect me and keep me safe. And all I really want is to crawl into his lap like my brothers do and have him hold me until it all stops hurting.”

Sumi pulled Thia into her arms and held her close. “I know, sweetie. I really do. When I was little, I had a brother-in-law who was my hero. He, alone, would do just what you said. He’d envelop me in those strong arms and tell me that he’d never let anyone hurt me. And I believed him.”