Page 92 of Knotted By the Triad

“No.”

She kept flying toward it.

“No, no, no.”

The tower. I had never seen it before. But I knew. Some part of me recognized it before we were even close enough for me to see the dark openings in its stone walls. The tower where Zuri Bane died. The place CiCi had written about. The ending I'd spent every day since waking in this world trying to avoid.

“You have got to be fucking kidding me.”

Mei Lin flew straight toward an opening near the top. Her claws opened. I dropped. My scream barely left my mouth before I crashed through the opening and hit the stone floor. Pain shot through my shoulder and hip as I rolled several feet before slamming into a wall.

For a moment, I could only lie there and breathe. Everything hurt. My sides burned where her claws had punctured my clothes and skin. My shoulder throbbed. One knee felt like I'd scraped half the skin off it.

But I was alive. I pushed myself onto my hands. Outside the opening, Mei Lin's dragon disappeared from view.

“What the fuck?”

Blue light flashed next to me. I spun around. Mei Lin appeared inside the tower. She was back in her skin form, and she looked nothing like the polished woman who had sat across from my alphas at breakfast or floated through the manor pretending she had everyone's best interests at heart.

Her hair was a mess. Tears streaked her face. Her clothing was disheveled, and one side of her face was red and beginning to swell. But my attention went straight to her hand. She was holding a crystal shard. A faint blue light still pulsed inside it.

“You used a shard.”

Mei Lin laughed through her tears. “You finally figured something out.”

I pushed myself upright, keeping one hand against the wall until I was certain my legs would hold me. My gaze returned to the shard. That was my way out if I could get it away from her. I looked around the tower.

There was almost nothing inside. Bare stone. Dust. Open windows cut into walls that were far too high above the ground. Exactly the kind of place somebody could disappear inside and never be heard from again. I looked back at Mei Lin.

“You were supposed to be jealous of me,” she hissed. “You were supposed to be mean and cruel to me so they could protect me from you. You were supposed to make them hate you. Then I would’ve convinced them to send you here, to this tower, to live out your days, unable to get out because you couldn’t shift and fly away.”

“You wanted them to imprison me here?”

“Yes!” Mei Lin's scream bounced off the stone walls. Fresh tears spilled down her cheeks. “You weren't supposed to take them from me!”

“I didn't take anybody from you.”

“You took Kai!” Her voice cracked on his name.

I looked at her for a moment. Then I understood.

“This was never really about all three of them, was it? You really only wanted Kai.”

Her mouth twisted. “I don't need Zian and Daemin. They never liked me anyway,” she said bitterly. “Not really. Daemin barely tolerated me. Zian hardly spoke to me unless he had to. I tried to win their love. Do you know how hard I tried?”

“You can’t force love.”

“I can! I would have, if it wasn’t for you”

I glanced at the shard again. Mei Lin noticed where I was looking and tightened her fingers around it.

“I was supposed to be their one and only,” she said. “Not you. Me.”

“According to who? Your father?”

“My father had a plan. The king was never supposed to remain on the throne. You’ve messed up my father’s plans to have him killed. You’ve ruined Kai’s chances of being king.”

“What?”