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without your help.”
    Klaus gave him an unreadable look and glanced toward the gashes on Clay’s hands and chest. “Let me help you with those.”
    Clay allowed his mate to sanitize the wounds. They’d heal easily enough. It wasn’t the first time Ross injured him like this. He didn’t know if Ross remembered it, but Clay didn’t particularly mind them.
    He might not have Trent and Ash’s strength, but he could at least take some damage.
    “Why didn’t you call me sooner?” Klaus asked while he worked.
    Clay’s anger began to return, but he forced it down. “With the way we parted, I didn’t think it would be the best idea.”
    Klaus finished working on his wounds and then cupped Clay’s cheek. Their eyes met, and surprise coursed through Clay at the emotion he could read in his mate’s gaze. “I’m sorry,” Klaus whispered. “I assure you there’s a perfectly good reason for everything I did. I just chose the wrong way to go about it.”
    Clay wanted to cling to the olive branch Klaus offered, but his mate had apologized before and gone back on his words just days after. The emotional tension of the past few weeks burst out of him as he pushed away from Klaus. “I’ll say. Well, sorry doesn’t cut it, Klaus, not this time. For ten years, I waited for you. I waited while Star-Crossed Mates
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    you tended to another, while you fucked him behind my back.” It might not have been true, but Klaus winced anyway, and it only fueled Clay’s anger. “And then, he has his mates. Excellent. You apologize and promise things will be different. But did you hold to that? No! You tell me it’s too dangerous to be by your side, and you weren’t willing to fight for us. Do you have any idea how I felt?”
    Used. Cheated. Thrown away like a useless rag. A willing hole for Klaus to fuck because the Magistrate wouldn’t spread his legs. So many things passed through Clay’s mind. He felt at the brink of insanity, and the only think that kept him from going feral now was Ross. If he lost it, too, who would care for Ross?
    Clay stole a look toward his young mate and realized his shouts must have roused Ross from his exhausted slumber. Ross gave them both a shocked look. Since Clay had bitten him, their bond was strong, and Ross could probably experience every volatile emotion Clay did.
    “What the fuck?” Ross said.
    Those words were the single warning they got before Ross pounced on Klaus. Punches flew as Ross attacked Klaus with relentless ferocity. “You fucking bastard,” he growled. “How could you do something like that? How could you betray him?”
    Thankfully, Klaus just blocked the hits without fighting back.
    Ross was in no condition for a real battle, and with Klaus’s skill and experience, Ross wouldn’t have a chance anyway. Klaus allowed Ross to vent, until at last, in one single motion, he pushed Ross down and immobilized him against the floor.
    “Hush,” he said. “The humans will hear you. We’ll get caught.”
    The argument seemed to convince Ross, who stopped trying to scratch at Klaus. They broke away, with Ross still glaring daggers at Klaus.
    Clay knelt next to his young mate. “It’s okay, Ross. It doesn’t matter. Everyone has a choice, and I’ve accepted Klaus’s.”

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    Scarlet Hyacinth
    For a few moments, Ross didn’t reply. Then, he threw his arms around Clay’s neck and murmured, “I’m so sorry, Clay. I shouldn’t have said what I did back at the compound. I promise I won’t betray you, not again.”
    For the first time, Clay felt emotion burst through their connection. In all their time together, he’d never been able to figure out Ross’s feelings for him. It always seemed like a thick veil lay between them, polluting their bond, keeping them from being together. The words Ross uttered the day he’d set fire on the Hart base always weighed heavily on Clay’s mind. “Surely you realize it was all a lie,” Ross said back then. ”You wanted a mate of your