You are being pro­vid­ed with a book chap­ter by chap­ter. I will request you to read the book for me after each chap­ter. After read­ing the chap­ter, 1. short­en the chap­ter to no less than 300 words and no more than 400 words. 2. Do not change the name, address, or any impor­tant nouns in the chap­ter. 3. Do not trans­late the orig­i­nal lan­guage. 4. Keep the same style as the orig­i­nal chap­ter, keep it con­sis­tent through­out the chap­ter. Your reply must com­ply with all four require­ments, or it’s invalid.
I will pro­vide the chap­ter now.

CHAPTER
67
I faint­ed.
When I opened my eyes, mere sec­onds had passed. Mor was now haul­ing
away Rhys, who was pant­i­ng on the floor, eyes wild, fin­gers clench­ing and
unclench­ing—
Tam­lin yanked off the glove on my left hand.
Pure, bare skin greet­ed him. No tat­too.
I was sob­bing and sob­bing, and his arms came around me. Every inch of
them felt wrong. I near­ly gagged on his scent.
Mor let go of Rhysand’s jack­et col­lar, and he crawled—crawled back
toward Azriel and Cass­ian, their blood splash­ing on his hands, on his neck,
as he hauled him­self through it. His rasp­ing breaths sliced into me, my soul
—
The king mere­ly waved a hand at him. “You are free to go, Rhysand.
Your friend’s poi­son is gone. The wings on the oth­er, I’m afraid, are a bit of
a mess.”
Don’t fight it—don’t say any­thing, I begged him as Rhys reached his
broth­ers. Take my sis­ters. The wards are down.
Silence.
So I looked—just once—at Rhysand, and Cass­ian, and Mor, and Azriel.
They were already look­ing at me. Faces bloody and cold and enraged.
But beneath them … I knew it was love beneath them. They under­stood the
tears that rolled down my face as I silent­ly said good-bye.
Then Mor, swift as an adder, win­nowed to Lucien. To my sis­ters. To
show Rhys, I real­ized, what I’d done, the hole I’d blast­ed for them to escape
—
She slammed Lucien away with a palm to the chest, and his roar shook
the halls as Mor grabbed my sis­ters by the arm and van­ished.
Lucien’s bel­low was still sound­ing as Rhys lunged, grip­ping Azriel and
Cass­ian, and did not even turn toward me as they win­nowed out.
The king shot to his feet, spew­ing his wrath at his guards, at Juri­an, for
not grab­bing my sis­ters. Demand­ing to know what had hap­pened to the
cas­tle wards—
I bare­ly heard him. There was only silence in my head. Such silence
where there had once been dark laugh­ter and wicked amuse­ment. A wind-
blast­ed waste­land.
Lucien was shak­ing his head, pant­i­ng, and whirled to us. “Get her back,”
he snarled at Tam­lin over the rant­i­ng of the king. A mate—a mate already
going wild to defend what was his.
Tam­lin ignored him. So I did, too. I could bare­ly stand, but I faced the
king as he slumped into his throne, grip­ping the arms so tight­ly the whites
of his knuck­les showed. “Thank you,” I breathed, a hand on my chest—the
skin so pale, so white. “Thank you.”
He mere­ly said to the gath­ered queens, now a healthy dis­tance away,
“Begin.”
The queens looked at each oth­er, then their wide-eyed guards, and snaked
toward the Caul­dron, their smiles grow­ing. Wolves cir­cling prey. One of
them sniped at anoth­er for push­ing her—the king mur­mured some­thing to
them all that I didn’t both­er to hear.
Juri­an stalked over to Lucien amid the ris­ing squab­ble, laugh­ing under
his breath. “Do you know what Illyr­i­an bas­tards do to pret­ty females? You
won’t have a mate left—at least not one that’s use­ful to you in any way.”
Lucien’s answer­ing growl was noth­ing short of fer­al.
I spat at Jurian’s feet. “You can go to hell, you hideous prick.”
Tamlin’s hands tight­ened on my shoul­ders. Lucien spun toward me, and
that met­al eye whirred and nar­rowed. Cen­turies of cul­ti­vat­ed rea­son clicked
into place.
I was not pan­ick­ing at my sis­ters being tak­en.
I said qui­et­ly, “We will get her back.”
But Lucien was watch­ing me war­i­ly. Too war­i­ly.
I said to Tam­lin, “Take me home.”
But the king cut in over the bick­er­ing of the queens, “Where is it.”

You are being pro­vid­ed with a book chap­ter by chap­ter. I will request you to read the book for me after each chap­ter. After read­ing the chap­ter, 1. short­en the chap­ter to no less than 300 words and no more than 400 words. 2. Do not change the name, address, or any impor­tant nouns in the chap­ter. 3. Do not trans­late the orig­i­nal lan­guage. 4. Keep the same style as the orig­i­nal chap­ter, keep it con­sis­tent through­out the chap­ter. Your reply must com­ply with all four require­ments, or it’s invalid.
I will pro­vide the chap­ter now.

W HEN I GET HOME, I instinc­tive­ly throw my bag onto the couch. I
am tired, and I am angry, and my eyes feel dry and stiff, as if they have
been wrung out like wet laun­dry.
I sit down, not both­er­ing to take off my coat or my shoes. I respond
to the e‑mail my moth­er has sent con­tain­ing her flight infor­ma­tion for
tomor­row. And then I lift my legs and rest my feet on the cof­fee table.
As I do, they hit an enve­lope rest­ing on the sur­face.
It is only then that I real­ize I even have a cof­fee table in the first
place.
David brought it back. And on it rests an enve­lope addressed to me.
M—
I should nev­er have tak­en the table. I don’t need it. It’s sil­ly for
it to sit in the stor­age unit. I was being pet­ty when I left.
Enclosed is my key to the apart­ment and the busi­ness card
of my lawyer.
I sup­pose there is not much else to say except that I thank
you for doing what I could not.
—D
I put the let­ter down on the table. I put my feet back up. I wres­tle
myself out of my coat. I kick off my shoes. I lay my head back. I
breathe.
I don’t think I would have end­ed my mar­riage with­out Eve­lyn Hugo.
I don’t think I would have stood up to Frankie with­out Eve­lyn Hugo.
I don’t think I would have had the chance to write a sure­fire
best­seller with­out Eve­lyn Hugo.