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my childhood was like.”
    His eyes filled with sympathy as he nodded his head and she hated that he pitied her. Glaring at him, she growled, “I wasn’t unhappy, not ever. But it doesn’t change the fact that I spent a lot of time alone and now I can barely think because you are always there.”
    He stumbled backwards a few steps, the pity quickly turning to wounded pride as he stared at her and she wished she could take the words back, at least the angry tone she said them in. “Feryn, I’m sorry.”
    “Just go,” he whispered, taking another step away from her. Grabbing his clothes and avoiding her eyes, he dressed quickly as he rasped, “I’ll have Jiro take you and your son to New York in the morning and I’ll give you your space.”
    “It’s not forever,” she said weakly, her words barely above a whisper as she watched him distance himself from her. Her stomach was in knots as she realized how badly she had hurt him with her need to stand on her own in this new reality before she fully committed to him. “If I’m lucky it will only take a few days, a week at most.”
    Straightening his spine, squaring his shoulders, he stood in her doorway and looked at her with sardonic grace, “I’ll be here when you’re ready to let me in.”
    “Feryn,” she choked out but he was already gone, disappearing from her life as abruptly as he had entered it. She didn’t think she was being unreasonable but then she wasn’t an ancient Aradian used to having his own way.
    She shivered, as if Feryn had taken all of the heat with him when he left but then she realized she was naked. Wrapping her arms around her stomach, she crossed the bedroom to her closet and grabbed a robe to put on, feeling exposed and vulnerable in her nudity. Sitting down on the bed, she stared at the doorway and tried to figure out the best course of action in finding her father. Unfortunately, her mind was blank except for the image of the virgin Feryn had seduced who looked like her in her memories but hadn’t looked like her in real life.
    It was a cruel twist that she was finally able to breathe but she wasn’t able to think.
    Scrubbing her fingers through her hair, she looked down at her thigh peeking out from beneath the hem of her robe and exhaled in relief. The mark was still there. For one irrational moment she thought he would have removed it or it would have vanished when he left. A low, desolate laugh pushed past her lips, the sound alien and harsh in the quiet room.
    Lying down on the bed, she brought her knees up to her chest and tried to find a spark of warmth in her frozen body but she couldn’t. There was so much to do tomorrow and she could only hope that Toby would be up to the journey. In her selfishness, she had forgotten how much her son loved it here. The little boy had blossomed in this slightly out of synch world. Toby genuinely adored Jiro, a man who was far more laidback than her father had ever been and she inexplicably trusted him with her son. The two of them could spend hours fishing in the small pond that Malorie was fairly certain contained no fish.
    Toby had laughed more in the months since coming to the Aradian island than he had in the first five and a half years of his life. Why couldn’t she find the balance that would allow her to live in peace amongst Feryn and the other Aradians? He loved her, or they were mated at least, he offered her the opportunity to finally live a normal, peaceful life, and she loved him.
    She should be living in perfect bliss whether he loved her or not so why couldn’t she shake the storm of worries and doubts that were hounding her day and night? Her dreams were bothering her because she couldn’t remember all of them and she knew there was something important there, something she had to remember. Unfortunately, the memories she wanted to forget, those of Feryn seducing innocents and turning them into whores, drowned out everything else.
    Letting her eyes drift shut as silent