"Like being Patrick Blake's son guaranteed *your* future?" Raya fired back, her voice sharp and trembling at the edges with barely contained emotion. "You had to stay tied to Seraphina because of her family's influence and power. You're not even close to your own siblings without all of you constantly thinking of new ways to destroy each other…"
She took a shaky breath, her chest rising and falling unevenly, as if the weight of her own words was crushing her lungs.
"And you want me to bring my child into that kind of life? Into a viper's nest where blood means nothing and ambition means everything?"
Her voice cracked then, soft, fragile, raw, but she still refused to let the tears fall. Not yet. Not in front of him.
