The memory surfaces.
Ro's voice, clinical and matter-of-fact: "The pack member designated 'Blaze' utilized oral transfer methodology to deliver the compound."
"Blaze kissed me?"
"Affirmative."
He kissed me.
While I was dying.
While the poison was working through my system and my body was shutting down and Sage was holding me and screaming for help.
Blaze took a boiling hot antidote, put it in his own mouth, and transferred it to mine.
The liquid was heated.
Boiling, Ro said.
He literallyburned himselfto save me.
"That's..." I trail off, struggling to find words. "You burned your throat. For me."
It's not a question.
He shrugs—casual, dismissive, like drinking scalding liquid to save a stranger's life is just a thing people do.
"Needed to get the antidote into you fast. Kiss was the most efficient delivery method." His golden eyes meet mine, and there's something serious beneath the humor now. "Would do it again in a heartbeat, by the way. Before you start feeling guilty."
Guilty.
The word lands wrong.
Because Idofeel guilty—a hot, squirming sensation in my chest that doesn't know what to do with this kind of casual heroism. People don't sacrifice for me. People don'thelpme. That's not how my life works.
I'm the one who does the saving.
I'm the one who fights alone.
I'm the one who survives because no one else is going to ensure my survival for me.
But this Alpha—this stranger I've barely exchanged two sentences with—burned his throat to keep me alive.
And he's standing here telling me he'd do it again.
Why?
What do you see in me that's worth burning for?
I don't ask.
Instead, I lift my hand.
"Seraphine," I say, offering a formal introduction because it's easier than processing the emotions churning in my gut. "Seraphine Eastman. In case you didn't catch that from the paperwork."
His smirk returns.
He takes my hand—his grip is warm, calloused, the hand of someone who works with blades and fire and dangerous things—and shakes it with surprising gentleness.
