By the time he got most of the poison out, he looked worse than I did. His breath came in sharp, ragged pulls, and blood streaked down over his mouth and chin. Despite all that, he hooked my arm over his shoulders, hoisted me up, and ran.
I still didn’t know how he carried me that far while half-dead himself. I only remembered Mom yelling for my dads when he burst through the front doors and finally collapsed.
Later, they told me Rack had pushed his magic to the edge extracting the poison from my blood. He’d gotten me far enough that the antidote could finish the job and save my life.
After that, I couldn’t look at him the same way anymore.
He wasn't the outsider, the kid that was trying to steal my place, but someone who would do anything to protect this family.
From that day forward, every mission, every fight, every problem the family faced, Rack always stepped in first. Again and again, I watched him push himself past reason, burning through his magic until blood ran from his nose or his hands shook from exhaustion. He pushed himself to his limit over and over so he could keep up with us. It got to the point where just seeing him walk into a room bruised and exhausted would make irritation crawl under my skin.
One night, I finally snapped.
I still remembered slamming my hands against the table while he stood there, bleeding through a torn shirt like it was nothing.
“What’s wrong with you?” I’d shouted. “Do you have some kind of death wish?”
Rack barely reacted. He just leaned back against the counter, breathing hard while he pressed a towel beneath his nose. Even then, exhausted and half-dead on his feet, he gave me that same impassive look that always made it impossible to stay fully angry at him.
“My parents only wanted two things for me,” he’d said quietly, his eyes dropping to the blood staining his fingers before lifting back to mine.
“For me to stay loyal to the Desmonds.” A faint shrug followed. “And to find my Flame someday.”
A small smile tugged at the sides of his mouth.
“That’s enough for me.”
The memory hit me so hard my chest tightened all over again.
And that was why I couldn’t do it. Why I couldn’t take Olivia for myself no matter how badly every part of me wanted to.
Just saying her name caused my mind to flash through images of last night. Of how it felt to have her feed from me. To have those soft, plush lips suckling at my skin, licking up every drop like it was a drug and she never wanted to be sober.
I shook the thoughts away violently. Blood. Yes. I just needed blood. Then I’d have the strength to keep these thoughts at bay.
In a blur, I shot up the stairs toward the kitchen and stopped dead in the hallway.
Rack sat at the island with a plate in front of him while Olivia leaned over her mug, sipping blood through a straw with an expression somewhere between fascination and delight.
“You can dip the sausage in it,” Rack told her, gesturing toward his plate. “Calix mixes blood with food constantly.”
Olivia wrinkled her nose at that, but she immediately tried it anyway.
Watching her reaction, Rack actually grinned. The sight hit me harder than expected.
They looked… right together. Easy. Comfortable. Like they’d already settled into each other’s orbit. Something sharp twisted beneath my ribs.
I can’t ruin that.
Rack’s phone buzzed against the counter. He glanced at the screen, his eyes furrowed as he pushed back from the stool.
“I need to take this.”
I flattened my back to the wall, and he walked the other way without stopping. His eyes flicked toward mine briefly, letting me know he’d noticed me standing there the entire time.
The corner of my mouth twitched automatically, some snarky comment already forming before Olivia’s voice ran out.
“Calix?” She appeared before me, tripping over her own feet before she caught herself and looked back over to me. “What are you doing?”
