I finally turn to look at him, and the concern in his eyes almost breaks something in me.Almost.“I said I’m fine, Scorch. Drop it.”
“Can’t do that, brother.” He takes another drag, the ember glowing bright before fading. “You’re part of this pack, this family, and when one of us is hurting, we all feel it.” His gaze sharpens, seeing too much. “Talk to me. Or talk to Crave. Hell, talk to Oracle if you need the wise-old-man routine, but stop swallowing this poison like it’s medicine.”
The mention of Crave’s name sends another spike of guilt through my chest.
I haven’t talked to him.
Not really.
Not beyond the necessary club business, the tactical discussions, the surface-level shit that lets me avoid looking him in the eye for too long. Because every time I do, every time I see him moving with his new Apostate grace, I remember…
I remember him bleeding.
I remember being powerless.
I remember failing my sworn duty, the oath my bloodline has carried since Khaos himself forged the first lycans from dying wolves and fallen warriors.
‘Protect the vampire.’
‘Guard the bloodline.’
‘Die before you let them fall.’
My family has lived by those words for millennia. We were created for one purpose—to be the shield between vampiresand the chaos that hungers for their power. It’s in our DNA, our instincts, our very souls. The bond between a lycan and a vampire isn’t just loyalty.
It’s sacred.
Unbreakable.
Or it’s supposed to be.
But I broke it.
Maybe not the bond itself, because I still feel Crave’s presence like a second heartbeat in my chest, steady and strong now that he’s healed. But I brokemyduty.Myoath. Everything my ancestors fought and died to uphold.
“I let him down,” I say, the admission scraping out of me. “When it mattered most, I couldn’t protect him. I just… hung there. Useless. While Viktor carved him open.”
Scorch is quiet for a long moment, then he lets out a heated breath, “Thanatos froze half the battlefield, Rogue. Sloane was bleeding from her eyes. Dread was trapped in his own fear construct.Noneof us could move. It wasn’t your failure… it was a trap designed to break us all.”
“But I’m notsupposedto break.” The words taste like venom. “I am a lycan. I amhisBloodguard. Myentire existenceis built around protectinghim,and I failed. Do you understand what that means? What itcosts?”
“Yeah.” His voice hardens, heat rising around him in visible waves. “I understand duty. I understand what it feels like to fail someone you’d die for. But I also understand that beating yourself to death over it doesn’t change what happened. It makes you sloppy, distracted, and when the next threat comes… and itwillcome, brother… you’ll be too busy drowning in guilt to do your damn job.”
I want to argue.
I want to tell him he doesn’t get it, that he can’t possibly understand the weight of a bloodline oath that stretches back to creation itself.
But he’s not entirely mistaken.
I have been sloppy and distracted. Pulling away from the pack, from the club, from the family I helped build and isolating myself, a wounded animal licking its injuries in the dark.
And Crave has noticed.
I’ve seen it in the way he watches me during Church, concern flickering behind those silver eyes. I’ve felt it through our bond, his confusion, his worry, the way he reaches for me across the connection and finds walls I’ve never put up before.
He doesn’t understand why I’m shutting him out. He doesn’t realize it’s because looking at him, being near him, and feeling his presence reminds me of how close I came to losing him. And how utterly, completely useless I was to stop it.
Before I can respond to Scorch, before I can figure out what the hell to say, an alarm shatters the quiet.
