Her eyes are beautiful, even glazed with bloodlust and hunger, flicker between the others and me. She’s trying to decide if we’re threats or food. Her fangs are fully descended, her body coiled tight, a spring about to snap.
I take a step toward her.
She hisses, the sound feral and terrifying.
But I take another step.
“Hey,” I say, my eyes locking onto hers. “You’re safe. I’m not gonna hurt you. I’m going to help you.”
She stays where she is, trembling hard enough I can see it. That trembling does something to me I’m not prepared for. It’s not the bloodlust I’m watching, not the predator coiled inside a newly turned body. It is the human underneath it, terrified and exhausted, holding herself together through sheer animal will.
I take another step and this time she doesn’t hiss.
She lets out a sound, the kind of sound someone makes when they’ve been white-knuckling their composure for hours and one moment of something almost-gentle finally cracks it open.
I reach out slowly, giving her plenty of warning, and cup the back of her neck. Not gripping, just… present. My thumb traces the line of her jaw, barely contact, a question more than a hold, and she goes absolutely still like a frightened animal that’s never been touched with kindness and doesn’t know what to do with it now that it’s here.
“I’ve got you,” I say quietly. “Just breathe.”
For one suspended second, she does, even though in her newly undead state she doesn’t require a breath.
“Rogue…” Crave’s voice cuts through the moment like a blade. I feel him approaching from behind, his presence trying to press against our bond, trying to reassert our primary connection.
But it doesn’t work.
Not anymore.
I finally turn to look at him, my alpha, my brother, the vampire I’ve protected for over two hundred years, and the expression on his face tells me he feels it too.
Our bond is withdrawing.
His silver eyes meet mine, and for a moment, I see confusion, hurt, understanding, all flickering across his features too fast to process individually. He feels me pulling back, even though I’m not doing it consciously, even though every instinct I have still screams to protect him.
But she is louder.
She is…everything.
“What…” Crave starts, his voice tight, controlled in that way that means he’s barely holding something massive back. “What’s happening, Rogue?”
I look at her, then back at him. The words stick in my throat, heavy with implications I don’t fully understand yet. “I…” My voice cracks. “I don’t know.”
But that’s a lie.
Idoknow.
This woman, this newly turned vampire who stumbled into our territory by accident or fate or some cosmic joke I’m not in on… ismy fated mate. And my bond with Crave, the sacred oath that’s defined my entire existence, is bending to accommodate her.
Making room.
Stepping aside.
Choosingher.
Sloane appears beside Crave, her crimson-gold eyes flaring with Crimson Sight as she looks between this woman and me. I watch understanding dawning across her features, watch her grab Crave’s arm and whisper something too quiet for me to hear.
Whatever she says makes Crave govery, verystill.
The kind of stillness that means a predator is calculating threats, outcomes, and whether violence is the answer.
