I don’t move.
The word‘basement’has done something unpleasant to the inside of my chest, some small animal part of me that understands cages even if my conscious mind doesn’t. My feet plant, my fangs throb, and a growl I didn’t authorize slides up the back of my throat.
Rogue doesn’t flinch. He turns me slowly, his hands steady on my arms, until I’m facing him, and those eyes catch mine and hold. “I know,” he says simply. “I know.”
And something about the way he says it, as if he understands what a cage feels like from the inside, like this isn’t the first time in his long life he’s had to ask someone to trust him toward a door they don’t want to walk through, settles me.
Fractionally, but it settles me.
So, I nod, but he doesn’t smile. Something near his mouth shifts—that almost-smile, the careful one, the one I’m starting to understand costs him something to offer. He steps back and his hand slides down my arm, until his fingers find mine. The contact is so simple it shouldn’t mean anything.
But it meanseverything.
“The stairs are steep,” he says, his thumb moving once across my knuckles, a gesture so small I could pretend I didn’t notice, but I don’t pretend. “I’ll go first.”
“I’m a vampire,” I grumble, but my voice comes out steadier than I expected. “I think I can handle stairs.”
“Yeah…” He doesn’t let go of my hand. “Humor me.”
“That’s what we’re calling it.”
He glances back at me, once. “Get moving, Charlotte.”
“Bossy,” I mutter, following him into the dark.
And his hand stays around mine the entire way down.
Chapter Six
CRAVE
The Church room reeks of tension and barely contained violence. Every brother sits around the scarred oak table, supernatural creatures bleeding into the air in ways humans could never detect. Scorch’s temperature runs three degrees hotter than it should, veins of molten red crawling beneath his skin when he shifts in his chair. Dread’s presence presses against my senses like a physical weight, primal fear he isn’t even trying to suppress. Hex’s fingers fly across his laptop, the blue glow of his technomancy reflecting in his eyes as he monitors feeds streaming across multiple screens.
And Rogue stands guard outside the reinforced basement door, refusing to join us at the table, refusing to leave her side.
The Bloodguard connection between us stretches thin and frayed, worn down to its last fibers. I feel his conflict bleeding through the weakened bond, loyalty to me warring with something new, something powerful enough to override centuries of sworn duty and blood-forged oaths.
The mate pull.
I’ve watched fated mate bonds burn kingdoms and topple empires. I’ve never wanted one. The Heart Bind with Sloane is different, forged through blood and conscious decision—a partnership of equals. What Rogue has with the girl in our basement is pure instinct. Fate deciding two souls belong together, whether it destroys them both or not.
And it’s tearing my VP apart from the inside out.
“Four murders in less than twenty-four hours,” Hex announces, pulling my attention back to the crisis at hand. His voice carries that clipped efficiency he gets when processing toomuch information too fast. “All within a fifteen-mile radius of the compound. All drained of blood. Police scanners are lighting up with speculation about a serial killer using some kind of medical device to drain its victims.”
“The creativity doesn’t matter,” I say, my voice cutting through the murmured responses. “The pattern does, the exposure. We just survived a war with the Coven of Crows. The last thing we need is a stray vampire drawing their attention back to our doorstep.”
“She’s not stray,” Oracle states wisely. “She’s a scion. She didn’tchoosethis.”
“Doesn’t change the body count,” Scorch growls, smoke literally curling from his nostrils. His dragon is close to the surface, responding to the violence saturating the room. “Four dead humans in one day. How many more before we act?”
“Act how?” Dread asks, his fear projection leaking enough to lower the temperature. “We’ve got a newborn vampire locked in our basement. Three options… train her, contain her, or end her.”
“I vote to end her.” Scorch leans back in his chair, arms crossed over his chest. “Burn the problem, solve it permanently. Can’t have more murders if the murderer is ash.”
The words land in the room without challenge. Not because the brothers agree, but because none of them are willing to be the one to say what’s making this harder than it should be.
“She didn’t choose this,” Dread repeats Rogue’s words, his divine heritage making him sensitive to injustice in ways the rest of us aren’t. “She’s a victim. Someone made her into a weapon.”
