“Good to know,” I manage. “Filing that.”
I stare at the fire for a second longer than I need to. Then, because apparently tonight is the night I say things I mean, “I liked it.” The words come out smaller than I intend. I don’t take them back.
He’s quiet long enough that I start to wonder if I got the register wrong.
“I liked it when you bit me.”
Those words land somewhere under my ribs.
“Oh,” I say, and it’s the only word I’ve got, but I can’t help but smile.
“Yeah,” he says, smiling right back at me while the fire burns between us.
I look at him across the fire for a moment. “That might be the most honest thing you’ve said to me since the basement,” I tell him.
Something moves in his face. “Probably is.”
“I like that.” I pull my knees up to my chest before I finish with, “When you’re honest.”
He holds my gaze. “I’ll work on it.”
“Good,” I say. “Tell me about the Bloodguard,” I ask, because it’s been sitting in my chest since the moment I felt his scar beneath my fingertips and understood it was a mark that meant something.
He’s quiet for long enough that I think he’s not going to answer, but then, “My bloodline was created to protect vampires. Not any vampire, the most powerful ones. The ones whose deaths would cost the supernatural world something irreplaceable. We’re hardwired for it. The bond is biological, instinctual, as fundamental to what I am as the shift is.” His eyes find the fire. “Crave has been my anchor for over two hundred years. The connection between us… it’s like a second heartbeat. I know where he is. I know when he’s hurt. I know when he needs me before he does.”
“And right now?”
A muscle moves in his jaw. “Right now, it’s thinning. Every day I’m here and not there, it frays a little more, and the guilt of it—” He stops, then starts again. “He told me to‘Fix you or kill you.’Those were his words. The whole club is watching the Coven. The last thing he needs is an uncontrolled vampire drawing attention, and if I can’t deliver results, he’ll make the call himself.”
The fire pops and snaps between us.
“What the hell is the Coven?”
Rogue tilts his head like he had completely forgotten that I wouldn’t know what he was talking about. “Crave’s original family. In layperson’s terms, they keep the supernatural world in order. They were the first vampires to walk the earth. Very fucking powerful, and trust me, you donotwant to cross them, or get on their radar. And the club seems to constantly be on their radar… probably because Crave was a part of them back in the day. I think they never fully forgave him for leaving them, so they’re always watching him.”
“Jesus, they sound more like overlords than governors.”
Rogue snorts out a laugh. “You’re not half wrong.”
I slump my shoulders and glance up at him. “Then why are you doing this?” The question comes out quieter than I intend. “Your president ordered you to fix me or kill me. Why not take the easier road and kill me, especially if theoverlordscould get involved?”
He looks up from the fire, a slight smile crossing his lips, and his gold eyes hold mine across the flames with a directness that doesn’t flinch from the weight of the question.
“Because my wolf won’t let me.” The words are simple, stripped of everything decorative. “Because you’remineto protect, even if you don’t understand what that means yet. And I’m gonna tell Crave you call them overlords… he’s going to like that.”
Something in my chest catches and pulls. It moves through me like a tide, unmistakable now that I know what it is. The thing I’ve been feeling since Rogue first said my name in that compound basement, that frequency underneath the hunger and the fear, the thread that runs from my sternum toward him regardless of what I want or what I’ve decided.
“We’re connected, aren’t we?” The question drops out of me like a stone dropping into still water. Not uncertain, not asking for reassurance, but already knowing.
Rogue holds my gaze for a long beat, then nods. “With lycans, we have what’s called a Fated Mate. We have no control over it. We can’t choose it… think of it as destiny playing its hand.”
The silence that follows is the loudest thing I’ve heard since I turned.
“I don’t want to be anyone’s mate.” The words come out clear, honest, and slightly desperate, because underneath the honesty lives the terror of having something else decided about my life without my input. “I didn’t choose this. Any of this. Someonetook every choice I had, and I’ve been fighting ever since to take something back, and now you’re telling me the universe already decided this, too?” My voice doesn’t break. I won’t let it break. “I didn’t choose to become a vampire. I didn’t choose this hunger or these fangs or the fact that I’m still chanting at myself not to eat you. And now I didn’t choose you, either?”
The fire cracks between us.
He reaches across and sets his hand over mine where it’s clenched on my knee, one brief press of warmth, and he doesn’t hold it. Just acknowledges it. “Neither did I.” His voice is very quiet and carries no argument. “But here we are.”
