Page 150 of Property of Scar

“Congratulations, by the way,” Carnage says, and there is something genuine underneath it, something that sits behind the hellfire, the grinning, and the complete inability to be serious when serious is warranted.

Sentinel nods once, and the light beneath his skin pulses briefly, warm. “We’re genuinely happy for you, VP.”

Scar narrows his eyes on them like he is considering whether they are being legitimate or not, but then he simply nods. “Thanks,” Scar says.

They grin and turn to leave. Not quickly, because that’s not who these two are, but they go, Carnage still wearing that insufferable grin, Sentinel carrying himself like a man who has achieved something and is choosing not to mention it.

The hallway empties.

I step up beside Scar, shoulder pressing into his arm, and look at the space they left behind. “Those two are going to be the death of you.”

“Probably.” He lets the door fall mostly closed, his hand finding the small of my back, warm and certain. “But they’re good kids.”

I tip my head back and look at him. The red eyes, the years of surviving things that should have killed him, wearing it all as casually as he wears his cut, like it’s just part of what he is, and he’s made a kind of peace with that.

My mother swore off vampires on my behalf before I was old enough to form an opinion. I spent years honoring that inheritance, that silent contract between us, holding the line she couldn’t hold herself.

But she didn’t know this vampire.

She didn’t know about the bond, the clubhouse, or the family that sprawls through every room of this place like something that grew here, organic, permanent, and so goddamn loud. She didn’t know about Carnage, pressing his ear to doors and losing bets. She didn’t know about Sentinel, standing in hallways with his wings folded, saying ‘We’re happy for you’ like it was the most straightforward thing in the world. She didn’t know about Raze and Roxy. Roxy with magic sparking between her fingers and Raze with that expression on his face that belongs only to her.

She didn’t know what it would feel like to be pulled in from the outside and become part of something instead of orbiting it alone.

I’m glad I let that notion go. The thought settles into me, pressing down into all the hollow places like warm water filling a vessel.

The solitary life.

The hunter’s code.

The careful, calibrated distance between me and everything I couldn’t afford to want.

I carried all of it for so long that it started to feel like identity, and I’m only now realizing that it was armor, not a self.

I’m the happiest I’ve been.

Maybe ever.

The thought doesn’t frighten me the way it should.

“Forever’s a long time, old man,” I say, tilting my chin up, holding his gaze. “You sure you can keep up?”

He looks at me like I’ve said something deeply funny, something that only lands right because he knows me, and his hand tightens at my back. “With you, it’s not long enough.” His thumb traces a slow line along my spine. “And I’ll keep up just fine.”

From somewhere down the corridor, carrying with the shameless volume of someone who absolutely knows we can hear him, Carnage calls out, “Bet you fifty they’re making out!”

Sentinel’s reply is equally unapologetic. “That’s a sucker’s bet!”

I laugh before I can stop it, the sound breaking out of me full and genuine, and Scar makes that quiet sound that isn’t quite a laugh but is close enough, and then his hand comes up to my jaw, he tips my face up and kisses me like he means it, with the full weight of someone who knows exactly what he’s choosing, right here in the open doorway where anyone left in the corridor can see us.

I kiss him back exactly the same way.

I came into Kings’ territory as a hunter, alone, tracking a trail that led to Mordain and nowhere else.

I didn’t come here for a family.

I didn’t come here for a club, a bond, or a five-hundred-year-old vampire with a scar on his face and centuries of damage.

I didn’t come here for any of this.