Page 122 of Hunted

I fold my arms, mostly to stop myself doing something stupid like reaching for him. Gods help me, the urge exists, buried beneath fear and shock and too much information.

‘Then say it plainly. What exactly has to happen?’

His jaw flexes, and for a moment the silver in his eyes dims. Something stark shows there, raw enough that I almost look away out of sheer decency.

‘I must find my fated mate,’ he says, ‘and complete the bond within three years of the mark’s awakening.’

The mark.

My gaze flicks to his open shirt. ‘And if you don’t?’

‘I perish.’

No softening. No euphemism. Just truth, laid flat between us.

I swallow. ‘That’s… insane.’

‘Your standards for sanity are charmingly provincial.’

Normally, I’d snark back harder, but my brain is busy trying to fit this new shape around everything else. Tezra’s death. The alley. Old scents. The mirror. Five non-blood brothers ruling half the world. His mark.

‘So your brothers know.’

His expression shifts by a hair. ‘They believe they know enough.’

Cagey. ‘And they’re all just… waiting? Circling you like immortal vultures?’

A humourless glint passes through his eyes. ‘We are brothers, but also the fiercest of rivals. That we have not gone to war in half a millennium is a miracle in itself.’

Half a millennium.

Five men remade together. Empires built. Rules sharp enough to prevent open war, but apparently not sharp enough to stop quieter predation.

‘And now because of m—’ I stop so fast I nearly bite my tongue, the word ‘me’ leaping up like a suicidal idiot. I pivot hard. ‘—mating, you have a target on your back?’

His gaze locks on mine.

For one horrible second, I’m sure he heard the almost-slip, that he’ll reach right past my face and pull Lyra Hannigan out by the throat.

‘Yes,’ he says calmly. ‘They may not all move directly. Some will wait. Others will test, as we have seen today. One in particular will remove pieces at the edges and watch what shakes loose. If I fail to bond in time, my territory fractures. Assets become vulnerable. Alliances shift and claims may be contested.’

He’s talking in assets and territory, but instinct tells me it goes deeper.

‘So the end game is literally wait you out and strip the carcass.’

His mouth tightens. ‘In the bluntest terms, yes.’

‘I take back what I said about strategic thought,’ I mutter. ‘Not if this is the end game you all aspire to.’ I look up at him. ‘Would you do the same if one of them was in your shoes?’

He doesn’t answer right away.

Something wedges behind the stone in his throat. I see it in the minute shift of his posture, the brief distance in his eyes before they sharpen again.

‘Yes, I would. This is not about good or evil, Eira. This is about survival.’

Curiously, the hollow in my gut is not as wide as I expect.

Maybe because the starkness of his answer is proof enough of the cut-throat cruelty of the world he refuses to pretty up. He doesn’t sell me dark destiny with velvet and candlelight. He tells me what he would do, what they would do, and lets me be appalled by the truth.