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Oh, that’s right.

Because Daxen, who has his happy ass planted behind his screens back at HQ, failed to catch the entire swarm of Deadwalkers holed up in this warehouse at the edge of town.

Just fucking squatting here like a bunch of NPC’s whose programming glitched out.

Seriously. They’re low-level, which means they’re basically mindless fodder for the Severed’s army, but they were just hanging out like fucking rent was free.

Not even guarding anything.

Pointless. And just my fucking luck.

Riven, a friend of ours who owns a gym and a network of informants so large I don’t think even he knows who all of them are, called Gav and me in while we were on patrol. He told us there’d been rumors of people creeping around this area by the docks. So naturally, we came to check it out.

And got ambushed.

To be fair, as much as I want to blame Dax for not catching these assholes in time to warn us, that isn’t why my Curse went off. It isn’t fucking helping anything, but it wasn’t the catalyst.

The cataylst was the scent.

I caught it as soon as I walked in. It lingered in the air, barely noticeable; the echo of an echo. One whiff of that lavender, ozone, and amber, and everything in me locked up. My mind went black, and then it was like I’d been reprogrammed.

Only one word flashed through my mind:

Protect, protect, protect.

I roared. Actually fucking roared. Like Aragorn preparing to charge the Black Gate with his Main Character energy turned up to a thousand.

I haven’t roared since I was a preteen Alpha who just found out his scent glands worked.

By the way my instincts went off the rails, I thought I was scenting an Omega on steroids. Or like… two-thousand Omegas in heat. That’s the only thing that could kick my protective instincts into overdrive like this.

And Fates… it smells so fucking good. I want to roll in it. Lick it off the warehouse floor and bathe in it.

But it isn’t Omega. It isn’t biological arousal. I know what it is and it’s…

So much worse.

It’s magic. Ancient magic. The kind of old magic that seeps under your skin and makes you addicted. The shit I’ve only felt one other time in my life. When, as a child, my parents tricked me into the blood ritual that gave me this fucking Bone Curse that turned me into a highly sought-after, extremely rare assassin whose very bones are a weapon.

Now, one of those bones is about to rip out of the base of my spine and stab me in the ass.

Which, considering getting cursed wasn’t my choice to begin with, seems wildly unfair.

Thanks, Mom and Dad. Fucking 0/10. Do not recommend.

My fangs are throbbing, threatening to drop all the way. Sweat beads on my forehead and drips down my temples, and it feels like my spine is about to be pulled out of my neck. I groan, bending over and planting my hands on my knees. There’s a low, primal sound deep in my chest crawling up my throat without my permission.

Again.

My limbs shake so hard I can barely stand. Before I know what’s happening, my back bows and I fall to the ground, slamming my knees against the cold concrete.

Part of me wants to lie down on the cool stone. It’s freezing against my flushed skin and feels so fucking good.

The vibration intensifies until it’s all I can feel and⁠—

Son of a bitch.

I’m about to⁠—