I press closer to my mother’s chest as a tremble of uncertainty shakes me, but my gaze won’t leave the sight of weapons against their bodies. My tears sting, fresh and bitter,and I don’t know what I’m supposed to say…whether to damn them or defend them.
Words scrape up my throat before I even understand what’s going to come up. “Don’t–” My voice breaks, catching on another sob, but I push through it, pulling in a jagged breath. “Don’t kill them.”
Two sets of crimson eyes and one black pair snap to me, disbelief etched sharp across every line of their faces, and the weight of it nearly buckles me. Still, I force the words again, steadier this time even as my tears stream unchecked. “We have to bring them back to Sanguis.”
My mom stiffens at my side, her hand pressed to my back like she can hold me together single-handedly. It’s my fathers whose voices cut through first, harsh and incredulous, layered one over the other.
“Impossible.”
“Absolutely not.”
“There’s nothing you can say that will grant them clearance into our domain.”
Each refusal slams into me like another blow, but I lift my chin despite the wetness streaking my face.
“I promised them.” The words rip free before I can stop them, my voice breaking again, this time with a different kind of desperation to stay true to myself like Lyra reminded me. “They’re the reason I escaped. Without them I’d still be trapped in that vicious cycle of torture.”
I blink through the tears, and for a moment I almost can’t reconcile the sight of them with the memory I’ve carried in my head every day I was locked away. It hits me square in the chest as I let my eyes meet each of theirs, seeing how broken and angry they look.
Papa stands on the left, his jaw tight enough to crack as his chest rapidly rises and falls. His usually kempt brown hairis messy, the usually sleeked back golden strands catching the light when he shifts. I used to think nothing could rattle him into disorder, his clothes always neat and pressed, but for the first time I see an entirely different version of him. His pants are creased and his white shirt stained. He looks like he hasn’t slept the entire time I’ve been gone.
Beside him, Dad is all shadows and edges, his lean frame draped in black tactical gear, silver rings and chains glinting when his fingers flex around the weapon pressed to Callum’s throat. His usual soft eyes are somehow the sharpest of the three, the sight of it sends a shiver crawling down my spine. I’ve heard of his dominance in the field, but I’ve never witnessed that side of him in action until now. My brain can barely comprehend that he’s the same person who sprawled across my floor with me making bracelets.
Then there’s my father, the King of Sanguis. Taller than the others, his suit stretched across muscles that could crush a man in half, his usually short and kempt beard is long and disheveled, and he lacks his usual composed demeanor, no matter the situation, like he’s losing himself to the monster within. Black eyes practically melt into the black veins spidering from the corners down to his cheeks. I can feel the raw fury rolling off him.
My family. My protectors.
With weapons pressed to the guys’ and fury spilling from every line of my father’s bodies, I don’t know how to make them hear me.
I don’t know if there is anything that would pull them back from the edge.
A hand closes over mine, firm and grounding, and I drag my eyes away from them long enough to find my mother’s face. Her grip tightens, tugging me closer until the weight of her gaze pins me.
“Briar,” she says, low but fierce, her voice carrying the kind of finality that has always cut through arguments, “you can’t ask us to bring them to Sanguis. It puts all of our people at risk. We have a duty to them.”
My chest lurches, because I know she means it. I can hear the conviction in her tone and feel it in the pressure of her fingers around mine.
Frustration rips through me all the same, hot enough to sting behind my eyes. Of all people, she should understand. She and my fathers spent years mending the hostile lines between the slayers and the vampires, stitching peace between the groups. No one thought the fragile situation would hold, but they worked tirelessly to turn long-time enemies into allies, to train together, to prove that unity was stronger than old hatred.
Yet somehow she looks at three battered humans and tells methey’rethe danger we can’t overcome in Sanguis?
I can’t reconcile it. I can’t accept that after everything they built, after every bridge of peace they forced into place, she believes three humans are enough to unravel it all.
“I know what you’re saying,” I whisper, the words breaking out through the dryness in my throat, “but I made them a promise. I swore I would take them somewhere their family couldn’t touch. I won’t abandon them now after everything. I won’t betraymyselflike that.”
The frustrated tears slide down my face, but my voice steadies as I go on, a pleading edge threading through every word. “Please, Mom. They saved me and I can’t pretend they didn’t. We can’t throw them aside now.”
Mom’s eyes soften, even as her mouth presses into a line. She draws breath like she’s ready to argue, her grip on my hand tightening, but before the words can leave her lips, a different voice slices through the night.
“It’s okay.”
The sound of Callum’s voice startles us all as the two words hang there, soft but certain, and the silence that follows feels thick enough to choke on. My mother’s fingers tighten around mine and my fathers don’t move a muscle. Even Elias and Dante look stunned with wide eyes and parted lips.
Callum doesn’t flinch beneath the weight of everyone’s focus. His gaze is steady, his voice quiet but carrying with certainty. “Do whatever you need. Kill me. Hurt me. Leave me.” His throat bobs, the force of it pressing against the edge of Papa’s blade, but he doesn’t waver. “I deserve it.”
My chest caves at the sight of the tears spilling freely down his cheeks, glinting beneath the pale moonlight shining down.
He isn’t fighting. He isn’t begging. He’s just…yielding.
