Making sure she was on stable ground, I let go and looked away, eyes hard, as I bit back the thousand things I wanted to say. I didn’t have the patience for this.
“Come on,” I said instead, curt and dismissive. “Let’s get you out this way.”
“B-but… that’s the f-front—where the g-gunmen came from…. D-don’t you think there’s m-more?”
Her voice was all stutter and shake, and gods, she wasclingingagain. My fists clenched at my sides. It wasn’t her fault, not really. Not everyone could be like her, have the strength for real courage. Imagining Aniyah’s voice barking orders, eyes wildwith purpose, blood on her clothes like war paint, I wanted to bask in her dangerously seductive glow.
I took a breath that stretched my body tight, holding myself still like a wire about to snap. Then I forced a smile and looked down at Natalie.
“Aniyah’s taking care of everything,” I said smoothly, running a thumb along her jaw in a gesture meant to calm, to distract. “Soon, there won’t be any threats left.”
“Really?!” Her arms flew around my neck, clinging to me like I was a lifeline and not a man barely containing his frustration. “I’m so glad we have such an amazing boss.”
Boss. She didn’t evenknow. She had no idea Aniyah was more than that to me. My flame. My anchor. My reason for… everything.
I stayed silent. I couldn’t let it slip. Couldn’t give anything away. Gently, carefully, I pried her arms off me, resisting the visceral urge to push her off and run.
“Let’s get you out of here first. Aniyah wouldn’t want our newest employee so traumatized she can’t come back to work, right?”
She nodded, finally keeping pace, and I ushered her into the staff stairwell, my eyes scanning every corner, every shadow. Still on high alert. Still wanting,needing, to be somewhere else.
“Keep your phone on you,” I said once I opened the door to the alley. “We’ll contact you when it’s safe to return.”
“Thank you,” she called back as she fled around the corner.
I didn’t answer, just closed the door and bolted to the main floor. I didn’t stop until I saw them. All of them. Surroundingher.
That tension I’d been carrying, that suffocating grip of unspoken fear, I felt it unfurl. Release. She was still standing. Still fierce. Still mine… even if she didn’t know it yet.
As I got closer, the chaos of the club blurred into background noise. People were leaving, and shattered glass and bloodied bodies littered the floor, but it all disappeared. All I could see washer.
Aniyah.
She was drenched in blood, so completely soaked you’d think it had rained from the ceiling, but she was standing tall. Ash-white hair gleaming under broken lights, skin kissed with crimson, silk robe clinging to her because she hadn’t bothered to change before charging into battle. Like a boss. Likeher.
And for a moment, just a second, I breathed.
Then her eyes fluttered and closed, her body slumped into the wolf’s arms, and the breath I’d just found was ripped out of my lungs.
Alic’s voice pierced the haze. “What’s happening to her?!”
I was already running.
What the hell is going on?
They closed in on her, shielding her, a wall of muscle and magic and panic, and I couldn’t see her anymore. The second I lost sight of her, my chest cinched tight like a wire pulled too far.
The demon’s voice came low, tense. “She’s burning up.” My stomach plummeted.
No. No, this isn’t how it’s supposed to go.She was supposed to be yelling at us, bossing us around, flinging blood off her robeand grinning like a lunatic. She was supposed towin. That was what she always did.
“Shit. Now she’s shaking. Give her to me!”
Growls echoed in the air, rumbling and low and dangerous. Tension spiked, magic charging the space between them, and that was the moment I realized they weren’t just scared. They were about to turn on each other, and she was still in the middle of it all.
Get it together.That voice inside of me, Aniyah’s voice, cut through the panic. She’d expect more from me. She’d want someone to lead, someone to shut it down and handle it. She didn’t need five men unraveling over her unconscious body. She needed someone steady. Someone who could hold the line.
Even if I was falling apart inside.
