Every time my gaze slides his way, heat flickers through me, followed by guilt and something that feels a hell of a lot like fear.
“Alright.”Blade’s voice cuts through the room, low and commanding.Instantly, conversations die.“We’re callin’ church.Everyone in.”
Chairs scrape.The mood shifts, goes from simmer to boil.
Hannah nudges my arm.“You sit with me,” she says, tone brooking no argument.“You’re involved whether some of them want to admit it or not.”
We sit behind Vex at the table they use for eating as well as their meeting room.Long table.Scarred wood.The Kings’ reaper-and-crown emblem burned into the center.High-backed chairs on one side, simple chairs on the other.Brothers take their places by instinct, hierarchy written in leather and patches.
Blade at the head.
Vex to his right.
Fury, Hollywood, Flint, Stash, Ranger, Scout, Prophet, Rooster, Styx, Chrome, Cyclone.
Prospects, Bodhi, Azriel, Kyler, hover near the back wall, eager and tense.
Blade knocks his knuckles against the wood once.“This is official.We’re on record.What’s said in here stays in here.Everybody clear?”
Murmurs of agreement.
His gaze sweeps the room, then lands on me.It weighs more than his entire bear form, I’m sure of it.
“We got a problem,” he says.“A big one.Our girl here’s wearin’ a mark from a creature we still don’t fully understand.Prophet?”
The fallen angel straightens, fingers curling around the edges of his chair.“The connection is active,” he says quietly.“It’s not dormant anymore.Every time Tessa’s emotions spike, the mark responds.It glows, burns, pulls.It’s not random.”
A shiver crawls up my spine.The shoulder he’s talking about feels suddenly heavy under my shirt.
“What does that mean?”Ranger asks, voice gravelly.“Plain language, preacher.”
“It means,” Prophet replies, “her fear, anger, desire, all of it, feeds the tether between her and the thing under the ice.The more she feels, the stronger its reach.”
A low rumble passes around the table.
“Should we knock her out and keep her sedated until we figure it out?”Styx asks.
“Problem solved,” mutters Rooster.
Vex’s head tilts, eyes narrowing.“Try it,” he says softly.
Styx lifts his hands.“Kidding.Mostly.”
Blade doesn’t smile.“We ain’t drugging her.We’re not animals.”
Fury leans forward, tattoos shifting over the thick cords of his forearms.“We keep dancin’ around the obvious,” he growls.“That thing wants her?Fine.We use it.Put her somewhere exposed, let it come sniffing, ambush it, and end this.”
Hannah goes rigid at my side.My heart slams into my ribs so hard it hurts.
Vex’s chair screeches as he stands.
The motion from relaxed to lethal is too fast for my human brain to track.One moment Fury is smirking, the next Vex has him by the throat, slammed back against the wall, boots skidding on the floor.Fangs punch down, eyes gone so bright and pale they almost glow.
“Say that again,” he hisses, voice stripped of humanity.“Say it.I dare you.”
Every muscle in the room explodes into tension.Ranger is up, chair tipping, wolf snarling under his skin.Hollywood’s glamour flickers, a faint heat-haze over his features.Flint’s pupils narrow to slits, inner dragon straining.Power prickles across my skin, each supernatural energy a different flavor of danger.
The mark on my shoulder detonates.
