Cold fire streaks down my arm, through my chest, wraps around my ribs.Breath rips out of me.The room tilts for a heartbeat, edges warping.
Somewhere far away, under miles of ice and earth, something stirs.
Hears.
Answers.
“Tessa?”Hannah’s voice, distant and distorted, cuts through the roar in my ears.Her hand clamps around my wrist.“Breathe.”
Vex’s grip tightens on Fury, knuckles white.Fury’s hands claw at his wrist, red eyes burning, the threat of fire smoldering in his veins.
“Enough,” Blade snaps.
The single word shakes the walls.
He doesn’t move his feet, but the air shifts around him, weight of a predator who dropped its disguise.The temperature dips, the boards under our boots protest.
Vex doesn’t let go.
“Vex.”Prophet says his name with quiet steel.“You’re making it worse.Look at her.”
His head jerks toward me.
For a second, I see both of us from outside, me, clutching Hannah’s hand, mark blazing under my shirt, vision blurred with tears, him, all fangs and rage, holding a brother off the ground.
Something in his expression cracks.
Fury crashes back into his chair when Vex releases him.He coughs, rubbing his throat.“Fuck,” he rasps.“You’re welcome for the suggestion.”
Hollywood snorts.“Maybe next time you aim your big ideas at the enemy.”
Vex doesn’t sit.He plants his hands on the table instead, close enough that I feel the cold curling off his skin.His eyes are still pale, voice frayed around the edges.
“We are not using her as bait without her consent,” he snarls.“She is not a bargaining chip.She is not disposable.”
“The club isn’t disposable either,” Fury fires back.“We all bleed for this place.Her mark puts every single one of us on the line.We’re supposed to sit around and hope feelings fix it?”
“Make a move on her dog and I will put you down,” states Vex.
“I’ve gone easy on you Vampire but don’t think for one minute,youcould bring me down.You think you’re evil.I am evil and the devil calls me friend.”
Enough.
The word screams through my head before I realize I’ve moved.
My chair scrapes across the floor as I stand.The sound snaps every gaze toward me.My knees wobble, but my voice doesn’t when I speak.
“If anyone uses me as bait,” I say, “it’ll be because I agreed to it.Not because someone decided I’m expendable.”
The silence that follows feels endless.
Blade’s massive frame turns toward me fully, eyes dark and assessing.
“Tessa,” he begins, tone measured.“You’re—”
“I’m the one with the mark,” I cut in.“The one this thing keeps reaching for, the one who keeps waking up with frost in her veins.You want to act like I’m not already in this?Too late.I’m in it up to my neck.But you don’t get to make decisions about my body, my life, withoutme.”
My heartbeat thunders, every nerve on fire.The mark is still burning, but the pull shifts, focuses, no longer wild.It coils inward, feeding off the surge of something sharp and stubborn inside me.
