His doing. Obviously.
I close the door behind us. Turn to face him.
The bond screams between us in the sudden privacy—his need to touch me, to verify I'm real, warring with hisunderstanding that I don't want him anywhere near me. I feel his want bleeding through the connection, sharp and desperate, and my body answers with a pulse of heat I can't suppress.
He knows. I see it in the way his nostrils flare, scenting my arousal. The way his hands clench at his sides, fighting the instinct to reach for me.
But he doesn't move. Doesn't act on it. Just holds my gaze with those golden eyes gone dark with everything he's not letting himself do.
"The ritual," he says, voice rougher than before. "I won't let you do it. Not without exploring every other option first."
"You won'tletme?" I cross my arms over my chest, using the anger to push down the want. "You don't get to let me do anything. Not anymore."
"Then consider it a strong recommendation." He doesn't back down, doesn't soften. "Three hundred years of curse transferred all at once. The mystic doesn't know if anyone can survive that—warrior omega bloodline or not."
"It's her only chance?—"
"You don't know that." He takes a step closer, and I have to fight not to step back—or worse, forward. "I've been in those archives for weeks, Kess. Day and night. There are references to partial transfers—ways to move the curse in stages instead of all at once. Methods for weakening the curse before attempting transfer." His jaw tightens. "The priests destroyed most of the texts, but not all. There might be another way."
The words trigger something—a memory from before, from the gaps I found in the archive. The missing texts. The fragments that referenced warrior omegas but led nowhere.
"You removed them." The realization hits like ice water. "The texts about warrior omegas taking on curses. You had Corvith pull them from the library. That's why I couldn't find anything when I was researching before."
He doesn't deny it. Just stands there, absorbing the accusation.
"Yes."
"Why?" But I already know. Can see it in the set of his jaw, the guilt he's not trying to hide.
"Because I knew what you'd do if you found them." His voice is steady, but I feel the pain bleeding through the bond. "You'd volunteer. Sacrifice yourself without hesitation. And I couldn't—" He stops. Starts again. "I was already poisoning the bond to try to save you. I wasn't going to hand you a different way to die."
"So you made the choice for me. Again."
"Yes." No excuses. No justification. "I was wrong. I know that now. I knew it then, probably, but I did it anyway because I was terrified of losing you."
"And now?"
"Now those texts are back in the archive." He holds my gaze. "I had Corvith restore everything the night you left. Whatever you need to find, it's there. No more hiding. No more deciding what you can handle."
I want to rage at him. Want to scream about all the time I wasted searching for information he'd deliberately hidden. But there's something in his admission—the lack of defense, the simple acknowledgment that he was wrong—that takes some of the heat out of my anger.
Not all of it. Not even most of it. But some.
"And if those options don't work?" I force out. "If we run out of time looking for alternatives that don't exist?"
"Then we do it your way." Steady. Absolute. "But not before we've exhausted every possibility that doesn't involve you dying in front of me."
The rawness in those last words catches me off guard. Slips past the anger I'm using as armor.
"The curse activates in less than three months," I say flatly. "Your son will kill our daughter unless we stop it. We don't have time for exhaustive searches."
Something flickers in his eyes atyour son—pain, yes, but also something harder underneath. He noticed. Noticed that I claimed the daughter but distanced from the son.
"Our son," he corrects quietly. "Who didn't ask to carry this curse any more than I did. Who's as much a victim of it as she is." He holds my gaze. "I'm not going to let you blame him for something he can't control. Not when we can still save them both."
The correction lands harder than I expected. Because he's right—the baby isn't choosing this. The curse is.
"Then we work fast. Together." He holds up a hand before I can protest. "Separate workspaces. Whatever distance you need. But two people searching cover more ground than one, and I've already identified three promising texts that reference curse transfers."
