“People have started camping outside the barrier,” Zeek murmurs, eyes on the window. “I haven’t asked the Barrier Guards, but I’d bet anything her oldfriendsare already there.”
I grind my jaw at the anger that flares, my fingertips crackling with sparks of blue.
“Sai is right. We need to remember her words.” Julien settles on the edge of the coffee table beside Kane. “We shouldn’t doubt them. Not again.”
“She won’t leave.” Kane’s voice is too low, too heavy, and we all see the shadows curling around him. “She’sours.”
Well, that’s progress at least, using team-player pronouns.
His dark eyes meet each of ours. “But if they try to take her from us… we’ve killed beings for less.”
Anyone else would be shocked by Kane’s casual threat to kill the only family she’s ever known to keep her, but it’s Kane, and we’re us.
We’re not good men, never claimed to be, because if you treat beings like monsters long enough, everyone knows how it ends.
But we’re her monsters.
“She’d hate us,” Zeek says, not with outright rejection, but he sounds a little repulsed. “We couldn’t do that to her.”
Kane glances at me, just one sharp, quick look and that’s all we need, because he knows I’d do it. He could drop them in the Pit with me and—
“Stop.” Julien’s anger sharpens his words as he stares at me, hard, then Kane. “That is notan option.”
My markings flare. “But—”
Red shifts in her sleep, murmuring something random that stops us as we all zone in on her, reminding us that she’s here, she’s choosing to be with us right now.
Because she trusts us. Like we need to trust her.
“Sai.”
Shit.
I know that voice, and that look, it’s when Julien reaches his limit and becomes scolding. It rarely happens, but when it does, I listen.
“She would never forgive us,” he says, stern and slow, making sure I really hear him before glancing at Kane too. “This is one thing that killing will not fix.”
“We’ve just regained her trust, she’s just starting to let us in,” Zeek adds with that same warning tone. “We can’t squander that simply because we feel threatened by others.”
“Threatened?” I scoff, scowling. “Mate, I’m not threatened by those fucks. But I am a littleconcerned that we’re asking her to choose between us, and the people who practically raised her, people who filled her head with bullshit for the last few years.” Then my voice drops into the dark, filled with venom. “And she was fucking one of them.”
The lights explode in a blaring white, shadows flood in. Then darkness.
“Shit,” I murmur into the pitch back, wincing as I restrain my darkness. I shouldn’t have said it, but I did. We’d just got those lights fixed too.
Zeek brings a soft hum of light back into the room with silver slivers, illuminating his face, bright gaze locked on mine with a heavy scowl.
“My bad,” I lamely apologise, giving them each a sorrowful little look. “My darkness is too close, all the fucking time.”
Their glares drop, understanding floating in their expressions.
“We’re not asking her to choose, Sai,” Zeek murmurs. “This isn’t black and white, us or them. We’re bonded. But that doesn’t mean we have exclusivity, she has the right to relationships outside of us.”
“I really don’t like the way you’re phrasing this.” I grit my teeth, and Kane’s shadows slither back out.
Zeek lets out a sigh. “Julien, a little help.”
Julien shifts forwards, gaze sweeping across us. “When the barrier falls, her family will come, and if Jasmine wishes for them to stay in her life, that choice does not lessen us. Our bond with her is not fragile, mon frères. It cannot be undone by old ties. We will remain hers, as we have always been, and she will remain ours.” His eyes drop to Red, and his voice lowers. “What matters is that she sees we are steady enough, patient enough, to stand with her no matter what she chooses. Always.”
