Unlike all the others, Kane stares directly at me as he removes the cap. His dark eyes never waver as he tilts his head to one side, just so—and that small action screams everything he doesn’t say.
That he accepts my challenge, that he understands, that he’s willing to do this. To do anything.
He drinks. Drains it.
They all just drank it. And I’m suddenly so… so… angry. Angry that they derailed my plan. Angry that they trusted me so easily. That they just put themselves at risk without hesitation. And I’m angry that I even care. I hate that I care—
It’s fine. This is fine.
I bite my tongue, straighten my spine and look away from Kane.
A small hitch in my plan, that’s all, we can still progress onto the next step. The reason we’re all here, why I asked for this meeting, to discuss the truth they kept from me.
“When did you know we were…” Fuck. Come on. Justsayit. “…bonds?”
That word makes the shadows bloom, encasing the room in a creeping gloom. My gaze flickers to the darkness as it spreads, dimming the light, curling like smoke around the edges of the walls. Then I look back at them, waiting to see who breaks first.
“It was different for each of us,” Julien begins. I don’t miss how his eyes dart to my throat, to the tiny mark.
“And for you?” I ask, matching his quiet tone.
His gaze sweeps up to mine, and it stays there as he answers, “The night you took the truth serum, when Sai was attempting to remove your mark and I was… inhaling your scent.”
“I remember.” I tilt my head, exposing the mark more clearly in the low light, then place my index finger beside it. “When I told you I had no other marks. That I’d never been bitten.” His gaze sharpens, flitting from the mark to my eyes viciously. “Then you tried to bite me.”
Back to my eyes. “I wouldn’t have. Never without your permission.”
I study him, scrutinise his words, try to pick them apart. He can’t lie, but I still find it hard to believe him.
“Did you want my permission when you cornered me in the club’s hallway?” My voice fills with sarcastic bite. “When you said you were going to drain me? Lock me in a cage? Make me yours?” The shadows bloom, and my nail drifts along the tender line adorning my neck. “I don’t remember you asking for my permission then, Julien.”
“Fucking hell,”Sai groans.
But Julien’s eyes stay locked on me, on my nail as it traces the tiny cut.
“I’d been locked in the pit for a week.” I narrow my gaze, listening for any attempt to twist the truth. “I made my brethren chain me there. Keep me detained for even having those thoughts.”
His eyes never leave my throat, his brows pinched. I dig my nail in slightly, he tenses then blurts, “I should never have come to you that night, but the calling was too much. When Isaid those things, my darkness was overpowering me, I hadn’t fed, I’d only just recovered from the frenzy you’d triggered—”
“So it’s my fault you said those things to me?”
“Stop talking, Julien,” Ezekial urges.
But we all know he can’t, because the serum won’t let him.
“No.” Julien’s gaze falls back to mine. “I put you at risk that evening. I was foolish, selfish, greedy. I wasn’t prepared to see you again, yet I still went.” His eyes flicker across the table, left and right, before settling like he’s reached a conclusion. “I’m sorry I subjected you to that side of me. I was weak, and I’ll never let it happen again. But, please believe me when I say, I would never have harmed you.”
Just like Kane, another member of this unit who just loved to say things they didn’t mean. As though Julien can see my uncertainty, my doubt, he stands.
With his palms flat on the table, he leans in, levelling his burnt-maroon gaze with mine. “I will do anything to prove myself to you. Anything. I will remain chained in the Pit for eternity, if that is your wish, because there is no reason to linger in this realm, on this planet, in this existence, without you.”
Keeping a neutral expression has never been so hard. But there’s a slight pause in my breath, a flicker in my gaze, small tells breaking through. Any normal being would miss them.
But not these men.
The shock, the disbelief, the pleasure that Julien would sacrifice so much for me… whatever I’m trying to suppress, he must see through it, because I catch the softest twitch of his lips as he reseats himself.
But he doesn’t get to smile. He isn’t allowed that flicker of comfort. Not untilIallow it.
