He smiles, slow and devastating. “Because we made it for you.”
My breath stutters. “We?”
“All of us,” Saint says.
“Argued for hours,” Vale adds brightly.
“Days,” Wraith rumbles.
“Seven days, three prototypes, two blown tempers, and one incident involving a bandsaw that I’m not discussing,” Ash mutters.
Rook ignores them. His eyes stay on me. “We chose it,” he says, “because it looks like what you are. Not soft. Not clean. Not some pretty thing in a glass box. Something that grows out of ruin and tears down whatever tries to tame it.”
Heat floods my chest. My throat. My face.
I swallow. “It’s beautiful,” I whisper.
“It’s terrifying,” Vale corrects, which he makes sound like praise.
“It’s you,” Wraith says.
Rook lifts the mask — slow, patient — and raises it toward my face. He pauses just before it touches me. “Last chance,” he says quietly.
I meet his eyes. And for the first time in my entire life, I don’t hesitate. “I’m yours,” I tell him. My voice doesn’t shake. “Allof yours. You don’t get to make me choose who I love.”
The room goes absolutely still. Something raw flashes behind his eyes. Relief. Possession. Hunger. Reverence.
“I know,” Caelum murmurs.
Then he settles the mask over my face. It fits perfectly—like it was carved from me.
The world narrows, and light shifts. The flicker of the candles goes sharp through the eye slits. The air tastes like smoke and iron and rain. The weight of it changes the way my spine sits—not bowed, not braced. Straight. Aligned.
I exhale slowly, and without being told, without prompting, without drama, they move.
Wraith drops first. Then Saint. Then Vale, slow and theatrical, like kneeling is obscene and he’s doing it anyway because it turns him on. Then Ash, jaw tight, gaze upturned, eyes on me like I’msomething he’ll burn the world down to archive. And finally — Caelum.
He kneels, and bows his head.
Tome.
My chest cracks.
For a second I can’t breathe, because somewhere between the warehouse and this room, between the first day they took me and tonight, something shifted that I cannot take back and don’t want to.
This is not captivity. This is coronation. A vow. They look at me and there’s no lie in it. No manipulation. No leverage.
They’re not making me theirs. They’re offering themselves to me. I feel the weight of it, and I don’t run from it. I let it curl into me, settle in bone and blood.
“Why?” I ask. My voice sounds different behind the mask. Darker. Older. “Why me?”
Caelum looks up. His eyes are that impossible blue, and they’re not guarded for once. They’re honest. He gives me the truth like a blade he trusts me with. “Because,” he says softly, “we were already burning. You’re the only thing that made it a purpose instead of an ending.”
My throat tightens, tears leaking at the corner of my eyes.
“Because you’re the first thing we haven’t wanted to break,” Saint adds quietly.
“Because you make us worse,” Vale purrs, grin sharp, “and that’s fun.”
