She inhaled, her breath shaky. “How long before your brothers start resenting me? Before they think I’m not worth the risk? Before they start wondering why their acting Prez is putting everything on the line for some stranger?”
Cyclops didn’t so much as blink. “You’re not some stranger.”
“Yes, I am,” she whispered.
He pushed off the wall and walked toward her, stopping right in front of where she sat. “Trixie, look at me,” he ordered. She didn’t want to, but she did it anyway.
His eye burned with something fierce. Something absolute. “You’re here because you were hunted,” he said. “You stay because I said you’re under my protection. And nobody in this club is gonna challenge that.”
“And if they do?” she asked.
A dark smile curved his mouth. “Then they’ll regret it.” Her breath hitched. He wasn’t just a man. He was a shield made of violence and loyalty and bone-deep conviction. And somehow, he’d placed himself between her and the world without her asking. She didn’t know what to do with that.
“Cyclops,” she whispered. “What if this ends badly?”
“What if it doesn’t?” he countered.
She closed her eyes. “You don’t know what you’re inviting into your life.”
“I know enough,” he said again, softer now. “I know you’ve got more fire than fear. I know you’ve survived things that would break most people. I know you’d go down swinging before you let someone unjustly claim you.” He crouched, bracing his forearms on his knees so he could look her directly in the eye. “And I know this for sure—your father is not getting anywhere near you while you’re here. I won’t allow it.”
A thickness rose in her throat. “Cyclops,” she whispered. “I don’t know how to do this. Any of it. I don’t trust easily. Letting someone else decide to fight beside me is something that I’ve never done. I don’t even know how to stay still without feeling like something terrible is about to happen.”
He reached up, slowly, and touched her hand. Just a graze of his fingers against hers. “You don’t have to know how to do any of that, honey,” he said. “You just have to stay—with me.”
Her fingers curled around his—lightly, but just enough for him to feel the tremor there. She braced herself. “I’m not good at staying.”
“That’s fine,” he said, “because I am.” Her breath stumbled. He stood then, giving her space she hadn’t realized she needed until the air rushed in around her again.
“I’ll send someone with breakfast,” he said. “Venom and Ink will take first watch. You need sleep.” She nodded, even though she knew that sleep wouldn’t come.
He stepped into the hall, and right before he closed the door, he paused. His voice was low and rough. “If you need me, just let one of them know.” It wasn’t an order. It was a promise. And Cyclops making her a promise terrified her more than the men stalking the woods outside. Because she already knew—if she called, he’d come back to her. Every time, even if it ended up killing him.
Trixie didn’t sleep. She tried, God, she tried, but every time she closed her eyes, her muscles locked tight, waiting for footsteps in the hallway, a shadow to appear at the window, or the metallic click of the doorknob to turn. She was waiting for Cyclops—to know that he was all right, and not seeing him was causing her stomach to knot with anxiety. The quiet was too loud, too still, and too alien for her to be able to relax enough for sleep to find her.
She wasn’t built for safe places—not anymore. Not since finding out who her father was and what he really did for a living. The room that Cyclops had moved her to was secure with its solid walls, a reinforced door, and a window that faced nothing but trees. She should have felt protected, but she didn’t. Instead, the silence felt like a trap she didn’t know how to navigate.
After an hour of pacing, she gave up and collapsed onto the bed, hands pressed to her eyes. “Get a grip,” she muttered. “You’re not being hunted in here.”
A knock on the door made her jolt upright, knife already in her hand. “Easy,” Ink’s voice came through the metal door. “It’s just me and coffee. Don’t stab me. I’m too handsome to die.” She cracked the door only after checking the hall through the peephole twice. Ink leaned against the frame, holding two steaming mugs and a paper bag that smelled like fried dough and cinnamon.
He raised a brow. “You checking for intruders?”
“Always,” she said, stepping back.
Ink handed her a mug. “You need this more than I do.”
She took a cautious sip. It was strong, bitter, and exactly what she needed. “Thanks.”
He set the bag on the dresser and looked around the room. “Cyclops picked a safe one for you. Only two entrances to this wing, both guarded. There are cameras and alarms everywhere back here. It’s pretty much impossible to sneak in.”
“Nothing’s impossible,” she murmured.
Ink shrugged. “That’s fair. But it won’t happen without Venom ripping someone's head off first.”
A ghost of a smile tugged her mouth. “Comforting.”
Ink leaned against the wall. “You holding up?”
