A snarl rips from my throat before I can stop it. The sound echoes across the empty parking lot, feral and raw. My hands ball into fists, nails biting into my palms hard enough to draw blood. The pain grounds me,barely.Keeps the beast from surging too close to the surface, where it might do something I’ll regret.
“You keep growling at nothing, brother, and people are gonna think you’ve gone feral.”
I don’t turn at Scorch’s voice. I don’t need to. I feel his heat signature approaching from behind, the air around him shimmering with barely contained dragonfire. He stops beside me, silent for a moment, then lights a cigarette. The flame dances at the tip before settling into a steady burn.
“I’m fine,” I say, the lie tasting bitter.
“Bullshit!” He exhales smoke, and it curls through the air in patterns that look almost alive. “You’ve been snapping at everyone for weeks. Jet nearly phased through a wall yesterday when you went off on him for leaving his bike in your spot.Your fucking spot.Since when doyougive a shit about parking?”
“Since Ifucking say so!”The words come out harsher than I intend, edged with a growl that makes Scorch’s eyebrows rise. He doesn’t back down, though. Dragons don’t scare easily, especially not from lycans they’ve known for decades.
“There it is,” he says quietly. “That rage you’ve been choking on.”
I finally turn to look at him, and the concern in his eyes almost breaks something in me.Almost.“I said I’m fine, Scorch. Drop it.”
“Can’t do that, brother.” He takes another drag, the ember glowing bright before fading. “You’re part of this pack. This family. And when one of us is hurting, we all feel it.” His gaze sharpens, seeing too much. “Talk to me. Or talk to Crave. Hell, talk to Oracle if you need the wise-old-man routine, but stop swallowing this poison like it’s medicine.”
The mention of Crave’s name sends another spike of guilt through my chest.
I haven’t talked to him.
Not really.
Not beyond the necessary club business, the tactical discussions, the surface-level shit that lets me avoid looking him in the eye for too long.
Because every time I do, every time I see him moving with his new Apostate grace, I remember.
I remember him bleeding.
I remember being powerless.
I remember failing my sworn duty, the oath my bloodline has carried since Khaos himself forged the first lycans from dying wolves and fallen warriors.
Protect the vampire.
Guard the bloodline.
Die before you let them fall.
My family has lived by those words for millennia.
We were created for one purpose—to be the shield between vampires and the chaos that hungers for their power. It’s in our DNA, our instincts, our very souls. The bond between lycan and vampire isn’t just loyalty.
It’s sacred.
Unbreakable.
Or it’s supposed to be.
But I broke it.
Maybe not the bond itself, I still feel Crave’s presence like a second heartbeat in my chest, steady and strong now that he’s healed. But I brokemyduty.Myoath. Everything my ancestors fought and died to uphold.
“I let him down,” I say, the admission scraping out of me. “When it mattered most, I couldn’t protect him. I just… hung there. Useless. While Viktor carved him open.”
Scorch is quiet for a long moment, then he lets out a heated breath, “Thanatos froze half the battlefield, Rogue. Sloane was bleeding from her eyes. Dread was trapped in his own fear construct.Noneof us could move. It wasn’t your failure… it was a trap designed to break us all.”
“But I’m notsupposedto break.” The words taste like venom. “I’m a lycan. I’mhisBloodguard. Myentire existenceis builtaround protectinghim,and I failed. Do you understand what that means? What itcosts?”
