He nods. “It’s warded. Protected. The safest place in the city for someone like you right now.”
Someone like me.
Someone who can set vampires on fire with her bare hands.
Whose blood glows like dying stars.
Someone who’s apparently important enough to declare war over.
I let Crave help me onto his bike, settle the helmet on my head, and draw my arms around his waist as the engine roars to life. And as we tear out of that garage, leaving behind the scene of my impossible fight, only one thought fills my mind.
My old life just died back there on that concrete.
Whatever comes next, whoever I’m becoming, there’s no going back to normal now.
The fire burning beneath my skin won’t let me.
Chapter Nine
CRAVE
The ride to the clubhouse feels longer than it should.
Sloane sits behind me on my bike, her arms wrapped tightly around my waist, her heartbeat hammering against my back. I smell the fear rolling off her in waves—it’s sharp, acrid, and very human. But underneath it, there’s something else. Something that makes my Bloodfire hum with recognition. The scent that’s been haunting me since the moment she walked into my bar.
I pull into the compound, the engine’s growl dying as I kill the ignition. The gates close behind us with a heavy clang that sounds too much like a prison door. Around us, the clubhouse looms, a fortress built from brick, blood, and centuries of keeping secrets.
My brothers are already waiting.
They stand in formation across the main room like soldiers preparing for war. Rogue at the front, arms crossed, gold eyes tracking our every movement. Scorch to his right, smoke curling from his nostrils in lazy spirals. Dread in the shadows, his presence making the air itself feel heavier. Hex is sitting at his laptop, fingers frozen over the keys. Hades is standing like death incarnate, his necromancer’s calm radiating from him in waves. Grizz near the reinforced wall, his bear’s patience barely contained. Oracle by the fireplace, flames reflecting in his eyes. Ronan is trying to look casual and failing. Jet half phased, his wraith form flickering.
And the women? Eden perched on the counter, her banshee senses screaming danger, every glass behind her vibrating with the force of what she’s feeling. Seraphine is silent for once, hersiren’s song held in check. Reyna is leaning against the wall, storm energy crackling faintly around her fingers.
“Brothers,” I say, my voice cutting through the silence. “This is Sloane.”
“We know who she is,” Scorch mutters. “Question is, what the hellisshe?”
Sloane stiffens beside me, and I feel her pulse spike through our proximity.
She’s terrified but trying not to show it.
Brave little thing.
“That’s what we’re here to figure out,” I say. Then I turn to Sloane, my expression softening just slightly. “What I’m about to show you… there’s no going back after this. You sure you want the truth?”
She meets my eyes, and I see the determination there. The need to know, even if it destroys her. “I want the truth.”
I nod slowly. “Then you’ll get it. Everyone out,” I say, my voice carrying the weight of command that comes from being president. From being what I am.
No one moves.
“Crave—” Rogue starts.
“I saidout!” My voice booms, carrying the weight of darkness from being centuries old. A hint of my inner monster shows, just a flash of fang, a flicker of the evil that lives in my veins. “This is between me, Sloane, and whoever needs to verify what she is. Everyone else, you have ten seconds to leave this room before I make you.”
Rogue’s eyes flash gold, his lycan rising to meet my challenge. For a moment, I think he might push back, but then he looks at Sloane, and something in his expression shifts.
Recognition.
