“You should be resting,” I say, but there’s no real force behind it.
“I’ve rested enough.” She descends the stairs with a grace she didn’t have before the transformation. Every movement is fluid, powerful, and controlled. “I heard everything. The threats, the danger…. all of it.” She reaches the bottom and faces the assembled club. “This is my fault. Viktor attacked because ofme. The Coven is coming because ofme. So, I’m going to do something about it.”
“Sloane—” I start, but she cuts me off.
“No.” Her voice carries that layered quality now, human and something else harmonizing together. “I’m not hiding while you all risk your lives. I’m not the damsel who needs protecting.” Her hands clench into fists, and a crimson-gold light pulses beneath her skin. “I’m a Blood Witch. Whatever the hell that means. So, someone needs to teach me how to use it.”
Silence filters through the room, then Oracle laughs. It’s a sound like crackling flames, warm and approving. “I like her, Crave. She’s got fire.”
“Literally,” Scorch adds with a smirk.
“I’ll help train her.” Hades steps forward, his necromancer’s calm radiating assurance. “Blood magic and death magic share roots. I can teach her the fundamentals.”
“I can work with her on control,” Oracle offers. “My phoenix fire and her Bloodfire might have a similar resonance.”
“Combat training.” Reyna moves to stand with them. “If she’s going into a fight, she needs to know how to move, how to think tactically.”
One by one, they volunteer. Offering their expertise, their time, their knowledge. Not because they have to, but because they want to. Because Sloane just proved she’s not going to hide behind me or use them as shields.
She’s going to fight.
Pride swells in my chest, mixing with fear and an overwhelming possessiveness that the Heart Bind amplifies.
“Thank you,” Sloane says to them all. The sincerity lands hard, followed by a resolve that refuses to bend. But it’s the undercurrent that cuts deepest, the tremor of terror she doesn’t voice, the fear that strength alone won’t be enough to save anyone.
I cross to her in three strides and pull her against my chest. Her warmth seeps into my cold skin, and the bond flares between us, settling something primal.
“You don’t have to do this,” I murmur against her hair, low enough that only she hears. “I can find another way. I’ll keep you safe.”
“I know.” She pulls back to look at me, and those eyes,God, those eyes, they see straight through to the monster I am. “ButI don’t want safe. I wantus. I want this family you’ve built. And I’m willing to fight for it.”
The Heart Bind pulses, and I know with absolute certainty her choice is made freely, to stand withus.
Withme.
Against whatever comes.
“Seven days,” I say loud enough for everyone to hear. “We train. We prepare. We make ourselves into something the Coven has never seen before.” I look around at my family, at these monsters who chose to be more. “And when they come for judgment, we show themexactlywhat the Eternal Sins MC is made of.”
“Blood and fire,” Rogue growls.
“Fire and blood,” Scorch echoes.
“Eternal Sins first,” they all chorus. “Eternal till death… andafter.”
The words are our creed, our promise, our bond.
And for the first time since Nyx’s message arrived, I feel something other than dread.
I feel hope.
Dangerous, fragile, probably foolish hope.
Because I’ve got my club behind me, a Blood Witch at my side, and seven days to prepare for a war that will determine whether we survive or burn.
I pull Sloane closer, my mouth brushing her temple, and send her a promise where words reach her mind. Telepathy between us is another connection that comes with the Heart Bind.
‘If I die, you burn them all down. Every last one.’
