My eyes shoot wide and the blade drops, metal clattering sharply against the stone floor.
And the face in front of me—Legend’s face—begins to melt.
It ripples like heated glass, dissolving, as bones rearrange under skin.
In the blink of an eye, Sinner stands before me, wearing a grin that is all teeth and wicked.
“Well,” he drawls, wiping the streak of blood from his throat with two fingers, his tongue flicking across them leisurely. “Someone has a little magic in her after all.”
He studies me slowly, cataloging every twitch of shock I haven’t recovered from yet.
He leans in just enough that I feel the heat of him at my jaw. “Good girl,” he murmurs, voice like silk wrapped around something sharp. “Can’t wait to find out what else you’re hiding, you little liar.”
I open my mouth to respond—something sharp, something that will definitely earn me a threat or twelve—but the air behind him shifts.
A pull. Low. Hot.
Irritatingly familiar.
My chest tightens and loosens all at once, like invisible fingers just curled around the inside of my ribs and dragged. My eyes are lifting before I can stop them.
And there’smyLegend.
The thought slams into me, rogue and stupid and completely uninvited, and I want to claw it out of my own skull. But it still blooms behind my ribs, warm and reckless.
Son of a bitch, I think he is mine.
But is he my favorite toy or my…fated mate?
Legend strides into the room. His hair is a mess, his jaw shadowed with exhaustion, darkness bruising the skin beneath his eyes like he hasn’t slept in a century. He looks dangerous inthat lazy, lethal way only he can manage. Like he just rolled out of bed and murdered someone on the way over.
His gaze scans the room once, landing on the expressions of his brothers, then snapping to me.
“Why does everyone look like they just saw our mother?” he asks, voice low, roughened, dragging over my nerves like smoke.
He doesn’t break stride. He hooks two fingers into the front of my jacket and tugs, pulling me into the line of his body. His scent puts a thorn through whatever argument I had been piecing together.
London exhales sharply, stepping toward us. “Haide is…developing,” she says, flicking a glance at her brothers. “Her senses sharpened and she reacted to a perceived threat. A knife appeared at Sinner’s throat.”
“Wow, London. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were being a snitch right now.”
“It’s not personal, Haide.” She shakes her head, and her tone tells me she’s not having fun, but it is what it is. “They’re my family now.”
Family.
The word sends a sharp ache through my chest, but I push it down.
To want is to lose. Stop forgetting that.
“We sure developing is the right word?” Sinner raises a brow. “Seemed pretty effortless to me.”
Legend’s arm goes instantly rigid around me. His muscles coil beneath my palms as he shifts me partially behind him in one smooth motion, barricading me.
It’s…hot, his show of possessiveness.
Insanely hot.
And also dramatically unnecessary.
