Page 169 of Scavenger's Oath

But Ivy’s been here for too long already. She’s mine even when she’s not in my arms.

Every man between us is just a blood-warm obstacle waiting to be removed.

Myles breathes her name like a prayer, in the full swing of a manic episode. Phoenix growls under his mask but he doesn’t shut Myles down.

We’re three predators inflicted with the same wound, and we’ll bleed for her together.

“Don’t they realise smoke is visible for miles around?” Phoenix grinds out, frustration palpable. “They cover their tyre tracks by driving through a creek… but they have a whole bonfire going?”

Myles growls behind me. “They think they’re untouchable.”

I map the paths between the outbuildings even as my pulse spikes. Every door, every window, every shadow where a muzzle could flash. Because rage without precision is just noise.

“This is the place. She’s here,” I hiss.

Phoenix’s gaze flicks to me, voice like gravel. “You don’t know that.”

“I do,” I retort, not sparing him a look. “Bennett’s no warlord. These men aren’t trained, they’ve just banded together. Look at them. Acting like they’re on patrols but just hanging around the house, drunk. They don’t know what they’re doing but they’re clearly trying to protect something.”

That name—Bennett—tastes like rust in my mouth, scraping something raw inside me. If he’s touched her, if he’s even looked at her, I’ll cut his hands off and feed them to him before he dies.

Myles’s voice is tight, barely leashed. He keeps flexing his jaw like he’s working out how to chew through the first man he meets. “They’ve got my little doe,” he snarls.

“And we want her alive,” Phoenix snaps. “We don’t go in reckless just because you’re spiralling.”

Myles’s knuckles crack around his machete’s grip, one heartbeat from splitting skulls. “Spiralling? You expect me to be calm? She screamed when they took her, Phoenix. She screamedfor us!”

The memory drives me. Her voice tearing through the air, that loose shirt barely covering her precious body. The fear in her eyes.

She’s carrying more than herself now. Two heartbeats. One I’ve felt under my palm, the other still a whisper. Both belong to us, and I’ll rip this place down to its foundations before I let either of them stop.

I can already see the way it ends—body parts piled up like mulch, blood feeding the weeds. Every man I cut down is another vow carved into the world.

Ivy is mine to protect, mine to ruin, mine to worship.

Eyes locked on the farmhouse, I shift my weight, muscles twitching for release. “I’ve got this.”

Phoenix turns his head slowly, eyes sharp. “You think this is the time to lose control?”

“Yes,” I say calmly. “It’s exactly time for that.” My hands keep twitching like they’re around someone’s throat, remembering how soft the windpipe collapses.

His eyes narrow on me. He knows this side of me, the one that was built in the gauntlet of my past. But I clawed my way out of that life.

Phoenix didn’t just patch me up, he taught me to redirect the violence. Then Ivy taught me how to trust myself again. That I can let myself want her. My depraved thoughts don’t scare her away.

Now every breath I take without her feels like inhaling broken glass.

I’ll show her how far I’ll go to keep her safe.

I feel that old monster coiling to strike, and I feel no shame. The smell of blood takes me back to the Pit. How I used to dream about tearing down its walls. This isn’t just a rescue mission. This is the reckoning I was built for.

I know exactly what’s needed for this situation…a Berserker.

“I’ll go with him,” Myles bares his teeth, more snarl than grin, eyes fixated on the farmhouse. “Let us off the leash.I want to bury them all in the rubble.”

“And if they’ve got a gun to her head the second they see us?” Phoenix’s voice is a whip crack.

“They won’t,” I growl, jaw clenching. “They won’t get the chance.”