Page 31

Chapter Thirty-One

BLAKE

F or a full hour, I pretend I still know how to breathe.

It comes in a looped rhythm—inhaling through the nose, holding two beats, letting everything else go—but I’m lying to myself, and I know it. Because no amount of breathing can convince my soul it hasn’t snapped in half.

The sitting room on the bottom floor of the clan house is thick with quiet grief. More alive than silent, somehow. The kind of silence you feel on bare skin—a poignant hush that aches. The ceilings loom, half-shadows and soft lights casting long shapes over antique furniture with clawed feet and velvet upholstery too costly to touch. The space has been overtaken by greenery, vines and potted trees and mossy terrariums filling every available shelf and windowsill, turning the entire room into an urban jungle. I guess when you’re practically immortal, you get the time to learn how to keep plants alive. I’m curled up in the corner of one of the couches, a thick blanket across my lap and my knees tucked against my chest. I’m grateful for the texture, somewhere between crushed velvet and heavy warmth, but nothing can reach my skin.

Charlie’s gone. Every breath since Malachi’s promise is a dull knife scraping across my ribs.

Eloise sits beside me, not touching, but present in a way that makes her feel like gravity. She doesn’t speak much. Just hands me a lukewarm mug of something that tastes like citrus and honey and maybe the barest hint of whiskey. The drink does nothing to calm me. Everything smells like panic.

She shifts beside me, watching the fireplace flicker low with a thoughtful frown. “When Ambrose and I were first together, I remember him saying that if Malachi ever went quiet during a crisis, it was worse than when he shouted. That the silence meant something inside him switched off—and he’s turned into a weapon.”

I glance over at her and find the edge of her mouth twitching. Not in amusement. Something too sharp for that.

“I heard it once, when they were preparing to confront this archangel asshole outside of town,” Eloise continues, brow furrowed in memory. “It was like he was completely different. Controlled. Distant. Like someone standing in the middle of fire, not giving a fuck as he poured more gasoline on it. I’ll never forget it.”

I say nothing, because I’ve never seen this side of him. When he saved me from those three guys that first night, he didn’t seem in control at all. How much do I really know him? He said he wanted to mark me but it’s been, what? Not even two months after we first met? How can you decide to mark someone after such little time? If it was anyone else, I’d be running from the giant walking red flag. But the idea of Malachi leaving my life?

I press the heel of my palm against my sternum, trying to ease the ache that builds there when I think about him leaving.

It takes me a minute to realize Eloise is studying me again—but not with judgment. With something more like quiet consideration or maybe worry.

When I speak, I keep my voice low. I can’t bring myself to look until the words are out. “Earlier today, he said he wanted to mark me.”

Eloise’s eyes brighten with something soft but unmistakably thrilled. “Oh my gods,” she says, her voice pitching higher with excitement, not mockery. “That’s huge, Blake. I’m so happy for you. About damn time. What do you think about it?”

I huff something like a laugh before it turns bitter at the edges. “I was excited at first, but now it’s like another thing added to my brain to freak out about. We hardly know each other.”

Her hand slides toward me now, hesitation falling away as she tucks a blanket-cushioned palm over my wrist. She’s warm, steadier than anyone has the right to be after a fight she’s probably still recovering from. Her grip is light, but anchoring in a way I didn’t know I needed.

“I understand,” she says simply. “I felt the same about Ambrose. And if you’re worried you’re moving too fast—” Eloise gives me half a shrug, “—being with a vampire isn’t like human dating. When they know who their mate is, they know.”

“What’s it like?” I can’t help but ask. “You’re a human, so...”

Eloise resettles herself into a more comfortable position, tucking one of her feet under her on the couch. I realize she’s wearing mismatched silly socks and, for some reason, despite my world burning down around me, I find myself smiling.

“I told Ambrose I want to wait for a while before being turned,” she explains. “Vampires age, just really crazy slow. We’re talking our centuries are their months. But the mate bite still works between us.”

I hadn’t even thought that far ahead. Would Malachi want to turn me into a vampire? What about Charlie? There’s no way I’d let her be turned until she was an adult. Even then, I don’t know. It’s strange to think about, especially because I’m so used to thinking only a couple months in advance. To think years, centuries, in advance? I mentally shake my head; crazy.

Eloise is still talking, letting her voice wrap around the silence like gauze. “Ambrose and I haven’t fully figured out a long-term plan yet. I mean, I know I want to be turned, but how do you know when it’s the right time? Usually, most people don’t get the chance to plan for it from what I hear.”

“I never even thought that far ahead,” I say, combing my fingers through the edge of the blanket. “I mean, I’m used to planning things like my work schedule around Charlie’s school conferences or doctor’s appointments. The farthest I’ve thought ahead is starting a college savings for her to go to college somewhere in Europe like she wants.”

Eloise hesitates, her fingers drumming the mug now cradled between her palms, and there’s something knotted in her jaw that doesn’t quite soften even when she smiles. “I never thought I’d have to think that far ahead either… until suddenly I did. It’s like one day you’re drowning in the logistics of paying bills, working, doing laundry—and the next, someone hands you the possibility of forever.”

Her voice hushes when she says that last word. Not with fear, but with reverence. A bone-deep awe that makes my lungs shrink. Because I think I understand what she means now. For the first time, forever doesn’t sound hypothetical or metaphorical—it sounds personal. Tethered to one face.

Malachi.

Was it really only a few hours ago when his fingers traced the soft skin above my heart, dragging heat through my veins, when he said he wanted to mark me? I thought that moment meant something solid, something permanent. And it does. It has to. Because a man like him doesn’t say something like that unless he knows the gravity of it. But now I’m sitting in his clan’s house on furniture that has outlasted monarchies while my child, my Charlie, is out there with someone who looks at the world and sees only what he can take.

And Malachi is gone, hunting him down.

Eloise must sense the tilt in my thoughts, the spin beneath my skin, because her palm slips back over mine and squeezes. No words. Just pressure and patience and that impossible steadiness again.

“You don’t have to know everything right now,” she says. “You only need to hold on to one thing.”

I lift my gaze. “What’s that?”

“That Malachi won’t stop until he brings her back.”

My breath shudders. “I know,” I whisper. “But that terrifies me too. What if something happens to him?”

Because the truth underneath the truth—the kind I don’t want to say aloud in case it builds a shape permanent enough to become real—is that if Malachi fails, I don’t know how I come back from that. And worse, if he succeeds but it costs him pieces of himself? Then, what about the next time something awful happens? There’s always a next time in the Barrows. Always someone looking to find the edge of your skin and tear it just enough to see how pretty you bleed.

The low hum of my phone startles me. It vibrates against the cushion beside me like something alive and coiled. For one suspended second, I can’t place the feeling that grips me. Hope? Dread? I reach for it with fumbling fingers, dread rising like bile when I see the screen:

UNKNOWN NUMBER.

I hesitate. It’s a video call.

Eloise sees the name—or lack thereof—and her body tightens beside me.

I answer, the words catching on my tongue. “Hello?”

The screen flickers. And then his face fills it.

Kit.

I don’t think I actually inhale. I watch—frozen, straining, sick—as the screen settles. Shadows ripple behind him, but the camera focuses sharp and bright on the narrow alley edge of a place I know far too well. Swept asphalt, tidy dumpsters, power-washed bricks. The alley by The Place in Newgate. He’s standing in front of the staff door on the side of the building, where the deliveries go.

He’s holding Charlie, an arm around her shoulders.

My baby girl.

My daughter’s hands are tucked against her chest in a white hoodie—a new one Malachi picked up for her with a little astronaut floating past jellyfish. Her eyes are wide, skin pale under the yellow alley lights, but she’s alive. She’s so very alive. Her expression doesn’t crack. Not even once. Except, when her eyes find me through the camera lens, I see it. The fight. The fear. And my heart is torn down the middle.

A whisper of breath escapes me, part sob, part prayer. Eloise’s fingers clamp over mine, hard now. A tether to reality, when everything else wants to free fall.

“Blake,” Kit says, like my name tastes sweet on his tongue. He tilts the camera so I can see more of Charlie, the alley behind them stretching out in pale amber streetlight. His grin is too wide, too white. “I think I should be thanking you for turning me down all those times.”

I see red so sharp it eclipses speech. My blood is a thunderclap. I grit my teeth and squeeze the phone like I could reach through it.

“Charlie,” I whisper. “Sweetheart, are you okay? Tell me. Are you okay?”

She starts to nod, but Kit shifts the camera and her movement smears into static. He jerks her forward farther under his arm like she’s a display item. A flicker of pain passes through her eyes, and it takes everything in me not to scream.

“Don’t worry, she’s fine,” he drawls, thumb brushing the top of her head. “I plan to take care of her. Just like I would have taken care of you.”

My mouth tastes like blood. I don’t know if it’s from biting my cheek or if it’s just rage scratching up my throat like something feral, something old. If I could, I’d kill him right now. I wouldn’t need fangs or fire. I’d do it with my bare hands, one scream at a time.

I steady the phone even though my hand trembles. “Let her go,” I say. “Please. She’s a child. She has nothing to do with this.”

Kit tilts his head, that same predatory mock-gentleness curling through his words. “See, but that’s where you’re wrong. Everything about her has to do with this. You made her. You were meant to be mine. She’s the piece of you that never should’ve existed. And now, well…” He leans in, the whites of his eyes too bright. “Now she’s mine instead.”

Behind him, Charlie looks over her shoulder. It’s quick but I catch it. She yanks at his grip, shouting at him. “Screw you. Mal is coming and he’s going to fuck you up so bad.”

Kit jerks her closer after that; the phone jostles, angle going wild as muffled sound takes over. I hear her yelp—terror-strained, not hurt—but it still drills into me like a nail driven through bone. The screen steadies again, now too close to Kit’s face, his eyes electric with fury and something far darker beneath. His composure doesn’t just crack—it splits wide open.

I shout, drawing his attention back to me. “Kit, please. I’m sorry!” I barely notice Eloise leaving as I pour my heart into the phone. “I’ll do whatever you want, just let her go.”

Kit smooths a hand over Charlie’s shoulder, yet the action feels predatory, sinister. “This is your punishment, Blake,” he says, a manic gleam shimmering in his golden eyes. “That’s what rejection does. You should know by now—none of us gets to walk away unscathed. And Malachi—” he spins that name like a dagger, wounding. “That fucking vampire deserves to have his future taken from him. Just like he took mine away when he stole you from me.”

There’s a madness in his eyes, one that I’ve seen too many times in belligerent exes in clubs. The type of madness that erases all sense of decency and morals.

“It was a lie,” I blurt out, revealing the deception this all started with. “I was scared, Kit. I’ve never had anyone pay attention to me like you do. But I get it now.”

His eyes narrow, sharp and calculating, like he’s parsing my words for hidden meaning. “Scared of being with me? I was always kind to you!”

“I know.” I swallow hard, feeling the trembling edge of fear slip between my ribs and settle into my gut. I’ll say whatever I need to say if it keeps her safe. “But you’ve been to the club enough. You see the bad guys that try to play the strippers. I couldn’t take the chance with you, but I know you’re sincere now.”

Kit’s gaze sharpens, the manic luster in his eyes flickering with curiosity—a calculated interest. He leans in, almost conspiratorial, as if my words have piqued something old and buried inside him. “Sincere? I’ve always been honest with you, Blake! You’re supposed to be my mate. Why do you think I kept coming back to the club? You know I never watched the other strippers. Only you.”

I bite my lower lip, nodding hard. “You’re right.” I pull on every second of hard-won experience placating males of all types my entire life. I become someone else, that stripper who is innocent and just needs the right man to pay attention to her. “And I see that now. I’ll prove that I’m not really with Malachi.”

I yank down the neck of my shirt before he can answer and direct my phone’s camera towards my exposed chest. “See?” I look up to the ceiling, praying he believes me. “Malachi would have marked me if I was actually with him. No mark. I swear.”

When I dare to move the screen, Kit’s eyes are wide, a flicker of disbelief flitting across his face. The moment stretches out, taut like a bowstring, the tension morphing into a weapon of its own. My heart races—not from fear of him, but from a fierce instinct to protect my daughter at all costs.

My stomach churns, and I taste bile at the back of my throat. Then I make one more desperate leap.

“I want your mark,” I breathe out. “I never felt right with Malachi. And I think I was so nervous around you because I could feel what you do. But I’m human, so I didn’t understand. I understand now.”

The way he tilts his head, those predatory eyes calculating my worth and weighing the costs, makes goosebumps flare to life along my arms. The air thickens, suffocating, but I can’t back down. I can’t show how terrified I am, how each clench of his jaw steals a pulse from my soul.

“If you’re not lying, meet me at The Place,” he taunts and raises an eyebrow, mocking entitlement oozing from every pore. He grips Charlie’s chin, forcing her to look him in the eye, but not once does she relent, not once does she give him any semblance of power despite everything. “I want you to reject him in front of everyone, like you did me. Then I’ll mark you. If you’re lying, I’ll mark Charlie. I’ll have a part of you, no matter what.”

“I’ll be there, I swear it.”

Kit hangs up.

My breath punches out of me like a body blow, leaving me doubled over. But only for a moment. Then I straighten.

Ambrose is already in the doorway, a phone to his ear. “We know where he is. The feed confirms it. He’s at The Place,” he says without preamble. He looks at me as he hangs up. “Malachi’s been informed.”

I surge to my feet but he’s already gone, as if vanished into thin air. My phone clatters to the couch as I move, every nerve on fire with the need to go. To run. To get her. Eloise is suddenly there, catching my arm before I can storm toward the door.

“Wait—”

“No. I have to get to her. I have to go now.”

But instead of arguing, she grabs my shoulders. Her grip is firm, grounding. “I know, we’re going with you,” she says. “Ambrose is already pulling the car around. Let’s go.”

There’s no more discussion. I tear down the hallway beside her, adrenaline thundering through my body. The marble gives way to cold cement and exhaust-slicked air as we hit the garage beneath the clan house. Ambrose is already behind the wheel of a sleek Subaru WRX.

I slide into the back seat without hesitation, the door barely shut before we’re speeding into the dark.

I’m coming, baby.

Hold on just a little longer.