Page 177 of Sweetheart: Part One

“If you two could use your words, the rest of us aren’t fucking telepathic,” Rook growled.

But I couldn’t take my eyes from my brother, the conclusion I was drawing even enough to wipe my own mistakes from my mind. I couldn’t fix them—shouldn’t, even because…

Ascent match?Vex?

She was perfect, in every way I could never say out loud.

I…

I couldn’t breathe for a moment, hearing the soothing whispers of a dream, silenced even in sleep.

Impossible.

Never for me. I’d made my choice a long time ago, and that choice was Ebony. I didn’t get a scent match, because Ebony couldn’t have a scent match.

Except, she washere.

This had happened right under my nose. I’d pushed her into Ebony’s arms, and so he’d figured it out first.

And now I was too late.

“It’s over,” I said. “The contract’s dust.”

A smile slowly curved his lips.

“She’s out.” I had to make him understand.

This wasmyplay.

It was fucking over. Captivating, beautiful, heart-wrenching or not, Vex was gone.

Ebony cocked his head, shifting forward, and I saw in his expression exactly how late I was. In all these years of chaining Ebony to sanity, of every binding I’d forged with leverage and threat, vitreous and breakable, none were enough in the face of this.

His words were low, a collision of both things that made him a predator, in mind and aura. “She’smine.”

I got to my feet.

I’d seen him destroy people for getting in the way of what was his, and that was nothing in the face of this. The man before me would burn the world to the ground before he let anyone take Vex from him.

In an insane moment, relief washed over me, a numbing wave of peace as every thing I’d ever done to leash the monster that was my brother, finally found its purpose.

Icouldprotect her.

I had, already. The contract was gone. I’d hurt her—beyond repair, I knew now, and it was the best thing that could have happened.

Yet, with that peace came a moment of sorrow.

He’d won, I realised.

Ebony had finally taken something from me that would leave me broken. It didn’t matter anymore if he knew how I felt about her, so I told him my truth—the one he’d been waiting for.

“I would rather be six feet deep, than watch you destroy her.”

He needed me if he wanted her.

I was the key to her bite.

He was a rogue, which meant he could kill another in a bond with him. But if he killed me—the current pack lead—the pack would shatter. That would cost him the scent match.

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