I glanced down at the bandages around my wrist, clenching my jaw. “I don’t know what happened. I think I?—”
“It wasn’t you,” Dusk said.
Usually, talking about the Lincoln pack would drag me into memories. My imbalance—my curse—surfacing. I tensed, ready to disengage, but Shatter’s lingering bite was like a fortress, walling me in and keeping those demons out.
I stared at Dusk. Ithadn’tbeen me?
But I’d been sure…
“How do you know?”
“Flynn touched me, and the whole bond began to collapse,” Dusk said.
I froze.What in the fuck did that mean?
I didn’t like it at all.
“I’m done with these stupid games,” I growled. “We?—”
“Ransom’s getting better,” Dusk said. “And westilldon’t know enough.”
I grit my teeth as he echoed Decebal and his stupid, rational advice.
“You can’t kill them until you know what they’ve taken.”
Fuck him.
And Dusk always listened. Decebal didn’t know what it was like. Having your living, breathing demons walk the same halls, un-fucking-punished for destroying everyone you loved.
I didn’t care if killing them killed me. Ididn’tcare. Yet still, I was trapped. If I died and our pack fragmented, Ransom might die. It was why we’d bonded him in the first place. To save him.
“If they were gone, she would be free,” I growled.
Dusk tensed, a tick to his jaw. “I won’t have this conversation—I won’t risk it.She saved you as well as him.She stayed when she could have left. That changes everything.”
I felt a flicker of uncertainty. My aura was a shadowed threat I could never escape—and despite Dusk’s determination, I knew we might never fix it. It might keep dragging me down and down until I never came back.
It almost had yesterday.
And yet, Shatter was a parting in the clouds—a light we’d never seen before. And I didn’t know what to do with it.
“She’s still hung up on them. But maybe, after this?—”
“What she did for Ransom won’t change anything for her,” I said.
He cocked his head, curious at my confidence. The bond she’d left on my neck connected us, even temporarily. I could feel all her wild little omega feelings.
She felt safe here. She… damn, I think she might really… I swallowed. I think she honestly might love us. That hadn’t happened overnight, and still, she was set on getting to her mates.
“There’s something she’s not saying,” I said.
“How do you know?”
I shrugged. “I don’t care what anyone says.Weare everything she’s looking for. If she hasn’t let go of them yet, there’s more to it.”
Dusk said nothing to that, leaning back on the couch and tugging out his phone. Likely to update Decebal with everything he’d learned about her in the last few days.
He was desperate to learn where she’d come from. It could help, perhaps, but I wasn’t convinced. Dusk had to know everything, and that need drove him.