Page 78 of Vampire Soldier

Kit doesn’t know what he’s up against. We’re not just a clan of vampires.

We’re a reckoning.

I nod at Ambrose without flourishes or pretense—king to general, general to king. Then I pull away from the table.

“I want the Sandmoor sectors secured within the hour,” I say, striding toward Blake as she stands. I take her by the hand and pull her into the hall.

The others shift into motion behind us.

We’re reaching the stairs when she tugs me to a stop before releasing my hand.

“I want to come with you.”

The words land hard. I turn slowly, still a breath behind the surge already building in my chest. When I meet her eyes, her face is set with fury. Her arms are crossed, legs braced like she’s not moving, even if the floor under us feels like it’s about to give.

“We don’t know what we’re walking into,” I say carefully, slowly, stepping close enough that the heat from her sinks into me.

“I don’t care.” Her jaw tightens and she drops her hands to her sides, flexing and balling them up. “She’s my daughter. I can’t sit here waiting.”

“You think I don’t know that?” My voice is quieter now—a threat of thunder rather than the thunder itself. “You think I haven’t torn myself apart already at the thought of you pacing these walls in silence while we turn over every inch of this city looking for her? But if I lose focus—if my attention splits for even two seconds because I’m trying to keep you safe too?—”

Her breath catches, and I see it—the first hesitation. “I can hang back?—”

“No.” I cross to her again, setting my hands on the railing beside her, caging her without touching, forcing her to feel the heat of me without letting her forget why I’m here—why we’re both here. “Because if I hear you scream while I’m chasing the bastard who took your daughter, I will turn around. I will tear the world in half, and I won’t care how many get caught in the blood.”

She flinches like I’ve struck her, but she doesn’t step back. Doesn’t shrink. She meets my gaze, fire for fire.

So fucking brave, this woman. Brave enough to see her life at risk of collapsing and still square her shoulders as if she could punch fate in the throat.

“Then promise me you’ll bring her back,” she says, voice rough with smoke and steel. “You swear that to me, Mal. Because if this ends with a body bag?—”

“It won’t,” I bite out. “Because I will turn this entire city into rubble. There is no world where I let him keep her. None.”

Then I crush Blake’s lips with mine.

ChapterThirty-One

BLAKE

For 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.

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