Page 16 of Roar Me Like You Mean It
MALEK
The forest swallows her quickly, but I don’t need sight to follow. From the rooftop above the facility, I can feel the frantic pace of her heartbeat even as she disappears into the dark. Every footfall crashes through the underbrush, sharp and uneven, the rhythm of a woman running not only from danger but from the unknown.
She has no idea how close she came tonight, no idea that the line between survival and death was one decision away from my claws closing around her instead of the men who tried.
I should have stopped her. I should have stepped out of shadow and let her see exactly who pulled her from the fire. But some instinct older than pride held me back. Letting her see me half-shifted would have been a confession, one that cannot be taken back, and I am not ready to place that kind of truth in her hands.
So I watch. I let her escape with the evidence clutched to her chest, even though I already took the one thing that matters most. Her phone is in my pocket, warm from her grip, carrying the digital shards of the photographs she thought she wouldsmuggle out into the world. She does not know yet that the lifeline she clings to has already been severed.
When she finally vanishes into the trees and the night folds back around the compound, I step away from the ledge. My body still hums from the half-change, muscles sore with restraint. The lion wanted her close. Wanted to claim what the roar had already marked. But I did not let it.
The elevator at the far end of the roof groans when I call it, the steel cage shuddering as it carries me back down to the lower floors. The bodies of the guards are still cooling where I left them, sprawled like broken dolls in pools that reek of iron. I step over them without hesitation, but not without thought. Each one will require erasure, every record of their existence dissolved, every family account paid out in silence. It is the cost of letting the world believe Thorne Strategic remains untouchable.
Back at headquarters in Geneva, the building greets me with sterile calm. Marble floors, steel elevators, the quiet shuffle of midnight staff who know better than to make eye contact. I head straight for the secure archive on the fifty-second floor.
Michaelis is already there, his jaw tight as he stands over the console. He does not ask questions. He does not need to. I pull Jennifer’s phone from my pocket and set it down on the table. His brows lift slightly, but he masks the reaction fast.
“Wipe it,” I order.
“Yes, sir.”
He plugs it into the encrypted port, fingers moving quick and precise. Within moments, every photograph, every file, every trace of what she captured inside the Zurich lab is gone, not simply deleted but buried so deep in corrupted layers of code that not even her government’s best technicians could dig it back out. When the device is clean, he hands it back without comment.
“The footage?” I ask.
“Already flagged. Cameras in the lower corridor picked up your shift. We scrubbed most of it, but one file slipped to the secondary server before I could intercept.”
“Bring it here.”
He hesitates only long enough to open the secure drive, pulling up the grainy clip. It is me, half-shadow, claws slicing through a guard’s weapon, eyes blazing in the red strobe of alarm lights. For anyone else, it would look like a nightmare caught on tape. For me, it looks like truth, undeniable and unmasked.
I watch for three seconds, then press my thumb to the terminal. The file erases in a burst of static.
“Gone,” Michaelis confirms.
“Good,” I say. “There will be no record.”
He nods once, then steps back. He knows better than to linger when my mood sharpens like this. I dismiss him with a glance.
When the room is silent again, I take the phone in my hand. It is small, fragile, ordinary, and yet it carried the weight of her determination, the sharpness of her mind, the stubbornness of a woman who refuses to let men like me operate in the shadows without consequence. I close my fist around it until the casing cracks, plastic and glass snapping under the pressure. I drop the ruined pieces into the incinerator chute.
The fire hisses as it consumes what she thought was her proof.
I tell myself this is mercy. Protecting her from knowledge that would destroy her long before it ever harmed me. But the lion stirs again, restless, whispering that it was not mercy. It was possession.
Back in my private suite, the whiskey waits. I pour heavy, filling the crystal until amber nearly spills, then drink in long swallows. The burn down my throat feels good, grounding. But itdoes nothing to stop the memories that press close the second I close my eyes.
I dream, but not of her. Tonight belongs to ghosts.
Rafe comes first, loud and wild, his laugh echoing across snow-covered battlefields, a sound that promised life even in the middle of slaughter. He never walked into a fight quietly. He threw himself into it with the certainty that he was either going to win or die trying, and he was fine with both outcomes. He was chaos in motion, but he was ours.
Then Darius, always scowling, always commanding, the weight of leadership grinding into his shoulders even when he pretended he could carry it without breaking. His voice could steady a hundred men with a single word, but I was the one who saw the doubt in his eyes when the fire burned low and the night pressed heavy. He bore the Pact like a burden carved into his skin.
Cassian follows, silent, still, a shadow carved from stone. He was never the loudest, never the most vicious, but he was the one we all watched when we needed to know how far the oath would stretch. His stillness was a weapon. His silence was faith.
And then Roman. Always Roman. His smile turned sharp when he began to fracture, his eyes glittering with ambition that no brotherhood could hold. He was the first to bleed us, the first to remind us that family and betrayal are only one step apart.
The blood-oath binds them to me still. Even after centuries, I feel the pulse of it when I shut my eyes, the echo of our voices swearing under firelight. My claws against their palms, blood dripping into the earth, a promise that was supposed to last longer than kingdoms.
