The predator's breath is warm against my face, and my treacherous body apparently does not know the difference between danger and desire anymore.
Too much dark romances, Abby. Too fucking much.
The man crowds me against the wall and those burning green eyes hold nothing but contempt as he studies me like vermin he has cornered in his pantry. The proximity should terrify me—it still does—but beneath the fear, the same compulsion from the forest stirs in my chest.
Weaker now, but present nonetheless.
My body responds to his closeness with now familiar heat I did not invite, a flush spreading beneath my skin that has nothing to do with the fire crackling across the room. The betrayal of my own flesh disgusts me.
"What do you want?" I demand, pressing my palms flat against the wall to keep from touching him.
"What I want," he says, his voice low and dangerous, "is for you to not exist. But we don't always get what we want, do we?"
I see an opening then—a gap between his shoulder and the doorframe—and immediately take it, ducking left and lunging for freedom. He catches me before I clear two steps.
Shit!
I fight with everything I have and my nails rake across his forearm, drawing blood. My knee aims for his groin, missing by inches when he twists his hips away. When I bite down on the meat of his palm as he tries to cover my mouth, I taste copper.
But none of it matters.
He subdues me without real effort, pinning my wrists together in one massive hand while his other grips my jaw hard enough to force my eyes to meet his. His expression holds no anger, no satisfaction—only the profound boredom of a man swatting at a fly.
"Finished?" he asks.
The humiliation burns worse than his grip.
This man neutralized me in seconds while looking utterly unimpressed by the attempt.
He does not release me and drags me toward the door—not the exit I tried to reach but another passage leading deeper into the structure.
My bare feet scrape against the floorboards as I struggle to keep pace with his long stride. We emerge into a larger space, a main lodge with exposed beams and a massive stone fireplace dominating one wall.
I see Grogan standing near the hearth, guilt carved into every line of his aristocratic features. The memory of what happened between us in the forest pulses through my chest with shame and pleasure and violation bound together.
"Abigail," he says, stepping forward. "I'm glad you're awake."
"That makes one of us." The words come out sharp and edged with bitterness I cannot fully suppress.
Looking at him hurts in ways I refuse to examine—the feeling in my chest pulling toward him while my mind recoils from the memory of his hands on my skin. Of him… inside me.
His jaw tightens, but he presses on. "I believe you deserve to know who we are. You already know me. The others…" He gestures toward the corner where the massive scarred man sits watching. "That's Rhett. He tended to you while you slept."
Rhett inclines his head, brown eyes holding sadness deep enough to drown in.
Grogan's hand moves toward the table covered in papers, where a man with dark hair and ice-blue eyes tracks my every micro-expression. "Jarek. Our strategist."
Jarek holds himself with an unnerving stillness that suggests he rarely moves without calculated purpose. He looks at me like a specimen pinned beneath glass.
"And Theron." Grogan nods toward the far wall, where man’s golden curls catch the firelight, framing features almost too pretty for the masculine breadth of his shoulders.
Theron attempts a charming smile that falters when he registers the fear I cannot hide. It’s crumbling at the edges to reveal shadows pooling beneath eyes that clearly have not seen real rest in far too long.
I swallow the terror clawing at my throat and force my chin up.
If I am going to die surrounded by supernatural creatures with a death grip on my arm, I refuse to do it cowering.
"Lovely introductions," I manage, my voice steadier than I expected. "What century did your parents think they were living in? Did they consult a medieval baby name book, or did you all just get very unlucky?"
Silence stretches through the lodge.
Rhett's scarred throat works around what might be a suppressed laugh and I see Jarek's pen pauses mid-notation, one dark eyebrow lifting a fraction of an inch. Theron's broken smile twitches toward something more genuine.
Even Grogan's lips curve into a smile that softens the guilt etched into his features.
"Let her go," he says. "She’s not a threat and simply needs to understand what's happening."
The man's grip behind me tightens on my wrists until the bones grind together. "She needs to understand she's dead weight chained to our ankles."
"Hrollok." Grogan's voice carries endless authority, and I file the name away—another relic from a bygone century. "Release her. Now."
Hrollok obeys, but not before shoving me forward so hard that I stumble and nearly fall. Grogan catches me with careful hands, steadying my balance while I jerk away from his touch as quickly as I can manage.
"The ritual," he begins, and I hear the weight of explanation he has been dreading, "has roots older than this country. Centuries ago, your ancestors waged war against our kind. The treaty that ended it demanded a price."
He pauses, and the fire crackles into the silence, filling the space between us.
"Every generation, a daughter of your direct bloodline is offered as a sacrifice to maintain the peace."
My stomach turns with sick realization. "My grandmother…"
"Married into your family. She carries none of the blood the treaty demands." His gray eyes hold mine with terrible gentleness. "You are the last of your line, Abigail. The final debt."
"Then why am I still breathing?" I ask.
"Because somehow, impossibly, you survived. And the magic that should have killed you bound you to all five of us instead." He pauses, letting the words settle into the silence of the lodge. "Simultaneously."
I stare at him, waiting for the punchline that does not come. "That's insane…"
"Yes," he agrees quietly, and the admission carries more exhaustion than argument. "It is."
"Then let me go." The demand spills out before I can consider its futility. "I'll leave and you'll never see me again. Whatever debt my ancestors owed… consider it paid in trauma and call it even. Problem solved."
Grogan's expression shifts to a grief I do not understand, layered with pity I did not ask for.
"You can't leave. The bond is a lifeline, a literal one. If you leave pack proximity and the connection snaps, or if you die out there in the woods… It will kill all five of us instantly."
The lodge falls silent again and I hear the fire crackle, hear my own heartbeat pounding in my ears. Hear the distant call of a bird outside that has no idea the world just tilted sideways.
I look at each of them in turn. Grogan's guilt, raw and unhealed. Rhett's sadness, too vast to measure. Jarek's clinical observation, cataloguing my reactions for future reference. Theron's brittle smile, cracking further with every passing second.
Then Hrollok steps forward, his lip curled with disgust that seems permanently etched into his features.
"You aren't a prisoner because we want you here," he spits, each word landing like a verdict. "You're a prisoner because you're a walking bomb attached to our chests."
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