My pulse stutters violently.
“You think they see me that way?” I manage.
His gaze flicks past me briefly – up the stairs, towards the bedroom.
He smells them now.
All of them.
The nest.
His nostrils flare.
“You’ve been nesting,” he says, disgust threading through his tone.
Heat floods my face despite the terror.
“You’ve already bonded,” he realises.
The fury that ignites in his expression is immediate and uncontrolled.
“You let them mark you.”
“You drugged me,” I fire back, something breaking loose inside me. “You altered my body without consent. You used me.”
He steps forward suddenly, closing the remaining distance in a heartbeat.
His hand clamps around my wrist.
Not violently.
But firmly enough to remind me how strong he is.
“Youwillcome home,” he says, voice low and shaking now. “Wewillfix this.”
He raises the syringe.
I stop breathing.
“I don’t want to be fixed,” I whisper.
“You don’t understand what you’re becoming.”
“I do.” The truth lands hard and clear inside me. “I’m not your cure.”
His grip tightens. “You are my legacy.”
The needle catches the light.
My scent explodes into the air, fear and adrenaline and something far more combustible mixing at once.
Somewhere, deep in my body, heat begins to stir.
Not fully.
But dangerously.
And for the first time since he walked in, I realise something else.