Chapter 17
The clock on the mantel ticked louder than it should have.
Each second stretched into minutes, each minute into hours.
I couldn’t sit, couldn’t rest, couldn’t stop the twisting, sickening knot inside my stomach.
My palms were damp, my chest tight as I paced back and forth across the living room like a caged thing.
Lucien had been gone for hours. I knew where he had gone, I knew who he’d gone to see. Keller.
The name alone made my throat close. Every bruise, every scream in that dark warehouse came rushing back like a nightmare I couldn’t shake.
His hands, his laughter, the hopeless weight of chains.
Even hearing the name in my head left me cold.
Part of me wanted him to suffer…no, I wanted him to burn.
To bleed until there was nothing left but ash and a warning to anyone else who thought they could cage a woman like an animal.
But the other part of me was terrified of what Lucien might become in making that happen.
I’d seen enough of him already to know the truth.
Lucien wasn’t just a man, he was something more, something darker, a predator with steel in his veins and violence humming just beneath his skin.
He kept it leashed for me, but I knew it was there, waiting.
His world wasn’t one of forgiveness or second chances, it was blood for blood, oath for oath.
And Keller had crossed a line that could never be uncrossed. What if Lucien lost himself in it? What if the rage, the fury of revenge, swallowed him whole?
I knew the way their kind walked a blade’s edge, half man, half monster, their predator side always clawing to be let loose. Lucien was stronger than most, controlled, calculated, but even he had limits. And Keller… Keller might push him past them.
I couldn’t lose him. Not now. Not ever. The thought of him falling into that abyss, letting the darkness eat him alive, terrified me more than Keller ever had.
Because what good would vengeance be if the man, I’d come to need more than air never came back from it?
“Breathe, Sorcha,” Troy said quietly from his position near the window, his voice rough but not unkind. He’d been watching me for the last half hour, tracking every step like I was about to break.
Jericho leaned against the wall, arms folded but eyes sharp, watching me like a hawk. “Pacing a hole in the floor isn’t going to bring him back faster.”
“I can’t just sit here,” I snapped, my voice tighter than I meant. “You don’t understand.”
Ivan, seated closest to me, leaned forward, elbows on his knees, his calm presence steady as always.
“We do understand. More than you think. He’s our master, Sorcha.
He’s our brother in arms. And you’re his mate.
Which means your worry is ours too. But you’ll drive yourself into the ground if you don’t stop. ”
I tried to swallow, but the burn rose higher in my throat. I shook my head. “I can’t… I can’t stop.”
And then it hit me…fast, brutal. My stomach lurched. I barely made it to the bathroom before I was on my knees, retching, my hair falling around my face as the taste of bile coated my mouth. My body shook, the force of it leaving me trembling and weak.
“Shit,” I heard Jericho mutter from the doorway. “Ivan…”
“I’ve got her,” Ivan said quickly, already crouching beside me, his large hand gathering my hair back gently. “Easy, Sorcha. Easy. Just breathe.”
By the time I stumbled back into the living room, pale and sweating, they hovered around me like sentries.
Ivan fetched a glass of water. Troy knelt down, his scarred face unusually soft as he asked if I was steady.
Jericho muttered curses under his breath, like he’d rather tear through walls than watch me like this.
And then the door opened.
Lucien.
The instant his eyes landed on me, sprawled weak on the couch with three men around me, his whole body went rigid.
Fury and fear warred in his gaze as he crossed the room in three strides.
“What the fuck happened?” His voice cracked like a whip, his eyes dark, sharp, lethal as he looked around at the men.
The men straightened instantly. Troy stepped back. Jericho’s arms folded tight, his jaw set. But it was Ivan who spoke, calm but firm. “She’s been like this since you left. Sick to her stomach, faint spells. We tried to keep her calm but…”
Lucien’s head snapped toward him, eyes blazing. “And you’re telling me now?” His voice was raw, almost shaking with the sheer violence of the rage under it.
Ivan didn’t flinch. “You weren’t here to be told.”
Lucien cursed under his breath, low and vicious, before his gaze locked back on me.
His fury melted into something worse, panic, I could feel it through our bond.
“Sorcha,” he breathed, his voice softer now, almost breaking.
He scooped me into his arms like I weighed nothing.
“I should’ve been here. I should’ve never left you. ”
“You’re overreacting,” I mumbled weakly against his chest, though my body betrayed me with its trembling. “It’s nothing.”
“It’s not nothing.” His tone cut through the air, final, uncompromising as he carried me upstairs, his hold unyielding, his jaw clenched like stone. When Ivan followed, explaining again that I’d been sick the whole day, Lucien spun, his snarl vibrating the air. “Out. Now. I’ll speak to you later.”
Ivan hesitated only long enough to glance at me, then obeyed.
Lucien laid me on the bed, his hands shaking as he smoothed the sheets around me.
“You’re too pale. Too weak. Damn it, Sorcha…
” His hand pressed to his temple as if he were barely holding himself together.
Then he snapped out his phone, his voice like steel when he spoke.
“Get the doctor. Now. Tell him to come to the house.”
“Lucien,” I whispered, catching his wrist. “I’m fine. Please, I don’t need a doctor.”
He crouched down, his forehead pressing to mine, his hand gripping mine tight.
“You’re mine. Which means your pain is mine. I won’t gamble with you. Ever.” His voice was low, trembling with a rawness I hadn’t heard before. “So don’t fight me on this.”
I didn’t argue again. I couldn’t.
Because behind the steel of his words was something else, a fracture, jagged and bleeding. His jaw was tight, his breathing uneven. He was holding me, but it felt like he was barely holding himself together.
“I should’ve been here,” he muttered, more to himself than me.
His grip on my hand tightened, then loosened, like he was terrified of hurting me but unable to let go.
“I left you pacing this house, sick, worried out of your mind while I was out drowning myself in blood. What kind of man does that? What kind of mate leaves his woman to suffer like that?”
“Lucien…”
“No.” His eyes burned into mine, wild and haunted.
“Don’t make excuses for me. I’m supposed to shield you, to keep every shadow, every worry, every sickness from touching you.
And instead, you’ve been here… like this.
” He gestured at me, the sweat damp on my skin, the pallor I knew he hated seeing.
His throat worked like he was swallowing glass.
“If anything had happened to you while I wasn’t here, if I’d walked in and found… ”
He broke off, shaking his head hard, the muscle in his jaw jumping. His other hand came up, cupping the side of my face as if to reassure himself I was still real, still warm beneath his touch.
“I won’t forgive myself,” he whispered, his voice rough, frayed with something dangerously close to despair.
“Not ever. So, you don’t get to downplay this.
You don’t get to tell me you’re fine when you’re not.
Because I can’t…” He stopped again, dragging in a sharp breath.
“I can’t lose you, Sorcha. Not now. Not ever. ”
His words should have scared me, the ferocity of them, the iron in his vow. But instead, they sank into me like an anchor. Because underneath the rage and the guilt was love, the kind that burned, the kind that consumed.
And for the first time, I realized his greatest fear wasn’t Keller, or demons, or the wars they were fighting. It was me, slipping through his hands.
The doctor arrived not long after, his presence quiet, efficient.
Lucien paced the room like a caged animal as he examined me, every muscle in his body tense, his fists clenched at his sides.
Outside the door, I could hear the faint sound of Troy and Jericho pacing too, their boots restless against the hardwood. They were all on edge, all waiting.
“She’s sick. She’s been vomiting. She’s weak. I want you to fix it.”
The doctor inclined his head, as if Lucien’s command was no more unusual than being asked to pour a glass of wine. “Let me see her.”
Lucien never stopped moving. His eyes cut to me every second, like if he blinked, I might vanish.
And as the doctor worked, I realized something that hit deeper than the fear, deeper than the sickness.
This was my life now. These men, this world, Lucien.
I’d integrated into it so completely that the thought of being without him made me feel hollow, like the world would collapse without his presence to hold it up.
I couldn’t imagine my life without him anymore. And that terrified me as much as it comforted me.
Lucien hovered, pacing at the edge of the bed like a caged beast.
“Pulse first,” the doctor murmured, gently wrapping his cool fingers around my wrist. “Elevated, but steady.” He pressed the back of his hand to my forehead, then retrieved a small light from his case, shining it briefly into my eyes. “Responsive.”
“Don’t just state the obvious,” Lucien snapped, his voice low but vibrating with restrained violence. “Tell me what’s wrong with her.”