Chapter 8
Rook
The worst part about knowing what’s coming is that nobody believes you enough to act until it’s too late. Because everything looks the same—for now. Because the danger is theoretical—for now.
Because it’s too much work and worry to imagine routine won’t continue untouched.
Concordia is still Concordia. The roads still wind through pines and fog, and Murray’s Pub still glows like an outsider on the corner of McMansion Street and Fuckoffwealth Way.
Vampires and humans alike live their lives like they aren’t being rearranged by forces they don’t even know exist.
But the shift is imminent anyway; I can feel it.
For years and years, vampires have been letting their mates be stolen out from under their noses by the elites and their gofers—all because of tradition.
Because of entitlement from the top, and their assumed ownership over the three most potent human bloodlines, despite the universe’s clear direction otherwise.
The blood of the three and the elites’ need to hoard it wasn’t on my top ten list to care about.
But now, the ritual continues with Kylie Moon.
The flat tire last night wasn’t a question. The text messages today served a purpose. And Holland being at Murray’s Pub tonight when Kylie was there was a calculated move.
And holy fuck, do I care.
I should be home relishing my woodworking hobby or losing myself in the mindless literature of eighteenth-century aristocrats, but because I can’t get rid of the bow in my back or the knife in my chest, I’m here instead, trying to find the words to turn my brothers’ worlds upside down.
Cal’s garage is quiet at this time of night, save the buzz from the overhead lights and the faint thump of nineties hip-hop playing through the speakers. Tools hang on the wall all around, and the concrete below our feet reeks of oil and rubber and metal.
Kane pushes back from the old ’69 Camaro we’ve been working on, wiping his hands on a rag and eyeing me closely. He can feel the pulse of my need to speak well before the words even form in my throat, as it’s always been his gift to preemptively read intent.
Calloway leans against a workbench, arms crossed, watching me too. Their patience to stay quiet and wait for me to spit it out is waning, however, and Kane is the first to break it.
“You’re spiraling,” he says.
“I’m fine.”
He barks a laugh. “You’re never fine. You’re just more or less homicidal, and right now, you’re wielding six knives, four swords, and a guillotine.”
I drag a hand down my jaw, forcing myself to find some semblance of control as the text from Holland to Kylie he sent five minutes ago rolls around in my mind.
I shouldn’t be able to sense what he says to her.
Shouldn’t be able to hear their conversations from afar or read his texts without being included in the chain.
I shouldn’t be able to hear her thoughts like I did this morning in her driveway—or like I did tonight as she thought sensuously about putting her lips to her coffee.
And yet…I can.
Hope you made it home okay, Kylie. And don’t forget about Friday, okay? I’d really love to take you to the event.
The words sit in my head like a bruise I keep pressing just to see if it still hurts. They’re dangerous—Holland is dangerous—and I know with an instinct I can’t shake that time is running out.
“You’re burning tracks in Cal’s concrete,” Kane says. “Just spit it out, bro. Say what you really want to say.”
I stop pacing at once, my decision made. I can’t stand by and let it happen. Not to her.
I won’t.
And then, I say it. The three words that are an open door to chaos and change we won’t come back from. The three words my brothers won’t be able to ignore.
“They’ve chosen her.”
Of course, the words land hard.
Kane paid witness to Holland’s intention tonight, and Cal’s heard the curiosity at the rink with his super hearing himself, but my saying this—putting this fine a point on the endgame—dials the stakes up to an eleven.
Calloway straightens. “You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“How?” Cal asks. “We haven’t been keeping an eye on Holland for that long. We haven’t been—”
“I don’t need long,” I cut him off. “I don’t need proof, Cal. I know.”
Calloway’s eyes narrow. “How?”
I drag a hand down my face. “Our…pairing. You know how it works.”
“Technically, we don’t know how it works,” Kane interjects. “At least, not specifically. You’re the first to fall to this particular fate, brother, so why don’t you enlighten us?”
Fuck me. I shake my head. “I just know, okay?”
Kane’s gaze sharpens. “You’re tracking him.”
“Tracking who?” Calloway asks. “Holland? He’s just a gofer doing gofer things.”
“No, Cal. He’s a gofer who’s circling,” I correct. “And he doesn’t circle unless he’s told to. And right now, he’s circling Kylie. So yes, I’m tracking him.”
It’s an admission steeped in a million brutal consequences. It doesn’t matter if she’s fated to me or that they’re usurping our bond. Our kind isn’t supposed to track their kind. It’s not just illegal; it’s a death sentence.
Kane lets out a low whistle. “Well, shit. I guess our stepping in tonight was a little more complicated than messing with a Fighting Fang, then, wasn’t it?” He groans. “Blood of the fucking three, my dear holiness, we are so fucking far up shit’s creek, it’s not even funny.”
“I didn’t plan to put you in that position,” I say. “I didn’t plan any of it. To be honest, I didn’t even realize I was doing it at first.”
“How?” Calloway asks, defaulting into containment mode. “How are you tracking him? Is it traceable? Phone? GPS?”
I shake my head. “Nothing like that.”
“Then how the hell do you know what he’s saying to her?”
The answer isn’t clean—and saying it out loud makes it worse. But clearly, we’re long past keeping things to myself now. I’ve put us all in the crosshairs.
“I feel it,” I admit sheepishly. “When he pushes. When she hesitates. When something shifts.” I clear my throat. “I can hear her thoughts if I let myself, too. It’s…like we’re one instead of two.”
The silence that follows is thick.
“Fuck me.” Calloway exhales slowly. “You’re…locked in.”
Kane folds his arms. “You do realize what that means.”
“Yes,” I say, resigned to my own body’s decisions.
“And you’re doing it anyway.”
“Yes.”
Calloway steps closer. “We’ve never interfered in the elite’s bullshit, Rook. No one has.”
“I know.”
“It’s bullshit. It’s always been bullshit. We all know that,” Kane adds. “But once you step in, you don’t step back out.”
“I know,” I say.
“Because once you take a woman off their board,” Kane continues, “you’re not just breaking etiquette. You’re declaring war.”
“I didn’t choose this. I wouldn’t have chosen this, and I don’t think Kylie would have either. But it’s happening.”
Calloway’s voice is careful. “She doesn’t know?”
I turn away, staring at the concrete floor—at the dark stains where cars have leaked their insides to the point of extinction and then been brought back to life at my brother’s hands. But all I can truly see—all I can feel—is Kylie being taken without her consent.
It’s one thing when the women know—when they’re excited—but it’s wholly another when they’re born into the distinction without a choice or an option to take another road.
“No, she doesn’t know,” I agree. “She doesn’t know her bloodline is special. She doesn’t know anything. She’s clueless.”
Cal drags a hand through his hair. “How the hell is she clueless? I’ve heard of women not wanting to be a part of it, but they always know—”
“Because someone kept her that way,” Kane answers before I can. “Because she wasn’t raised in it. Her parents died when she was a baby. I looked it up as soon as Rook started making starry eyes at her.”
“Are you fucking sure?” Calloway’s gaze stays on me. “Because if we move on this and she knew and wanted it…”
“She doesn’t want it,” I affirm. I’m not even sure she’ll want me.
“Some of them think it’s a damn status symbol,” Kane says through a sigh. “Like being sold to monsters makes them special.” He shakes his head. “But that’s not Kylie.”
I step away from them, pacing once, then again. The garage feels too small. The lights too bright. The walls too close.
“I heard him mention Friday,” I say, stopping by the open garage door and looking toward the dark night sky. “At the rink. Private thing. He called it networking.”
Kane scoffs. “Networking. Sure.”
Calloway’s face goes sharper. “He said Friday?”
“Yeah,” I confirm. “And he keeps pushing it to her. He won’t let go of that date. Of that timeline. He wants her there badly enough, I think they might be eager to get her in hand.”
Calloway doesn’t hesitate. “They know she’s involuntary.”
“Yeah,” I say. “And she doesn’t fucking know about any of it. Hell, she’s still deciding what she wants for dinner, not whether she wants to disappear to some New York penthouse to be vampire fuel on demand.”
Calloway’s jaw tightens. “And that makes her—”
“Human,” I cut in. “It makes her human.”
The words come out sharper than I mean them to, but I can’t fight the sting enough to hold them back. None of this is even remotely fair to her because it’s not her horse, and it’s sure as hell not her rodeo. Our vampire bullshit isn’t supposed to be her problem. But it is.
It very much is.
“Jesus.” Kane scrubs a hand over his face. “Not going to lie, this is all pretty fucked. I mean, fuck. This is fucked.”
“So, Friday,” Cal says, his voice hesitant. “You think that’s when they move.”
Unfortunately, I know it is. I can feel it in flesh and bone.
“And you think you can stop it,” Kane chimes in.
“I don’t think anything, Kane. I know. Both what I have to do and what that means for me—and you guys, as it were.” My laugh is soft and sardonic. “Sorry about that.”
“Rook…” Calloway’s voice softens, just a fraction. “Are you sure about this? Maybe there’s…another way.”
I almost laugh. If there were another way, I would have taken it. I didn’t want this. I didn’t fucking want this at all.
What I want is to go back to before I really saw her. I want to go back to before my body recognized her like a command and my instincts turned into a leash. What I want is for her to stay human and safe and unaware.
What I want is to hate her.
But I don’t. Not even close.
I stare out into the night, and my brothers don’t push anymore. They know my silence is my answer.
“She thinks I hate her,” I say finally.
“What?” Cal asks.
“She asked me last night when I was fixing her tire,” I grind out, jaw tight. “Why I hate her.”
Calloway’s expression shifts, and understanding flickers in his eyes. Kane lets out a rough laugh.
Their bad news just got worse—we’re starting this whole death-sentence adventure off at square fucking zero.
“I told her I hate everyone,” I continue flatly. Because I do. Especially any motherfucker who wants to be around her, put their hands on her, touch her.
Kane grins. “Wow. You’re such a romantic, Rook. Can’t wait to convince her we’re a safe space, while also fighting for our lives.”
Calloway’s gaze stays on me. “You didn’t tell her anything else?”
“No.”
Because if I tell her, she becomes part of it. The moment she knows, she’s not just a woman who loves skating and complains about tax season; she’s a target who understands she’s a target and carries the fear that comes with that.
And the elites don’t just take human women with the right bloodlines who are compliant. They revel, too, in the women who resist.
That’s a hell of a lot of danger to carry on your own—a burden I won’t give my fated mate without also providing a cushion for her to land on.
“She doesn’t know what waits for her if I don’t intervene,” I say quietly.
Kane’s grin fades. “And you do.”
I swallow the lump of rage and guilt that rises in my throat. “Yes.”
Calloway’s voice drops, careful. “Does she feel it at least? The connection between you?”
I don’t answer immediately, even though I’m loaded with the knowledge to do so. She feels it. I know she does. But putting a voice to that makes all of this seem even more real.
It makes a future I never wanted for her inevitable.
“It doesn’t matter,” I say finally. “Not right now.”
Kane steps closer, voice hard. “It matters because, if she’s yours—”
“Don’t,” I snap.
Kane stops. His eyes flare, but he reins it in.
Calloway studies me. “You understand what you’re planning.”
“Yes.”
“You understand that once you intervene, there’s no going back.”
I understand what it means for me and them and that I’m not giving them a say. The answer is still the same.
“Yes.”
“And you’re prepared to live with what that turns us into.”
I hesitate, but it’s not because I’m not prepared. It’s because I am. For whatever may come.
And that means the whole Slater legacy is fucked in one burning basket.
Kane watches me closely. “You’re not asking us for permission.”
I shake my head, ever so apologetically. “No.”
Calloway’s mouth tightens. “When?”
“Not yet,” I say. “But soon.”
Kane laughs once, sharp and humorless. “Bullshit. We’re already there.”
I don’t argue. Because he’s right.
I was pulled into that parking lot last night without meaning to be.
Called to her house this morning because of Holland’s scent.
I’m hearing things I shouldn’t hear, watching patterns I swore I’d ignore, and making up bullshit excuses about tow trucks and spare tires to put myself between her and Holland, all the while knowing the consequences.
I’m crossing lines I shouldn’t be crossing, but I can’t find a single cell inside my body that’s willing or able to stop.
The next steps will be bolder—but we’re already past the point of no return.
“The second he tries to move her,” I say, voice steady now, “I’m ending it.”
Calloway meets my eyes, his own flaring blue with resignation. “Rook. This doesn’t just change things for her,” he says. “It changes things for us.”
I meet my brother head on. “If you were me, what would you do, Cal?”
His voice is raw. “I’d have already made my move.”