Chapter 14
CHAPTER
FOURTEEN
The first alert went out at six AM. It didn’t wake him up because he wasn’t sleeping.
Sloane sat at his worktable in the armory.
His helmet sat before him, partially disassembled.
He’d figured out how to circumvent the tracker in it years ago, so the beeping that emitted from the speakers within the padded interior weren’t from that.
It was from the first of several messages sent by his unit.
He was required to report for duty at five. Since they’d been on what equated to house arrest lately, that usually meant assisting either the Sovereign’s Guard or the intelligence units within Patrol.
But he didn’t show up, and he never would again.
A strange feeling tugged at his chest as he listened to the increasingly urgent alerts come in.
He could disable them, too. That was why he’d taken out his tools.
But for some reason he hesitated. It wasn’t because he was unsure about choosing Cecilia — he’d never been more certain about anything in his life — but because cutting off the final tether to his unit felt… wrong.
They were all he’d ever known.
No one understood what they’d gone through or how their minds worked. Only they knew. If they were shifters, they’d be pack.
But they weren’t. Shifters would never make him choose between pack and mate.
Lips thinning, he reached for his tools. It was pointless to feel anything about leaving Fracture. There was no other choice. She needed him.
Gods knew he needed her.
So he disabled the alert system built into his helmet. If it made his stomach go sour, that was simply another cruel fact of life.
Sloane left his helmet on the worktable.
Luckily he’d built the armory to double as a training room, so he had something to do while he locked himself away.
Instinct screamed at him to run to the bedroom and guard his consort, but he had a feeling she wouldn’t like it if he watched her sleep, so he forced himself to stay in the only room her scent hadn’t penetrated.
Stripping off his shirt, Sloane approached the elf-made punching bag hung in the corner. Tension rippled through his muscles as he sized up the punching bag.
Normally he was a man of complete focus. He acted without doubt or uncertainty. But things had never been so… complicated before.
He didn’t miss the days of Thaddeus II’s reign. No one liked being treated like a rabid dog on a short leash, and he’d never agreed with terrorizing harmless citizens. It’d been decades of endless nightmares and torture for the entire unit.
And yet they’d been programmed a certain way during that time. The desire for rules, orders, and strict black and white thinking had been carved into their bones with relentless malice. They weren’t supposed to have to choose anything. They weren’t supposed to be conflicted or to want.
Those were the consequences of the humane new policies that had been introduced with Thaddeus’s death, and in some ways they felt like a worse punishment than any torture.
Sloane slammed his right fist into the punching bag. It hit with a percussive bang as the bag swung on the thick chain that suspended it from the ceiling.
He didn’t want to leave Fracture. He didn’t want to give up Cecilia. He couldn’t have both.
Keeping her meant he had to abandon his unit, and it also meant they couldn’t stay at the Battery for long. They were too close to the city. Once word got out that he’d gone AWOL — if it hadn’t happened already — they’d have to leave the territory altogether.
The Neutral Zone was the only smart choice for them, as it was for most of the criminals, deserters, and lost.
Another punch, this time with his left fist. The heavy bag swung in a wide arc.
Some part of him had always known it would end up this way, especially once he settled on protecting his doe.
There were only two ways that story ended, and he wasn’t about to abandon her, so taking her was the logical conclusion.
It still came as something of a shock, though, and he couldn’t help but wonder if it was because there was a part of him that still couldn’t believe a good thing would happen to him.
He’d planned to take Cecilia, but he never could’ve imagined she’d want to stay.
The thought of her in his bed, safe and warm, sent a surge of adrenaline through him. Sloane attacked the bag with a snarl. His fists blurred as he came at it hard, imagining it was the vampire who’d struck her.
He couldn’t seem to focus on one issue at a time. While his gut churned at the thought of leaving his unit, his mind couldn’t stop spinning around the thought of Cecilia.
The idea of a woman like her choosing him was so patently outrageous that he struggled to imagine any scenario that would bring it about without coercion or trickery.
The bag swung back at him with considerable force. Sloane slammed his fist into it with a growl, his fangs clenched hard. Sweat sheened his pale purple skin as he hit it again and again.
If he took off his helmet and let the Pull have him, wholly and completely, she wouldn’t have a choice.
It was the smart thing to do. He had the tactical advantage of a biological disadvantage.
If he allowed himself to become dependent on her pheromones, she would have to stay with him or he’d succumb to madness and death.
His doe was far too kind to let something like that happen.
But he didn’t want to do that.
Firstly, the thought of facing her without his helmet was enough to send a shiver down his spine. It was one thing to reveal his face to his unit — and by extension Atria — but to be so vulnerable in front of her…
Secondly, and more importantly, he couldn’t stomach taking that choice from her.
Breathing hard, Sloane grabbed the bag to stop its swinging. Leaning his sweaty forehead against it, he closed his eyes and imagined what it’d be like to have her. Not just as his charge but as his consort. His mate.
He couldn’t say he hadn’t imagined what it would be like.
Every elf had — even those as broken and fucked up as him.
It was built into their DNA to long for that perfect being who’d fit them like a custom-made puzzle piece.
But most elves had at least some concept of what to do when they found that person.
All he’d been taught was to run as far away as possible.
But he’d always known that if he did somehow manage to find her…
Something weak and needy in him keened for the kind of life he’d been denied. One that wasn’t just bloodshed and orders. One that had laughter and softness and gentle touches. One that had her.
Taking a deep breath, he pushed off the bag. Adapt, he thought, striking it again. Protect. Find a way to make her stay.