Then Blake snatched the blade, kicking Merl over and slamming it into his back. My throat thickened as he looked to me with his jaw tight.
“I did it,” Blake breathed and I shook my head, at a loss to understand what was happening.
Kyan prised the blade from Blake’s hand, grabbed a fistful of the guy’s hair and slashed the knife across his throat. More blood spilled and I winced, scrambling backwards until my spine hit Monroe’s legs.
“No, I did it,” Kyan growled and I looked up at him with my lower lip trembling, finding a swirling sea of darkness in his eyes. I felt that same darkness in me, like our beings were made of shadow. Like all of ours were.
Kyan lifted the bloody knife, holding it out to Monroe and I tilted my head back to look up at him, shaking my head in refusal. I had no idea what he was going to do. He’d just seen us all murder someone. He could run to the cops. He could give us all up. And why wouldn’t he? This was exactly what he’d need to take Saint down.
“You’re one of us now, Nash,” Kyan said in a low tone. “Time to prove it.”
Monroe lowered down, helping me to my feet and taking my chin in his grip as he looked at me. I didn’t know what he was going to say or do, but the swirling storm of hate in his eyes made me afraid.
I guessed he found whatever he was hunting for in my eyes as he released me, stepping towards Kyan and taking the knife from his outstretched hand.
“Don’t,” I gasped, knowing that if he did this, he couldn’t go back. He really would be tied to the Night Keepers. He’d be bound to them as fiercely as I was.
He ignored me, dropping over the man and sinking the blade between his ribs and that moment burrowed into my mind, never to be unseen.
“I killed him,” he growled like he was proud, like he really would have done it for me if he’d gotten to him first. And I realised with a terrifying clarity, that they all would have.
I didn’t know why they were saving me, but they were. These creatures who had used and tormented me were banding together to defend me from this. We were bound by blood, this secret living between us and forever latching us together. They could have disposed of me, told the cops what I’d done and let them lock me away. But instead they did more for me than anyone had ever done. All four of them.
They were the beasts who hated me, broke and tortured me. And now for reasons I couldn’t fathom…they’d protected me too.
My eyes were fixed on Tatum as we stood around her, all of us taking a moment to accept what we’d done before anyone could speak again.
“We’re blood bound now, the five of us,” Kyan said darkly. “That’s a bond as strong as family. Stronger even.”
My lip peeled back as my gaze landed on Saint. The son of the man whose family had destroyed mine. My soul reason for pursuing everything I had in life. The man I’d hated from the very first moment I’d laid eyes on him even if he’d never known it. Family? That was unthinkable.
But as my gaze found Tatum’s again, I could almost feel it. That pull to protect her still humming through me fiercely.
I’d done it for her. For a girl who’d breezed into my life and flipped it upside down, made me question everything and made me think and feel things I’d begun to believe I wasn’t even capable of.
There was one, single reason why I’d just pushed that blade between that rapist’s ribs. And it was her.
Because as insane as it sounded even to me. I was willing to kill for her.
I just didn’t know what the fuck that meant for the rest of my life.
Blake moved forward suddenly, gripping Tatum’s head between his hands and drawing her forehead against his as he released a shaky breath. She reached up to grasp his forearms as her eyes fluttered shut and for the strangest moment it seemed like she was taking comfort from this creature who I knew had worked tirelessly to destroy her.
“Thank you,” Tatum said, her voice rough. “All of you.”
None of us said anything to that and I wondered if their silent answers could possibly be the same as mine. That she didn’t need