Chapter 23: Alpha Command

Bram's claws were an inch from my throat.

He was shaking all over, and his jaw was locked.

"Bram," said Lucan, almost tender. "Do it."

I did not step back.

I did not make a ring of fire.

I did the one thing I could think of.

I took his clawed hand in both of mine and set it flat over my heart.

"It's okay," I said.

"Mira." His voice came out in pieces. "I can't. It won't let me stop."

"Then don't stop. Look at me."

His wolf-gold eyes found mine.

"You said you'd rather lose your wolf than your hands on me," I said.

"So don't use them on me. Give them to me instead."

The heat in my palms went into his.

It wasn't a flame.

It was the slow steady warmth I'd had all my life, the kind that had never once let me feel cold.

I poured all of it into him.

The gold ran up his arm and across his chest.

Where it went, I saw something dark and knotted flicker under his skin.

A black thread, wound tight around his ribs.

The oath.

"There," I whispered. "I see it."

The thread began to smoke.

Bram let out a roar that rattled the windows.

The claws curled in against his palm and drew blood from his own hand.

He dropped to one knee, then to both, and his forehead hit my stomach.

"No," he gasped, to the room, to his father, to the thing in his chest. "No. No."

"Stop that," said Lucan.

His voice rolled across the room again, wide and low.

"Get up. Finish it."

Bram did not get up.

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