“I...” What the hell? “No.”

“Raven,” he croaks, stepping in a little. “Please.”

“Not happening.” I hold strong. “If there’s something so serious coming, something that’ll pin me against you for real, any of you, I won’t be a part of it. I can’t.”

“You can.”

“No.” I stand, frowning down at him. “I can’t. I physically can not. I have never cared about another person in my life, Captain. I don’t even really know how, but I’m learning, and the last thing I’d do is turn my back on the first people to mean a damn thing to me. Me or one of you, it’s you guys. Always. That’s how this works.”

“Raven—”

“Stop. You act like you three don’t have the same way of thinking. I know what you’d do for me, you need to accept what I’d do for you. I love you, Captain. I love Royce. And Maddoc...” My throat grows suddenly dry, the words settling into my soul. Refusing to be buried any longer, they fight for a way out for the first time.

I love him. Completely.

I swallow, giving him my full truth. “I’d fall in an instant if it meant you guys stood strong.”

He jumps to his feet, the angry glare on his face taking me off guard. “That’s the point, Raven,” he growls, blue eyes cloudy from a clear lack of sleep. “We can’t be strong without you, not anymore. You fall or leave, turn your back on us, we’re seconds behind. We’ll fucking crack, Raven. Stop thinking you’re worth less than we are. You’re a part of us.”

“So... it sounds like one by one we all fall.” I pop a shoulder, at a loss when I don’t even know the cost or what the hell he’s talking about. “Who does that leave standing, Cap?”

His face falls in an instant, like he just realized the outcome to whatever reality is playing out in his mind. “Shit.”

He turns toward the door, pausing to look at me over his shoulder. “If I told you to leave this alone, to stay away from Perkins and the Gravens...”

“I’d say something like kiss my ass.”

He scoffs a small laugh, making me grin.

Before he can grab the knob, it turns and opens, both Royce and Maddoc standing on the other side.

Maddoc instantly frowns, sensing the tension the same way Royce reads it in our expressions.

Royce snaps his head toward Cap, accusation in his glare, while Maddoc keeps his locked on me.

“What’s going on?” he asks.

“Oh, you know. Secret sharing.” I can’t help but come across a little sour.

It’s not that I want them to feel like shit or for them to spill their guts, it’s more how I know, if at this point in our relationships, they have to keep something from me it has to be something real shitty. I admit, the thought makes me a little nauseous.

Royce exhales as he stares hard at his brother, he’s pissed. Realization sets in, then he looks at me. “He wants you to fight us, doesn’t he?”

I look at Maddoc who cuts his stare to Captain.

“Cap?” he snaps.

Captain’s eyes squeeze shut a moment. When they open again, he looks at me briefly before focusing on his brothers.

“She was right last night, and we know it. We’re missing fucking pieces, and if my intuition is correct, they’re big ones. Face it, brother, all she’ll have to do is ask the right people and they’ll be dying to fill her in on what we do know. We can’t not be prepared for her to figure all this out before us, and if she does...” He trails off, looking to me with miserable eyes as he reaches out to capture my hand and squeezes. “Then we need her to battle it out.”

My eyes drop to the contact as unease fights its way in.

They’re standing here, talking like I’m not right beside them, worry and anger and flat out fucking uncertainty written in all their eyes.

My mind races.

These boys, they’re all about protecting their own, and outside everyone in this room – their dad doesn’t count – there’s only one other person I’m aware of who would evoke this type of reaction from them.

My stare snaps up to Cap’s and my teeth clench. He said his world.

Zoey.

The lines on Cap’s forehead become more pronounced, his grip grows subtly tighter and I know he knows.

Maddoc’s harsh exhale and Royce’s whispered “fuck” tells me they do too.

“Is she in danger?” I ask, anger vibrating through every bone in my body. “Tell me now.”

Cap starts to shake his head but hesitates a moment, then continues.

“Say it, Captain. Stand here and tell me she’s safe.”

“She’s safe, I swear it.”

The way his words trail at the end has my frown intensifying. “But she’s at risk?”

His eyes fall, unable to meet mine, his tone sure and steady as he says, “She will never be at risk, Raven. Ever.”

I nod, some of the strain in my body easing, but it only grows tighter when Royce then adds, “That’s sort of the problem.”

My eyes slide to his. “How?”

“We can’t allow her to ever be in danger, we have to protect her.”

“As you should.”

“At all costs,” Royce rasps, moving his stare to Maddoc’s.

Mine follows.

Pure anger lines his face, sharpening his already sharp edges, hardening his already hard eyes.

A soldier’s strength in a king’s body.

Maddoc’s eyes laser in on mine.

The cost?

Cap’s hand leaves hers the second my body moves forward.

She stands taller, her game face slipping into place, but that shit won’t work right now.

I’m in her space in one step, but before a single word leaves my mouth, three fly from hers.

“I love you.”

I freeze, my pulse drumming harder in an instant.

She cautiously lifts her fingers, trailing them across the ticking vein in my jaw. “I love you, Big Man. I don’t know why,” she says as if she’s honestly confused.

The corner of my mouth tips up and my brothers’ low chuckles come from behind me.

“But I do,” she continues with a shrug. “You can ask or demand I stay a sitting duck, but I won’t even pretend to listen. I wanna puke right now at nothing but the thought of something – or someone – trying to take you from me. You, Maddoc, whatever your middle name is, Brayshaw” —another round of chuckles— “are mine. The only person allowed to take you from me is me.”

At her words, my chest caves with the pressure of the fucking world.

She has no clue, but that’s exactly what it would be, if she found out.

Fuck, who am I kidding, when she finds out.

She’ll take herself from me, to save my family the way she thinks we need saving, to protect my niece.

Would I let her or betray my brother instead?

Neither option is a fucking option.

I’d never turn my back on my brothers, and I’ll never let them have her.

My head starts to pound as I look at her. My dad said Ravina had to accept the marriage, so Raven will have to do the same. She will when she finds out it’s her or Zoey.