Blood

The vault smelled like old paper and older secrets, the kind of dust that settled into your lungs and made you cough up someone else's history. Four of us stood in the cold circle of lamplight, surrounded by enough evidence to burn the Ashford name to ash. Kael had positioned himself between the exit and the documents like a wolf guarding a fresh kill. Declan stood between Kael and me, his shoulders squared, every muscle in his back coiled tight enough to snap.

I could feel him through the bond. Not just his anger, which was a constant low burn, but the fear underneath it. The kind of fear that came from knowing you might lose everything in the next sixty seconds and still having no idea which move was the right one. His fear bled into mine until I couldn't tell where his pulse ended and mine began.