Chapter Eight : Too close

“You’re moving me.”

It wasn’t a question, but Griffin answered it like one anyway. “Further into the territory. Somewhere with more eyes on the perimeter, fewer ways in.”

“And let me guess. All three of you are coming with me.”

“That’s the plan, yes.”

Sloane stood in the doorway of what used to be her guest room, watching Dax haul a duffel bag over one shoulder like this was a completely normal Tuesday and not the third life-altering thing that had happened to her in as many days. “I don’t remember agreeing to a plan.”

“You don’t have to agree,” Cassian said, appearing behind her with an armful of blankets she hadn’t asked for. “You just have to survive it. Agreement is optional.”

“That’s not comforting.”

“Wasn’t trying to be comforting. Trying to be accurate.”

The new room, when they reached it, was smaller than she expected, tucked into the heart of the compound where the stone walls felt thicker, older, like the whole structure had been built around keeping something in or something out. There was one bed. There were three brothers standing in the doorway behind her, and exactly zero additional rooms nearby that any of them seemed inclined to use.

“Where are you three sleeping,” she asked slowly.

“Here,” Dax said, dropping the duffel bag with a thud like that settled it.

“Absolutely not.”

“There’s a couch,” Griffin said, gesturing to a couch that could generously fit one person and would very much not fit three grown men who apparently didn’t believe in personal space.

“We’ll rotate,” Cassian said. “Someone’s always awake. Someone’s always with you. That’s not up for debate, not after what he said.”

Sloane’s stomach tightened at the memory, the prisoner’s voice low and certain. He already knows where she sleeps. She hated that it worked on her, hated that some small cowardly part of her felt safer already just standing in a room with all three of them crowded into the doorway like they intended to physically block anything that came through it.

“Fine,” she muttered. “But somebody else takes the floor tonight. I already slept badly enough this week without an audience.”

“I don’t snore,” Dax offered, unhelpfully.

“You absolutely do,” Cassian said.

“I do not”

“You do,” Griffin confirmed, and for one strange moment it almost felt normal, brothers bickering over nothing while the world outside stayed quiet and dangerous and far away. Sloane found herself almost smiling before she caught it and shut it down.

She sat on the edge of the bed while they argued logistics, watching them move around the small room with an ease that only came from years of sharing space, years of knowing exactly how to fit around each other without thinking about it. Dax dropped down beside her at some point, close enough that his shoulder brushed hers, and the mark gave a low answering pulse, warm rather than sharp.

“You okay?” he asked quietly, low enough the others wouldn’t hear over their own argument.

“No,” she admitted. “But I’m getting used to not being okay. It’s starting to feel normal.”

“That’s not exactly a compliment to us.”

“It’s not exactly your fault either.”

He studied her for a second, something softer than his usual energy settling over his face, and before she could brace for it his hand found hers where it rested on the blanket, fingers curling loose around her own.

The mark flared.

Not the sharp burn of before, not the warm pull from earlier that day, but something bigger, something that ripped through her chest and up her spine so fast she gasped out loud. Across the room Griffin and Cassian both went rigid mid-sentence, their argument dying instantly.

“Sloane.” Griffin’s voice had changed, urgent now, alarmed. “What’s happening”

“I don’t know,” she managed, because the burn wasn’t isolated anymore, wasn’t centered where Dax’s hand touched hers. It was spreading, blooming outward like it was reaching for the other two men in the room, and both of them made identical sounds of shock at the exact same moment, hands flying to their own chests like they’d been struck.

“That’s not possible,” Cassian breathed, staring at her like she’d become something else entirely in the space of a heartbeat. “It’s reacting to all three of us. At once. Not one at a time.”

Griffin crossed the room in two strides, and the second he got close enough the burn intensified again, a third wave crashing into the first two until Sloane could barely breathe through it, her whole body lit up like something finally, fully, completely awake.

“None of us has ever seen this,” Dax said, his grip on her hand tightening like he was afraid to let go now. “Not once. Not in any bond, ever.”

Sloane looked between the three of them, chest heaving, mark blazing gold bright enough to show clearly through her shirt, and understood with sudden, terrifying clarity that whatever she was, whatever this bond meant, it had just become something none of them had a name for yet.