Chapter 80

Chapter 80


Demian POV

The fire popped, a sharp crack that split the night, but my brother’s words rang louder still. They hadn’t left me. They wouldn’t. Not when they dug so deep they threatened to root inside me.

She rots you from the inside. And you call it love.

Klaus had always been many things—ruthless, sharp-tongued, unflinching. But tonight, he’d been cruel. Cruel in a way that cut past skin and bone, right down to the marrow.

Amelia sat close, her hand trembling against mine. I didn’t miss the way she flinched every time Klaus’s voice echoed in her head. I could feel it in the bond—the way her heart stuttered, the way shame coiled around her like a noose. She thought he was right.

That was the worst part.

I tightened my grip on her hand, pulling her closer to me, closer to the heat, closer to something that wasn’t my brother’s poison. She blinked up at me, glassy-eyed, like she didn’t deserve even that.

Gods, she broke me without trying.

\---

Klaus watched from across the fire, his eyes black hollows of contempt. He didn’t need to say the words again. They were already in my blood, already clawing at the edges of my mind.

She’ll be the death of you.

Maybe he was right. Maybe Amelia was fragile. Maybe she did freeze sometimes, too small to stand in the face of monsters. But I had seen her fight, too. I had seen her drag steel through flesh, seen her throw herself between me and the jaws of wolves that would’ve ended me.

And even when she faltered, even when her hands shook so badly she could hardly hold her blade, she stayed.

That mattered more than any strike.

Still—Klaus’s words itched beneath my skin. The brother who had bled beside me for years, who had dragged me out of more graves than I could count, had looked at me tonight and seen a fool. Worse than that—he’d seen a stranger.

And gods help me… for the first time, I wondered if I had lost him already.

\---

“Demian?”

Her voice broke through my spiraling thoughts. Small, uncertain, laced with the edges of a sob she wouldn’t let fall.

I turned to her, softening because I couldn’t not. “What is it, little flame?”

She swallowed, her throat working, eyes fixed on the fire. “I… I shouldn’t be here. He’s right.”

The words cleaved me open.

“No,” I said, sharper than I intended. She flinched, and I hated myself for it. I softened my tone, cupping her jaw, forcing her to look at me. “Don’t you dare take his poison into your bones, Amelia. Don’t you dare.”

Tears welled hot in her eyes, and she shook her head. “But he’s right. You almost died. Again. And it was because of me. I—I freeze, I falter, I’m not like Kira or Corrin. I slow you down. I—”

I silenced her the only way I could—my lips against hers, desperate, burning. She melted into me, and for a moment the world went silent. The fire, the snow, even the daggered stare of my brother—it all vanished.

When I pulled back, I rested my forehead against hers, voice rough. “You are not a burden. You are not weakness. You are mine. Do you understand?”

Her breath shuddered out, but she nodded, barely.

Good. Because I needed her to believe it, even if I was still learning how to believe it myself.

\---

But across the fire, Klaus still stared.

I could feel his accusation like claws down my spine.

And gods, I wanted to go to him. To shake him. To remind him that we were brothers before all this, that we’d sworn to never let anything come between us. But I also wanted to tear his throat out for what he’d said to her.

That was the war inside me—the pull of blood against bond, brother against mate.

And I didn’t know which would win.

\---

Hours bled into silence. The others slept where they could, exhaustion dragging them down despite the cold. Kira leaned against a tree, blades still close at hand. Corrin was snoring through the ache of half-healed wounds. Elian’s breathing was steady, controlled, even in rest.

But Klaus didn’t sleep. Neither did I.

He stood apart, arms crossed, his silhouette rigid against the firelight. Watching. Always watching. Like a wolf ready to lunge at the first sign of weakness.

I held Amelia close, her head against my chest, her breath a fragile rhythm that I swore to protect. She was asleep now, or close enough. The bond hummed low and steady between us, her trust pouring through it like warmth.

And still, I felt Klaus’s gaze.

\---

Finally, I broke.

Careful not to wake her, I eased Amelia onto the bedroll beside me and rose. My legs ached, my body screamed from wounds not yet mended, but anger carried me across the fire.

Klaus didn’t move when I stopped in front of him. Didn’t even blink. Just looked at me like I was already lost.

“We need to talk,” I said, low.

His mouth twisted. “There’s nothing left to say.”

“The hell there isn’t.” My voice cut sharp, harsher than the fire’s crack. “You think you can spit venom at her, at me, and we’re just going to pretend it didn’t happen?”

“I don’t pretend,” he said, cold as the snow around us. “I said what needed to be said. You’re blind, Demian. She’s breaking you, and you’re too stubborn to see it.”

Rage boiled hot in my chest, but beneath it—fear. Fear that maybe he was right. That maybe Amelia would be my undoing. But I forced the thought down, baring my teeth.

“You don’t get to decide what she is to me.”

“And you don’t get to drag us all into your grave because you can’t cut the rope around your neck.”

The rope. The bond.

I stepped closer, my wolf rising, shadows of fur prickling across my skin. “Say another word against her, brother, and I won’t hold back next time.”

Klaus’s jaw tightened, his eyes narrowing. For a heartbeat, I thought he’d lunge. Thought we’d finally do what had been building between us for weeks.

But instead, he turned his gaze past me, toward Amelia’s sleeping form. His silence was louder than words, filled with all the hatred he couldn’t seem to kill.

And I realized something that hollowed me out.

I might have already lost him.

\---

I returned to Amelia’s side before I did something I couldn’t take back. She stirred when I lay down, curling into me instinctively. Her warmth, her trust, her love—they anchored me.

But as I held her, staring into the dying fire, I knew the truth.

Klaus wasn’t wrong.

She might be the death of me.

But if that was the cost of keeping her, of protecting her, of loving her—

Then I would pay it.

Every time.

\---

Morning

The sun came harsh and pale, bleeding through the clouds like a wound that wouldn’t heal. Cold bit sharp, crawling under skin and bone as we packed camp with stiff, half-dead fingers. Snow crunched under boots. Breath steamed the air.

No one spoke much. Exhaustion hung heavier than the frost.

Kira strapped her blades with quick, efficient movements, her expression flat but her eyes flicking between Klaus and me, sharp enough to cut. Corrin winced every time he bent, swearing under his breath but forcing himself upright anyway. Elian moved with the kind of precise control that meant he’d been awake for hours already, watching, planning.

And then there was Amelia.

She rose slow, her face pale, skin almost translucent against the cold. But she didn’t complain. She never did. She tied her cloak, her hands shaking, but she lifted her chin when she caught me watching. A silent defiance. I can keep up.

Gods, I loved her for it. And hated myself for letting her need to prove it.

Klaus didn’t look at her. Or at me. His silence was its own kind of cruelty. He walked ahead as if the distance between us wasn’t a wound that throbbed with every step.

The march began.

Snow swallowed sound, but the tension filled the space where words should’ve been. My hand stayed locked around Amelia’s, steadying her when the ground slipped. She pressed close to me, but I could feel her guilt buzzing through the bond, a constant ache against my ribs.

You’re slowing them down. You’re dragging them under.

I clenched my jaw, squeezing her hand tighter, trying to force the thought away. But Klaus’s shadow stretched ahead, his shoulders stiff, his stride unrelenting. Every crunch of his boots in the snow was an accusation.

At one point, Amelia stumbled. Just a small slip, the snow deeper than it looked, but Klaus stopped walking. His head tilted, just enough to mark the sound.

He didn’t turn. Didn’t speak. But I could feel the judgment in the air, thick and suffocating.

Amelia’s breath hitched. Shame curled through the bond like smoke. I caught her, steadied her, murmured soft into her hair. “You’re fine. You’re doing fine.”

But the silence that followed was worse than words.

Every step after felt like dragging chains.

\---

By midday the sky had darkened, heavy with more snow. The air smelled of iron, sharp and biting, and every instinct in me screamed that something waited beyond the horizon. Danger. Blood.

But my wolf wasn’t only watching the treeline. He was watching my brother. The way Klaus’s hand hovered too close to his blade, like he didn’t trust himself not to use it. Not on an enemy. On me.

That thought twisted something deep inside.

I’d faced monsters, kings, nightmares. But nothing—not even death—terrified me like the thought of losing him. Of having to choose between my brother and the woman whose heartbeat was tangled with mine.

And as the snow began to fall again, thick and endless, I knew the truth.

That choice was coming.