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Draugr didn’t flinch. He just watched me the way only a brother could, not judging, not scared, just weighing the truth. Then he nodded once. “Fine,” he said. “Two changelings for the day, Luka and Nico. Kosta at night if we leave. We rotate if needed.”

“And if she notices?” I asked.

Draugr’s mouth twitched. “Then you’ll explain it. Like a normal male with a mate.”

I scoffed. “Normal.”

Draugr leaned back. “She’ll hate it.”

“I don’t care,” I said. Then, softer, and more honest than I wanted to be, “I won’t lose her.” The words hung between us.

Draugr’s eyes went flat and certain. “Then don’t.” And just like that, the plan was set.

Two shadows by day, a monster by night. And me? I’d be the storm that came for anyone stupid enough to test it. Then Draugr changes the subject when he taps the screen, pulling up a grainy video frame. A figure in a hood walking into a warehouse district. Time stamp showing last night.

“He’s here,” Draugr said. “We got intel from a contact that he’s moving again.”

My blood turned to ice, my fucking asshole of an uncle. The man who made monsters look like saints.

“Where?” I asked.

“Docklands,” Draugr said. “But it’s not clean, there are too many gaps, too many middlemen.” I leaned closer, studying the frame. Something in my chest shifted.

“He’s baiting us,” I muttered.

Draugr nodded. “He wants us angry.”

I laughed once, humourless. “Then he’ll get what he wants.”

Draugr grunts as he calls the others before I could lose control. The screen flickered to life. Roman appeared first, the eldest and the Blood Mafia Don. The kind of man who didn’t need to raise his voice to make the room obey.

Beside him showed Lucien and Volken, both wearing the expressions of men who lived for violence but pretended they didn’t. Behind them, the familiar glow of home.

Roman’s gaze flicked over us. “You both look like shit.”

Draugr said dryly, “It’s London, what do you expect, it does that.” I didn’t speak, because they’d see it. They always saw it.

Roman’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Any updates?”

Draugr began, rattling off intel about movement patterns, suspected safe houses. Roman listened. Volken looked bored and Lucien looked like he was two seconds away from suggesting we burn the entire city down.

Then Roman’s gaze slid to me again, sharper now. “You’re distracted, what’s up?” he asks with a raised brow.

Draugr leaned back in the chair. “He’s not distracted. He’s… mated.”

There is a deathly silence after Draugr drops that piece of news. Then Lucien blinked. Once. Twice.

Volken leaned forward. “No.”

Roman’s shakes his head slightly, almost invisible. “Excuse me?”

I said flatly, “I found my mate.”

The reaction was immediate. Lucien burst out laughing, a full-bodied, delighted chuckle. “No way. Viking Dragic, the man who’s been lecturing us about mating bonds like he wrote the damn rules…”

Volken pointed at the screen. “You? You have a mate? You told me I was pathetic for wanting to stay home.”

“You were pathetic,” I muttered.