I heard heavy footsteps behind me, identifying Trevor from his scent and didn’t bother to look back.

“Wait up a second.” His hand grabbed my shoulder, spinning me around.

My snarl had him retrieving his hand, but he didn’t back off.

“Look, I get it. It stinks,” he offered, holding his hands up. He indicated an open door, away from the slew of interested eyes that had glanced our way. Following him into the break room, I sagged into a chair, accepting a cup of coffee and blowing off the steam.

“I’ve always known. Two orbs aligned? It’s my renqua, it looks like an eclipse.” Heat scalded my tongue, but I gulped it down, welcoming the distraction.

“Who?”

I knew what he was asking. Only Citlali received prophecies from Rhen, the shiften deity, and most were hard to interpret or snippets of thought. “My chief back home.”

Trevor leaned against the counter, adjusting his firearm before gulping down a mouthful of coffee. “Ah, so it’s recent?”

“Nope. He told me when I was eight. That’s the day he—my own father—decided that I was a threat to the world.” Forcing my fingers to unclench before they broke the ceramic mug, I forced myself to look up and meet my lieutenant’s eyes. “He only let me be a cop so he could keep an eye on me, make sure I didn’t accidentally fulfill the prophecy.”

Trevor didn’t offer platitudes or sympathy; my story wasn’t unique or even very special. When Khain had taken our hope, destroyed our future, our kind had suffered. I was one of many who had lost people they loved. That my father had found a focus for his grief … I didn’t blame him at all. “And what do you think the prophecy actually means?”

“The world will fall? Kind of speaks for itself, don’t you think?”

“His world will fall.”

Ignoring him, I finished my coffee and moved to the door. “It’s me, all right. Pulled by the weight of my destiny? I felt her in another world, lieutenant. She called to me and I went, crossed the ocean just so I could find her. I’ve found my one true mate and if I yield and claim her, I’ll be happy for the first time in my life, then the world will end.”

“Prophecies are hard to decipher.”

“Some, maybe, but this one is pretty damn easy from where I’m standing.” Squeezing the door handle, I gritted my teeth against a wave of pain. Just the thought of leaving Blue hacked away at my insides, bleeding me out slow and steady. Soon, I’d be a husk, or feral. Didn’t matter, I’d be a thousand miles away from here. Why couldn’t she just have been the woman I’d fallen in love with? A normal human. Not that there was anything normal about Blue. She was everything I’d never dared dream about, but secretly hungered for. I hadn’t known the true meaning of broken, until she’d healed me so I could be destroyed again. Fuck. I heard the Arctic was pretty this time of year.

“She needs protecting. Khain knows who she is.”

“Give me half an hour to pack, then assign someone to her.” I couldn’t be here when they did, I’d kill the male.

“You don’t have to do this, Nial.” He was right behind me, his voice a low growl.

Spinning around, I slammed him against the wall, getting up in his face. He let me, not even trying to fight back, sympathy clear in his eyes. “You would have me destroy the world for my happiness? What about your mate? Your pups? What about them?” I was cutting out my heart for my people, couldn’t he see that? Blue could choose any male as her mate, she could move on. Be happy.

He snarled. “Leave my family out of it.”

“It’s their world, too.”

He didn’t flinch, but a low rumble started in his chest, Leaning into the hand I had wrapped around his throat, he growled, “It is your duty to protect your mate. Do you understand? Even if you don’t want her.” He punctuated his last words with a look of disgust, as if it were I that had chosen this fate. As if I had a fucking choice!

His words blindsided me and my fist was moving, driven by pure instinct. Trevor swung his body, sweeping his leg under mine. We went down, grappling for dominance, both landing punches but neither of us managing to gain the upper hand.

Breaking apart, we faced each other. Trevor’s eye swelled and I felt my lip throb, tasted blood in my mouth, but nothing we couldn’t heal by shifting. The anger had faded as fast as it had flashed. “I want her more than anything in this world.”

He sagged against the wall, rubbing the back of his neck. “Then there has to be a way. Listen to your instincts and trust your mate. These women…” His words faded, a look of devotion and awe clear on his face. “They’re like nothing we’ve seen before. We have no idea what they can do, or how it’s going to change everything, but it will. They will. You’ve just got to have a little faith.” Pushing away from the wall, he gripped my shoulder, meeting my eyes. “Put a little trust in us, too. We’ve got your back and we’ll help you figure it out.”

“Why? You barely know me.” Even my own family, and the cops I’d worked with back home, they’d treated me like a leper. I’d existed on the edges of our society, driven by the same need all shiften shared, that was imprinted into our DNA, to protect humans from Khain, but never fully accepted as one of their own. To them, I’d always been the one who would bring about destruction. Not one had questioned the orders to put a bullet in my skull if I ever met the woman destined to be my mate. Not even my own brother.

“Because you’re one of us now. Easy as that.”

One of them. It was like a blow to the head, my ears ringing with his words. I did the only thing I could, I dropped my eyes and whined, the sound low at the back of my throat. I had done nothing to deserve their trust, their acceptance, but they gave it anyway.

Trevor’s eyes widened at the display of submission, but he nodded, accepting my apology. “Ah, enough, all right? We’ve all got to play our part, and yours is with Blue.” He rolled his eyes, biting back a chuckle. “Try and convince her this isn’t all a dream, okay?”

“I’m not going to claim her,” I warned. Not until I was sure that my bite wouldn’t cause an apocalypse of epic proportions.

“But you’ll protect her.” It wasn’t a question, because he already knew the answer.

I would protect Blue with my life, and I’d been an idiot to pretend otherwise. I’d tried to be selfless, but I wasn’t that good a male. Damn it, I wasn’t going anywhere.