Monroe leans back, expression carefully blank. “What about us?”

“Don’t play coy. You know exactly what I’m talking about. You and Broderick have gotten along great the past two weeks.”

“So?” She doesn’t draw back, but she’s also not looking at him.

Broderick’s arms have gone tense around us, but he doesn’t pull away. “That’s complicated.”

“Now who’s lying?” I push slowly away from them. “You two like each other. More than like.”

Monroe shakes her head. “Let’s not get hasty. He doesn’t want me dead, but that’s hardly putting us in the realm of like or more.”

Or more.

I stare at her, my chest aching. She’s so fucking tough, so brazen and brash and in everyone’s face. Does she do it so they won’t realize what a tender heart she has beneath all that armor? A heart Broderick has obviously touched, even if he’s not aware of it.

I turn to him. “We work as a throuple.”

For once, Broderick doesn’t bother giving me the runaround. “Yeah, we do.”

“We’ll continue to work as a throuple.”

Monroe wraps her arms around herself and looks away. “Only for this year. I’m the Amazon heir. Next Lammas, I go back to my faction and stay there. Even if there were someone else for the role, it’s mine by right, and I won’t shy away from that responsibility. No matter what I feel.”

Broderick shifts away from her, just a bit. “I’m Abel’s second-in-command. The Raider faction is where I’m needed.” He glances almost guiltily at Monroe. “I realize that’s making a lot of assumptions about what you’d want, but ultimately it doesn’t matter. You’re needed there, and I’m needed here.”

Horror takes root inside me as they both turn in my direction. “You’re going to make me choose.”

“We’d never ask that of you,” Monroe says.

“But the fact remains that one of you will stay and one of you will go, and I lose no matter where I end up.” My stomach dips alarmingly, and my head goes a little fuzzy. “What kind of choice is that?”

Broderick shifts. “Look, it’s ten months and change away. A lot can happen in that amount of time, and this thing might very well run its course. There’s no point in borrowing trouble. It’s working right now, with the added bonus of it getting both our respective leaders off our backs and removing us from danger.”

If I already love both of them at this point, how much more is it going to hurt in another month, two, ten? When this thing reaches its inevitable conclusion, one of them will rip out half of my still-beating heart and take it with them.