Chapter 70 #2
Cade lets out a bitter breath, shaking his head. “She’s already broken, Sabine. You saw her. You saw what all of this did to her.”
Sabine turns to him with a strange calm, like a storm speaking through still waters.
“No, chéri. You do not yet know what broken is,” her voice lowering into something thick and ancient. “She is breaking, yes. Not broken. Not yet. What you see is the storm building. The waves rising.”
She lifts a finger, tapping it gently to Cade’s chest. “Your girl’s still raining on the inside, mon loup. And if you don’t let it pour out of her… she’ll surely drown in the silence instead.”
Cade flinches, like the words hit bone. Sabine turns back to me, eyes dark and full of something older than language.
“She must shatter, you must let her,” Sabine says looking deep into my eyes. “And when she does—when the scream tears through her soul like a wildfire—that is when you call. That is when she will hear your voice, l’ombre.”
She closes her eyes for a beat, like the wind itself is listening. Then she exhales and straightens, silk whispering around her ankles as she rises.
“Now come. This cold ain’t no friend to men with hearts already splintering’. Wind like this gets in your bones and makes the sorrow stick.”
She taps her fingers twice against the railing, like sealing a spell. “Inside now, before the chill makes ghosts of the living. We got work to do.”
We step back inside. The warmth doesn’t help. The air in here is thicker than outside, like grief left to rot in silence.
Knox is still crouched in front of her, hands wringing, voice raw. He doesn’t even glance up. “It’s not working,” he mutters. “Trying to pull her back like last time… it’s not fucking working.”
He looks up now, eyes bloodshot. “Back then, there was something. Sadness. Grief. Pain I could feel, something I could grab. There were so many emotions with Zeke I could pull out of her.”
His hands shake. “But this?” He takes a shallow breath. “There’s nothing. No fear. No sadness. Just a void. She’s just… gone. It’s like talking to a corpse with a heartbeat.”
Knox looks away, defeated. “I don’t…” He looks up at Sabine, eyes pleading. “I just don’t know what else to do.”
Sabine glides forward like smoke through a ritual. She walks toward Bella without touching her. “You must find one, Knox,” she says. “You need one flame to light the way. One crack in the armor to bring her back.”
“I don’t know what she has left. She’s already shut down. She’s empty! What the hell am I supposed to even reach—”
“Rage.” I cut in. “She’ll always have rage.” The words punch out of me before I even think. Sharp. Solid. Certain.
Sabine’s head tilts slowly. A smile pulls at the corner of her mouth. “Yes, l’ombre,” she breathes. “Rage, the old fire. The sleeping wolf. That surely still lives.”
Knox stares at me. Then at her. “Rage, are you serious? You want me to wake up rage? Have you met her? Do you know what she’ll do to me if I poke that bear and she actually feels it?”
He gestures toward Bella, still motionless on the couch. “How the hell am I supposed to pull rage out of her and still keep my head—or my dick—intact?!”
Sabine clicks her tongue once, sharp as bone.
Knox shuts up immediately.
“Rage is not what we should pull out of her,” Roman says quietly. “Her mother—”
“You don’t get a vote here!” I snap.
Roman’s eyes flick to me. “I’m her father.”
“You may be her father…” I take a step forward. “…but you don’t know her. You don’t love her.” My voice cuts through the room, ice-cold. “So, no. You don’t get a fucking vote.”
Roman opens his mouth to respond, “She doesn’t—”
“You speak of blood, and yet you do not know her soul.” Sabine steps forward, her presence cutting through the room like a blade as she locks eyes with Roman. “And for that you will not speak again.”
Roman freezes.
Then she turns to Knox. “The path is chosen.” Her voice drops even lower, but it echoes through the air like she is casting some sort of voodoo curse.
“There is one among us who bears the flame.
To call her back, to speak her name.
One who can shake her to the bone,
And break the silence with a scream alone.”
Her gaze sweeps the room like a slow-moving spell.
“And only then will the tether hold steady.
Only then, Knox, will she be ready.
To hear your voice, to feel your touch,
To come back those she loves so much.”
Sabine turns to me and Cade. “I’m sorry, l’ombre. But what must be done to awaken her cannot come from love.
For your love runs deeper than the sea,
Darker than bone magic, older than the oldest tree.
It would die in her place without a second breath.
But love like that, chéri, can’t hold back death.
To wake the rage, no love can stay.
The ones who soften must fall away.
Regret, guilt, mercy, let them die.
She’ll rise in ruin, not lullaby.”
Her head lifts. And then she nods. To him.
Mortal.
Fucking.
Kombat.
Laing strolls over like he’s the final boss, sleeves pushed up just enough to show the tail end of that smug-ass dragon. He’s calm, which somehow pisses me off more. All that military-grade posture and ice-cold stillness, like he’s already calculated the next ten moves on the board.
“I’ll do it, Sabine,” he says. “I can bring her back.”
My brain doesn’t even register the words before my body explodes. “The fuck you will!”
I charge him, but Cade catches me by the chest.
“Get him away from her!” I roar, shoving against Cade’s hold, eyes wild. “You think he’s the one?! You want that asshole anywhere near her? Touching her?”
Laing doesn’t move. He just watches me like he’s waiting for me to get it all out.
“She’s not yours to break. You so much as breathe wrong and I will put you through the fucking wall!”
Briggs and Khoza step in fast, grabbing my arms before I can lunge again.
“L’ombre, you cannot be the flame tonight.
Her wrath needs cold, not warmth or light.
You are the end, her soul’s last breath.
But first she must dance with rage and death.”
“I swear to God,” I twist hard, chest heaving, vision swimming. “I’ll kill him.”
“You can try,” Laing shrugs. “After I bring your girlfriend back.”
From the corner, Dr. Monroe stands up so fast his chair tips. “Nope. No. I will not be present for this voodoo-rooted, rage-fueled exorcism!” he announces, waving his hands in the air. “This is beyond my license. Beyond therapy. Beyond reality. I’m a doctor, not a damn soul wrangler!”
Nobody stops him. All eyes are on her. All tension points toward what’s coming.
Sabine turns back to Laing.
“She will hate you. She may fight.
May draw blood in the dying light.
But if her soul begins to burn,
The path will open. She may return.”
Laing nods.
Behind me, Cade’s breathing. Heaving. My chest is heaving. I don’t feel right. My own skin is a prison I’m desperate to escape. The impulse is a raw, primal roar inside me to stop this. Shut it down. End this now before he even thinks about fucking touching her.
This isn’t some prophecy. It’s just betrayal. Right now. Right here. And it’s all I can focus on. But I can’t move. Because deep down, I know Sabine’s right. And that’s the part that fucking kills me.
I’d do anything to get Bella back. Burn cities. Break gods. Drag her soul out of hell myself if I had to. But I can’t. Because right now love isn’t the weapon she needs.
And fuck me, that might be the cruelest part of it all.