Chapter 29
twenty-nine
brIAR
Rhys tries to fight a grimace and fails.
Even cringing, he’s absolutely beautiful up close. Amber light highlights his carved cheekbones, underlining them in shadow. Slashing brows crouch low over his bottomless sea-glass eyes.
And he has slutty little reading glasses tucked into the front V of his shirt.
I am so fucked.
Even more so when his striking features arrange themselves into a look of genuine introspection.
“I used to be charming,” he mutters without sarcasm. “I took tons of meetings for Blackwood Corp. Ran our legal teams. Had friends in the arts. Went to every opera and symphony.”
Memories seem to flicker across his face.
Pictures from another life. “But that fucking fire,” he growls.
“Whoever lit it knocked me out first. Dane found me, carried me to safety. You’ve seen what that cost him.
He saved my life, but when I woke up, I still had insane smoke inhalation.
It ruined my sense of smell and part of one lung. They fixed that, but I still can’t—”
Understanding snaps inside me. “You can’t smell anything. Not even omegas.”
He releases a deep breath. “No. I can’t.”
I ponder that for a moment, leaning my head against the nearest shelf while I peer up at him.
Whatever made him loathe me so much from the beginning isn’t just about my scent.
He can’t smell Fiona, either—and from what I’ve seen, he essentially acts like she doesn’t exist. No antagonism or boiling rage.
“What else?” I whisper.
Rhys cuts me an annoyed glare. “Well, you’re too damn smart, for one,” he gripes. “But…”
The blond alpha flings his focus to the heavens, blowing out a long sigh. “Cillian married you. Bound you to our pack. And you’re not—”
His laugh is humorless, but not cruel. Just… hollow. “I always had this dumb idea that I would—I wanted a scent-match, okay? A mate,” he spits.
My lungs freeze, my lips falling open. Of all the things for us to have in common.
Then again, I seem to share more similarities with this alpha than I’d ever want to admit. Surface things, like books and music. And the stuff other people can’t see—pride, dark humor, bitter memories.
Before I reply, Rhys blazes on, his eyes shifting with slightly defensive fervor.
“It was all Cillian’s dad’s stupid fault,” he grumbles.
“Caine married my mom, but it was a marriage of convenience for both of them. She had inherited her parents’ tech company and didn’t want to run it.
Cillian’s grandfather wanted to absorb it, so he had his son marry my mother.
And implied there would be severe consequences if he didn’t. ”
I listen, trying to picture what these people looked like. I imagined Caine as a more distinguished version of Cillian. And Rhys’s mother surely would have been a great beauty, fair-haired and fine-boned.
“They were never happy,” Rhys snorts. “But Caine was always good to me. Better than my real dad ever was.”
I hear the undertones and subconsciously wince. Rhys flips me a devastatingly handsome half-smile. “He was a cold bastard. I guess that probably doesn’t surprise you, given the way I am.”
I do everything I can to seem unaffected, shrugging loosely. “You do suck.”
Rhys chuckles, more handsome by the second. “Yeah, yeah, viper. We both know you love a good fight.”
“And you don’t?” I accuse.
Rhys makes a rough sound. “Another thing I come by honestly. After my mom left my dad, he wound up in and out of jail. He was still there, last time I checked.”
It’s a sad story, especially since… “Your mom didn’t love Caine?”
The alpha’s gorgeous face twists into a bitter smile. “Oh, she did. But Caine was already spoken for. Madly in love with his mate.”
“Cillian’s mom,” I recall, picturing the scene. “Oh.”
“Yeah.” The corners of his mouth kick higher, but his eyes darken wistfully. “Oh.”
Dane told me that Cillian and Rhys grew up here. Did that also mean… “Wait, if he had you here… and Cillian… did he also have both of your mothers here? At the same time?”
Rhys’s gaze swirls, cool eddies of chaos and anguish. “They each refused to leave. Eventually, Cillian’s uncle realized Caine was being groomed to take over the whole company. He waited for an opportunity to get Cillian’s mom alone… and he killed her.”
My head spins. Pain pierces deep, anchoring itself in my middle. “Cillian’s mom was murdered? By his uncle?”
Rhys nods, the motion absent. “Yes,” he says, toneless. “It was a brilliant way to eliminate Caine, actually. Poor bastard offed himself like two weeks later.”
Holy fuck.
Cillian.
He watched his father mourn his mate so severely, he couldn’t stand to live without her. No wonder he married me—he probably didn’t want anything to do with a mate.
For all the same reasons Rhys did.
He had to witness his mother long for an alpha who could never love her. Because his soul belonged to someone else. I’m sure any young alpha would be determined to save his heart for the right person after that.
Even someone with a battered, blackened one like Rhys.
“What did your mom do?”
Vicious bitterness stains his angelic features. “She left, like I said. Packed her shit and shipped out. I was nine.”
Shit. I never really had a parent, but somehow, this sounds worse. Because, at some point, Rhys knew what it was like to have love and stability… and then he learned what it felt like to lose it. Or find out it wasn’t real in the first place.
No wonder he’s so venomous.
Wounded creatures are always the most deadly.
Rhys clocks the wavering pity in my eyes. His smirk hardens into a sneer. “Awww, viper, don’t get soft on me now.”
His nickname used to infuriate me, but this time it pinches my stomach. Almost as if hearing him jeer it at me… hurts?
I draw my knees up to my chest, glaring as I fold them over the ache at my center. The blond alpha watches with those too-intelligent eyes. One corner of his mouth droops slightly.
A gasp sticks in my throat as he suddenly drops into a fluid crouch. Silver-pale hair falls over his forehead as he snaps his arm to the side, finding a thick book with a leather cover and plucking it from the shelf. When he drops it onto my pile, I blink in pure astonishment.
Is he—
Did he just—recommend a book? For me?
“Only this once,” he claims, standing and scowling. Fidgeting with the sleeves of his dress shirt before he starts rolling them up. “Don’t get used to it.”
I watch as he creases the fabric over his lean, veiny forearms. Revealing one that’s as flawless as his marble face and the other, which—
—has a tattoo.
Black, like the simple ink letters carved into his chest, but this one depicts an image rather than a phrase.
Onyx scales. Slithering up his forearm and bicep.
I reach out and touch it before I can stop myself, sure I must be hallucinating. Warm skin slides under my fingertips. The tattoo doesn’t shimmer or ripple, proving it’s not a hallucination.
It’s really there. Slightly faded black ink; which means he’s had it the whole time I’ve known him.
Rhys doesn’t jerk his arm away, even when I whip an accusatory gape in his direction. His crooked, taunting grin should be illegal. “What?”
“Your tattoo,” I snap. “It’s a—”
His eyes practically glow, but his shrug is casual. “I called you viper,” Rhys starts as he steps back, turning to walk away. “I never said I didn’t like snakes.”