Chapter 17
Bree
I wake in the middle of the night, still wrapped in warmth—Rhett’s hoodie, his lingering scent, the phantom memory of his steady breathing beneath my cheek.
The sanctuary is deep in shadow, that heavy quiet that settles over everything in the small hours when even the ancient stones seem to hold their breath.
Rhett is asleep in the chair beside me, his broad frame somehow folded into the space, head tilted back against the cushion.
Even in sleep, one hand rests near his leg like he’s ready to reach for me if I need him.
My chest tightens at the sight—this man who stayed awake to watch over me, who chose to sleep uncomfortably rather than leave me alone.
Who kept Phil’s existence in this a secret for days, maybe weeks.
The betrayal hits fresh, sharp as a blade between my ribs.
Not just Rhett. All of them. Rhett, Gray, Jace, Theo, Wes, Thane, Stellan.
Every single one of them knew Phil was coming for me and decided I couldn’t be trusted with the truth.
Decided I was too fragile, too breakable, too much of a liability to handle my own life.
Yesterday that knowledge felt like drowning. Like proof that no matter how much they claimed to care, I’d always be the one they managed instead of trusted.
But as I sit here, the Ether stirring restlessly around my feet, something else rises beneath the hurt. Something far more complicated.
My body aches in ways that have nothing to do with physical injury. The Void left marks on me—not visible ones, but something deeper. Like parts of me were touched that shouldn’t be, awakened that should have stayed sleeping.
The black threads are still there, woven through my silver mist like veins. I can feel them even now, subtle and dark, threading through the Ether that pools around my ankles. They don’t hurt. That’s what disturbs me most.
They feel like honesty.
That darkness you fear in yourself? It isn’t corruption. It’s power.
Ethos’s words echo in my mind, and I hate how they settle into place like they belong there. Like they were always true, just waiting for someone brave enough to say them out loud.
I need to move. The sanctuary responds to my restlessness before I’m even fully upright—corridors shifting subtly to guide me away from Rhett’s protective sleep, stones humming with that gentle silver warmth. But tonight it feels insufficient. Like trying to fill an ocean with a teaspoon.
That’s when I hear the pacing.
I follow the sound toward the kitchen, bare feet silent on the cool stone floors. The sanctuary guides me through hallways that seem shorter tonight, more direct, like it understands the urgency thrumming under my skin.
Wes stands in the kitchen, moving back and forth like a caged animal. His dark hair is disheveled, sleep shirt wrinkled, and there are shadows under his eyes that speak of hours spent awake. He looks wrecked—beautiful and desperate and barely holding himself together.
The moment he sees me, he stops.
“I thought you were gone for good.”
The words burst out of him before I can say anything, raw and desperate. His voice cracks on the last word, and I hear everything he’s not saying: the terror, the relief, the need so sharp it’s almost physical.
Something in my chest responds to that honesty. To the way he’s not trying to manage me or protect me from his own feelings. He’s just laying himself bare, trusting me to handle it.
You give and give until there’s nothing left.
But maybe I’m tired of being the one who only gives.
Instead of keeping my distance like I usually would, I step closer. One deliberate step, then another, until I’m close enough to see the gold flecks in his brown eyes, close enough to feel the heat radiating from his skin.
“I’m here,” I say quietly. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Wes searches my face like he’s looking for proof, for some sign that I mean it. Whatever he finds there seems to undo him completely.
“Bree, I—” He stops, jaw working. “I can’t do this without you. I don’t know how to be without you.”
The admission hangs between us, vulnerable and electric. I can feel his hunger radiating off him in waves—not just for food anymore, but for connection. For me. The awakening magic in him calls to something deep in my chest, something that wants to answer.
The words steal my breath. No one has ever said that to me before—not like this.
Not with such raw honesty that it feels like he’s handing me his heart and trusting me not to crush it.
I’ve spent my whole life being too much for people, watching them step back when I needed them most. But Wes is stepping closer, making himself vulnerable, choosing me even when it costs him.
Their lies still sting. The way they all decided what I could handle, what I deserved to know. But standing here with Wes, seeing the raw need in his eyes… their betrayal feels smaller somehow. Less important than this moment where someone is finally being completely honest with me.
The power to take what you want instead of waiting to be given scraps.
For once, I don’t want to wait for him to decide I’m strong enough or ready enough or worth the risk. I don’t want to wait for permission from anyone.
I reach up and cup his face in my hands.
“Then don’t be without me.”
His eyes widen almost in disbelief under my touch, like he can’t believe I’m real. Like he’s afraid one wrong move will make me disappear again.
“Bree,” he whispers, my name a prayer and a question all at once.
I answer by kissing him.
It’s desperate from the first moment—messy and hot and hungry in a way that has nothing to do with gentleness. Wes kisses me back like he’s drowning and I’m air, his hands fisting in Rhett’s hoodie, pulling me closer until there’s no space left between us.
This isn’t the careful comfort Rhett offered last night. This is raw need, the kind that burns through pretense and leaves only truth behind.
The moment our tongues meet, something shifts in the air around us.
I feel the Ether responding to the contact—warmth rising from my skin, but different than usual.
Instead of the gentle curl I’m used to, it rushes outward, pouring into him.
I can feel threads of energy sinking beneath his skin, igniting something that was waiting just beneath the surface.
The pull at my Ether is gentle but unmistakable. Familiar.
I’ve felt this before.
With Thane.
I pull back, breathless, staring up at Wes as understanding crashes over me. “You’re feeding from me.”
His eyes widen, then close as if in defeat. “Yes.”
“You’re—” I pause, the word catching in my throat.
His jaw tightens like he’s bracing for me to flinch. “Say it.”
“You’re a Feeder,” I whisper. Not a question this time.
He nods, opening his eyes to meet mine. “Incubus-class, like Stellan. But different.” His voice cracks on the admission, quiet but raw. “I wasn’t going to tell you. I thought… if you knew, you’d look at me different. Like everyone else does.”
His voice is quiet, uncertain. “I don’t fully understand how it works yet, but I know the deeper the connection, the closer I am to someone—” He pauses, searching for words. “The more it sustains me. The hunger quiets.”
Understanding floods through me. “That’s why it gets worse when you’re alone. Why it eases when you’re with us.”
“With you,” he corrects. “It eases when I’m with you.” His hands find my waist, gentle but certain. “Everyone else helps a little, but you—” He stops, struggling to explain something he doesn’t fully understand himself. “You’re different. Essential.”
“And just now, when we kissed—”
“The moment I felt close to you, really close, the hunger just—it took over. I couldn’t stop it.” His eyes search mine. “I don’t know exactly what I’m taking from you, but I know I need it. And I know this is only the second time I’ve actually fed.”
“Second time?”
He blushes—actually blushes—and looks away. “I fed from Gray. Just a little. It was an accident, we were—” He stops, color deepening across his cheekbones. “We were close, and it just happened.”
I pause, processing this. Gray and Wes. The image shouldn’t affect me the way it does, but heat curls low in my stomach.
Not jealousy—something else entirely. Something that makes my pulse quicken and my breath catch.
Heat that belongs to Wes’s confession, to the thought of Gray, to both of them together.
“Are you okay with that?” he asks quietly, misreading my silence. “I know it’s weird, and I didn’t mean for it to happen—”
“I’m not afraid of what you are, Wes. I don’t want less because of it—I want more. Of you. Of this.”
His eyes widen slightly. “Really?”
“Really.” I step closer, drawn by the honesty in his confession, by the vulnerability of admitting he’d been intimate with Gray. “Tell me what it was like.”
But instead of answering, he searches my face with something like wonder. “You’re not pulling away. You know what I am, what I need, and you’re not running.”
“No,” I say, reaching up to cup his face again. “I’m not running.”
“Bree—”
“I felt it with Thane too. The pull, the exchange. But this is different.” My thumb traces his cheekbone, and he leans into the touch like he’s starving for it. “With him, it felt… controlled. Careful. This feels like need.”
“It is need,” he admits, voice raw. “I need you so much it scares me.”
“When I get close, I can feel it building. If I don’t control it, it can overwhelm… both of us.”
His eyes flick to mine, dark and unsteady. “But with you—it doesn’t feel like losing control. It feels like giving you exactly what you need.”
The honesty in his words, the vulnerability, makes something fierce rise in my chest. Here he is, admitting to being something the magical world considers lowest, confessing to a hunger he can’t control, and all I want to do is give him more.
The power to take what you want instead of waiting to be given scraps.
“Then take what you need,” I say, and before he can protest, I kiss him again.
The hunger simmers between us, unresolved and electric. Promise of more to come. I can feel it in the way he’s looking at me now—not like I’m something fragile that might break, but like I’m powerful enough to choose what I give and when.
Like I’m powerful enough to take what I want, too.
The moment stretches, charged and perfect, until footsteps echo down a distant corridor. Someone else is awake, moving through the sanctuary in the deep hours of night.
Wes and I exchange a look—loaded with everything we can’t say, everything we’re not ready to explain to the others yet. Not when they’re still the ones who lied to me. Not when I’m finally learning what it feels like to take instead of waiting to be given.
But as I watch him run a hand through his disheveled hair, still looking slightly stunned by what just happened, one thought settles into my mind with crystalline clarity:
For once, I didn’t wait for their permission. I took what I wanted. And it felt like power.
The black threads in my mist pulse once, as if in agreement.
And somewhere in the sanctuary’s depths, I notice the absence of silver eyes and controlled composure. Thane hasn’t come looking for me. Hasn’t reached out since the Void. And maybe the part that scares me most is how little that scares me now.