Chapter 27 Bree
Bree
Standing beside the fountain, I feel the weight of every eye on me.
The liquid light still glows beneath the surface, Seth’s memorial flowing in endless, beautiful loops. The fox is gone, faded back into shadow and memory, but its touch lingers on my palm. Around me, the crowd stays frozen—watching, waiting, trying to figure out what I am and what I might do next.
I catch a glimpse of myself in the fountain’s surface and feel something twist in my chest. My reflection looks different. Not transformed. Just… clearer. Like I’m finally seeing myself instead of the smaller version I’ve been carrying around for as long as I can remember.
The person looking back at me doesn’t seem like someone who would apologize for existing.
That darkness you fear in yourself? It’s power.
Ethos’s words echo in my mind—smooth as silk, and seductive in a way that does things to me I can’t think about right now. Something about it feels wrong, but they settle into place anyway.
The power to take what you want instead of waiting to be given scraps.
The whisper carries a hunger that I’m not used to, but I can’t bring myself to push it away.
I won’t beg for honesty anymore. I’m not waiting for them to decide I’m worthy of trust, of truth, of being treated like I matter.
Because I deserve all of those things.
And more.
I turn toward the sanctuary, and when the building responds to my presence it feels like coming home. The stones hum softly beneath my feet. Carved symbols pulse with faint recognition as I pass.
When I step through the main hall, I stop.
There’s something new. A raised dais of dark stone has emerged from the floor at the far end—not quite a throne room, but the beginning of one. The platform is elegant, understated, like the sanctuary is testing an idea. Seeing if I’ll accept what it’s offering.
My breath catches. The sight should unnerve me. Should send me running.
Instead, it feels like coming home.
But the guys—
They hang back like I might shatter if they get too close.
Gray keeps his distance, storm-colored eyes tracking my movement with something between hunger and wariness. Rhett’s hands twitch at his sides like he wants to reach for me but doesn’t dare. Even Jace, who’s never met a boundary he couldn’t charm his way across, stays carefully out of arm’s reach.
The contrast should hurt. It did hurt, before the fountain. Before Seth. Before everything changed.
Before the truth of everything became clear in my head.
Now it just makes something sharp and bright unfurl behind my ribs.
If they’re afraid of me, maybe they should be.
I pause just inside the sanctuary’s main hall, and the weight of their attention feels like something I can use. The Ether swirls around my feet, silver shot through with those black threads that everyone keeps pretending they don’t see.
“So,” I say, and my voice carries in a way it never has before. Like it knows exactly where it belongs. “Are you going to tell me what you’ve been hiding, or should I guess?”
The silence that follows feels different than their usual careful quiet. This one has weight to it.
Rhett shifts his weight, jaw ticking. “Bree—”
“You left me kneeling in that courtyard,” I continue, cutting him off. The words taste like power and betrayal at the same time. “While they called me dangerous. While Phil’s threats hung over these people. And you all just… watched.”
I look at each of them, really look, and it’s like seeing them for the first time.
Gray’s hunger beneath that careful mask.
Rhett’s heat making the air shimmer between us, but his hands staying carefully at his sides.
Theo’s guilt written across his face in lines I know how to read now.
Wes near the doorway, lips parted like he wants to speak but can’t quite find the words.
Thane won’t even look at me directly. Like he’s afraid of what he’ll see reflected back.
Only Stellan steps closer instead of back, just like he did in the courtyard. His eyes hold approval, sharp and unflinching—like he sees what I’m becoming and dares the others to admit it.
“You want me when I’m small,” I say, taking a step forward. Several of them take a step back, and that tells me everything I need to know. “When I’m manageable. When I need saving. But when I’m real—when I’m all of it—you can’t handle it.”
“That’s not—” Rhett starts, heat shimmering around his shoulders.
“Isn’t it?”
The question hangs there, and I can see the answer written across their faces. The way they want to reach for me but don’t. The way desire wars with something that looks a lot like fear.
I’m done being the one who reaches first.
“You’re afraid,” I say, and the observation settles into place like a key turning in a lock. “All of you. Except—” My gaze finds Stellan, who still hasn’t stepped back. “Thank you.”
The words create a crack swear I can see. Thane’s jaw ticks, and the others exchange looks that feel loaded with something sharp. Stellan’s small smile feels like drawing a line in the sand.
When nobody else speaks, I feel something that might be disappointment, if disappointment could cut like this.
Jace shifts his weight, blades catching the light. His face closes off before he speaks. “We found something,” he says, voice tight in a way I haven’t heard before. “In your apartment. Back before any of this started. Cameras.”
The word stings and for a moment, everything goes quiet.
My power dims—silver threads flickering like candles in a sudden breeze.
I’m back in that tiny space, changing clothes, showering, crying myself to sleep while someone watched.
While someone recorded every private moment and probably shared them with—
“You’ve known.” My voice comes out flat, deadly quiet. “For how long?”
“Bree—”
“How. Long.”
The silence stretches until I think it might snap and cut us all to pieces.
“Since the night Jace and Theo moved you out,” Gray finally says, the admission torn from somewhere deep in his chest. “Since Jace moved you out.”
Since the beginning. They’ve known since the beginning that Phil violated my privacy in the most intimate way possible, and they decided I couldn’t handle the truth. They looked at me—broken, terrified, barely holding myself together—and chose to manage me instead of trusting me.
The betrayal feels different this time. Not like drowning, but like lightning. Sharp and clean and illuminating.
“You kept me powerless,” I say, and my voice doesn’t shake. “You made decisions about my life, my safety, my right to know what was happening to me. And you called it protection.”
“We were trying to keep you safe,” Rhett says, but there’s something careful in his voice. Like he’s testing words before he speaks them. “Phil is—”
“Don’t.” The word stops him cold. “Don’t stand there and tell me what Phil is after everything you’ve hidden.”
“You’re not yourself,” Thane says, stepping forward with that measured control he wears like armor.
“Are you kidding me right now?” I turn on him, and something hot and jagged unfurls in my chest. “You don’t know who I am. Not after you—”
I cut myself off, but we both know what I’m not saying. What I can’t say with everyone listening.
After you couldn’t protect me in the Void. After you let something else touch my mind while you just stood there.
Thane goes very still, and I watch him realize exactly what I’m referring to. What I’m choosing not to say out loud.
“It wasn’t like that,” Rhett says, still trying to defend them. “We were trying to—”
“To what?” I interrupt, and this time I’m the one moving closer. He flinches—actually flinches—from the Ether writhing around me. “To keep me compliant? To make sure I stayed grateful and quiet while you handled the big scary world for me?”
His mouth opens, closes. No words come out.
“Touch me,” I say.
The command stops everyone cold.
“You want to protect me so badly. You want to make decisions for me, keep secrets from me, treat me like I’m made of glass. So touch me.” I spread my arms wide, Ether crackling between my fingers like miniature lightning. “Show me that you’re not afraid.”
Wes takes half a step forward, fingers reaching before he catches himself and stops. The aborted motion hurts worse than if he’d never moved at all. Like a door slammed just as I reached for it.
But Stellan moves closer, elegant and unafraid, while the others flinch away. The contrast draws sharp lines between them—those who fear what I’m becoming, and the one who sees it as something else.
“Stellan.” Thane’s voice carries a warning, but Stellan ignores it completely.
He steps close enough that I can feel the warmth of him, leans down until his lips brush my ear. “You’re magnificent,” he whispers, and his voice does something to my pulse that I wasn’t expecting.
Then he presses a soft kiss to my cheek before pulling away, gray eyes holding mine for a heartbeat.
The Ether around me actually settles at his touch, silver threads calming instead of lashing.
He winks—actually winks—and walks back to stand with the others like he didn’t just prove every single one of their fears wrong.
The gesture hits me harder than it should. Not because of the kiss, but because of what it means. He touched me. Willingly. Without fear.
While the others stand there with want in their eyes, but fear still chains them where they stand.
The air grows thick with want and fear and something that tastes like the beginning of an ending.
“That’s what I thought.”
I lower my arms, and it feels like closing a book.
“I’m not asking for your trust anymore,” I tell them, and the words feel like stepping into something I should have claimed a long time ago. “You lost that chance. But here’s the thing—I don’t need it. I don’t need permission.”
The sanctuary responds like it’s been waiting for me to say exactly that. Walls hum with approval. Doors that were closed swing open. Pathways become clear and bright.
Wes makes a small sound. “Bree, please—”
“Please what? Please go back to being small? Please pretend I don’t see how you all step back when my power shows? Please keep letting you decide what’s best for me?”
I shake my head, and it feels like shaking off something that never fit right anyway.
“You’ll have to decide if you can handle all of me,” I tell them, already moving toward the deeper corridors where I know the sanctuary’s heart is waiting. “Because I won’t go back to being managed. I won’t go back to being less.”
The black threads in my Ether pulse once, and I taste something that isn’t mine—approval, pride, hunger that goes deeper than want.
Good, something whispers where only I can hear it, and the voice definitely isn’t mine. Let them see what you really are.
The thought should disturb me more than it does.
“You wanted to keep me small,” I say over my shoulder as I walk away from them. “But I was never meant to be small.”
My footsteps echo in the corridor, and I don’t look back to see if they follow.