31. Briar
brIAR
T he halls feel colder the deeper I go, stone walls narrowing as I follow the sloping corridor beneath the castle’s main levels. My steps echo too loud in the silence, like even the floor wants to remind me I’m alone with my spiraling thoughts.
All of them revolve around the three humans I chose to save and bring home with me.
I’ve been victim to the brothers prowling the castle and finding me in moments of need, in different ways.
I let Elias in physically because I needed something raw and overpowering enough to silence my grief.
His roughness, his obsession, and the way he fucked me like I belonged to him was what I needed in the moment.
The relief it brought didn’t last long, but it did zap a lot of my rage, leaving me to deal with the grief I was desperate not to feel.
The silver lining in a fucked-up scenario, I suppose.
I let Callum in too, but in the exact opposite way. His tenderness and connection to his art had my walls dropping with ease. Then the vow he made to bring my mom home as we held hands pressed itself so deeply into my heart that it’s been on a permanent loop in my mind ever since.
Two different doors I never thought would present themselves, unlatched by my own hand.
How could I go from wanting to kill them myself, to whatever… this is.
I think of Elias taking a bullet for me, of Callum’s entire body shaking as he broke that vat open, and of Dante being brave enough to look past his trauma and help us all escape.
Ever since stepping foot into my home, they’ve given every ounce of information they could to my fathers, from what I’ve heard.
They’re trying to make amends, be it for themselves, or me.
Every time I soften to the thought of them, my wretched mind reminds me that they’re still the son and nephews of the man who has my mother right now, locked in that same hell I endured.
How could we ever walk a path side by side after all of this?
I clench my fists so tightly my nails bite into my palms. I need somewhere to put this flood of fury and confusion.
Tomorrow, we launch the attack and I will walk back into the place that nearly destroyed me. If I’m going to have a clear mind when I face it, I need to let all of this out now. If I let it churn inside me, I’ll be no use tomorrow and will make reckless decisions.
My palms press against the cold iron handles to our large gym, desperate for the solitude I came here to find as I let it all out in private.
A place to rage, to sweat, and maybe to break something before I break myself.
Its infrastructure is built to hold any noise inside, making it the perfect place.
But the moment the doors swing inward, the thuds of fists hammering into leather greet me, followed by the sharp exhale of breath between impacts.
My gaze zeroes in on him instantly.
Dante.
Sweat slicks down his bare chest, muscles taut with every strike as he drives his fists into the heavy bag. His knuckles are already red, his jaw tight, each blow landing like it’s the only thing holding him together.
I halt just inside the doorway, the thought flashing through me before I can stop it. Oh, fucking great. The third musketeer I’d love to avoid in my confusion.
He doesn’t notice me at first, too locked into the rhythm of his own destruction. Each hit lands harder than the last, his breath tearing out between clenched teeth, sweat dripping from his jaw to his chest.
I should turn around and slip back into the corridor and find another outlet. But my feet don’t move. While part of me is irritated that it’s him of all people standing between me and my outlet, another part can’t look away.
It’s somewhat shocking and unsettling, seeing him like this. He’s not the careful, calculated Dante who always seems to keep his emotions sealed tight. This is a raw version, stripped bare and cracking open every time his fists slam into the bag.
Maybe that’s what keeps me rooted to the spot, just seeing the exposed pieces of him.
Dante is a puzzle I haven’t figured out yet.
With Elias and Callum, I briefly glimpsed the boys they were before Terrance put them under his thumb.
I saw them as students and people like me with a dream that was just out of reach.
Those flashes of who they were before gave me something to hold onto and compare against the versions of them I hated in that compound.
But Dante?
I never saw him before the compound, before Terrance’s grip locked him in place and ground him down into obedience.
All I know of him is the man shaped by survival–the one who kept his head bowed and his mouth shut, who obeyed because he had no other choice.
The one who nearly died under his own father’s hand just for daring to run.
That’s the version I’ve lived beside. A man of scars and silence.
Seeing him like this, sweating and snarling under his breath, I realize I don’t know what lies underneath. Maybe even Dante doesn’t know what lies within himself any longer.
Maybe he’s trying to find that now.
The chain above the bag rattles with the force of his last punch before he lets out an animalistic roar of fury that reminds me of shifters. His chest heaves with deep and uneven breaths as he drops his hands to his side and turns. His gaze collides with mine in the open doorway.
For a beat his expression is pinched and filled with rage, but the second he realizes it’s me, I watch him attempt to shove it deep within. His jaw tightens, his mouth pulling into a line, and the storm in his eyes shutters behind something practiced.
Exactly how Terrance wanted. Silent and compliant.
“Sorry, I didn’t see you there,” he offers while wiping a sheen of sweat from his brow with the back of his forearm as if that can erase what I just saw.
He glances at the bag, then back at me, fumbling for something to say as I simply stare at him. “Did you…need this? I can go.”
I step further into the room, letting out a sigh as it hits me that maybe I’m not the only one who deserves to have this outlet right now. The tension in my chest eases by the smallest fraction as I shake my head and accept that.
“I’d offer to hold the bag for you,” I tell him in a lightly teasing tone to ease any discomfort my presence may have brought, “but I think the added weight for vampire strength is doing well enough for you.”
His eyebrows shoot up, a flicker of shock flashing across his face before a small smile tugs at his mouth.
He lets out a heavy huff and drags a hand through his dark hair that’s slick with sweat.
“Yeah, the weight is definitely fueling the rage well. It reminds me how helpless I feel at times, when I can barely get the bag to move.”
The honesty in his tone catches me off guard.
I’m not sure what to say back, but I do know that we both need to get some energy out, and maybe we can do that at the same time.
I tilt my head at him, then at the bag. “Your turn to watch. Hold it for me.”
His warm chocolate eyes flicker, surprise flashing there for a second, but he nods almost too quickly, like refusing me never even crossed his mind. He grips the sides of the bag, bracing his chest against it with one foot digging into the ground, as if he already knows I won’t go easy on him.
I drag the wraps from the shelf and wind them around my hands with quick, practiced motions.
The first punch I throw is light, for me, at least. I catch the flicker of his brows rising, the subtle shift in his shoulders as he adjusts to absorb the force.
I give him another, harder this time. Then harder still as I see he can handle it.
Each impact sends a satisfying jolt up my arms, rattling bone and muscle. With every strike I push harder and faster. The bag rocks violently under my fists, and Dante’s eyes widen as he digs in his heels to keep it still.
He wasn’t there when I tore through every guard that came after us after our crash.
He didn’t see how much damage I can do with blood roaring in my veins and rage on my side.
Only Elias saw it. The realization of my training and agility seems to dawn on Dante now, shock flashing across his sweat-slicked face as he grits his teeth and leans his weight into the bag to steady it against the force of me.
The bag thuds beneath my fists, each impact rattling up my arms and stealing some of the chaos from my chest, giving space for a question to form in my mind.
“Was your dad always like this?” I ask between strikes, breath puffing out sharp as my fist slams into leather repeatedly.
Dante’s hands flex around the bag’s sides, bracing harder. “No. Not like this.” His voice is surprisingly calm as he adds, “Though he always had a disdain for the supernatural and made sure we knew it.”
His jaw tightens and I land another blow that makes the chain rattle above him.
“But after my mom died…” he trails off for a moment as his throat bobs.
“After she was killed by a newly turned vampire–according to the cops–while on her way out of the grocery store, it was like something inside him snapped. Any softness he had left died with her.”
My fists connect again, harder, and the sound echoes in the gym.
I hate that my first thought is of how awful that must have been for his family to learn of what happened.
Sure, I should feel empathy for Dante, as he was just a kid that lost his mother and was left with the monster his father turned into.
But why does a part of me even feel empathy for Terrance and the rage from her death that fueled him?
After everything he’s done, that part of me shouldn’t exist.
“Maybe that’s the truth of him,” Dante mutters, drawing my focus back as I land heavier blows. “Maybe he was always this way deep down. It just took losing her to bring it all out and feel like he is justified in his hatred and desire to hurt supernaturals.”
I slam my knuckles into the bag again as I process his words.