Chapter 38
Rhen forced himself upright and staggered toward the center of the destruction, scanning through smoke, rain, and debris.
“Cole.”
The name emerged as a rasp.
Cole lay crumpled among the wreckage, motionless except for the faint rise of his chest. Residual power smoked from his body, and rain steamed when it struck his skin.
He was alive, but barely.
The storm had broken him in the way only his own power could.
Dax was already beside him, kneeling amid the rubble with his hands hovering over Cole’s body as though he did not know where it was safe to touch. Malakai arrived a moment later, his expression tight with fury and fear.
Before any of them could move Cole, quiet laughter drifted from somewhere beyond the collapsed brickwork.
The heretic’s voice threaded through the night like poison.
“You see?” he whispered. “You cannot stop me. None of you can.”
Rhen turned toward the sound.
Through smoke and driving rain, the male stood at the far end of the ruined street, untouched among the destruction. Black-red power gathered around him, drawing the remaining shadows inward until they climbed his body like living smoke.
Rhen looked beyond the ruined flesh and borrowed power with the sight bound to Charon.
The mark was there.
Not silver. Not incomplete. Not written as promise, bargain, or binding.
Damnation.
The old law had already named him.
He took one step toward him.
The power sustaining Cole flickered.
Rhen felt the disturbance across the ruined street, a sudden weakening in the force holding his brother’s damaged body together.
It stopped him more effectively than any chain.
Dax dropped beside Cole and pressed one blood-covered hand against his chest, his senses reaching beneath scorched flesh to assess the magic guttering inside him. His expression changed.
“Rhen.”
The heretic’s smile widened.
He had not remained to finish them. He had remained to make certain Rhen understood what the ambush had cost.
The darkness folded around him.
“Choose carefully, Charon.”
His smile sharpened through the rain.
“Your missing club-keeper chose badly.”
Then he was gone.
The darkness folded around him.
“Choose carefully, Charon.”
His smile sharpened through the rain.
“Your missing club-keeper chose badly.”
Then he was gone.
Rhen surged toward the place where he had stood, but the street beyond it was empty. No scent remained to follow, only heretic magic dissolving beneath the rain and the distant echo of laughter moving through the Quarter.
Behind him, the force sustaining Cole faltered again.
Every instinct demanded pursuit. The heretic had entered his mind, spilled his brothers’ blood, and stood laughing while Cole destroyed himself. Allowing him to leave violated everything Rhen was.
Cole made a broken sound among the rubble.
Rhen turned back.
The decision did not feel like mercy. It felt like postponing one death to prevent another.
He moved into Malakai’s line of sight, caught his gaze, and signed, Take him.
Malakai answered with a sharp nod before sliding one arm beneath Cole’s shoulders and the other beneath his knees. Residual power snapped weakly across Cole’s skin and burned through Malakai’s sleeves, but he did not loosen his hold.
Rhen looked toward Dax.
“Cover the transition.”
Dax positioned himself between them and the ruined street, scanning the rooftops and adjoining passages for another attack.
Rhen remained facing the direction the heretic had vanished while Malakai dematerialized with Cole.
The male was dead.
He simply did not know it yet.
They did not return to the compound as victors.
They returned like males carrying the consequences of their own desperation.
Malakai dematerialized first and reappeared inside the estate gates with Cole’s limp body in his arms. His boots slipped briefly upon the wet stone before he regained his balance.
Dax appeared a moment later, his jaw clenched and blood coating his hands. His attention remained fixed upon the surrounding darkness as though he expected the Quarter to send more enemies behind them.
Rhen arrived last.
He did not stagger or acknowledge his injuries. He moved like a blade being returned to its sheath, silent and already considering the next kill.
Rain flooded the courtyard, soaking through their clothing, flattening hair against skin, and turning the paving stones into a mirror of black and gray.
They had crossed half the distance to the main doors when Rhen stopped.
Something moved inside the mist.
It carried neither the scent of blood nor the immediate pressure of a threat.
It was simply a presence where no presence should have been.
A figure stood near the gates.
Small. Feminine.
Rain distorted the shape of her body, blurring its edges as though the storm itself could not hold her properly. Mist curled around her bare feet in slow, unnatural ribbons, swallowing pieces of her silhouette whenever lightning flashed above the estate.
Malakai’s head lifted sharply. He shifted Cole’s weight enough to free one hand and signed a terse question toward Rhen.
What the fuck?
The woman moved closer.
Or perhaps the thing wrapped around her allowed her to move.
The air shimmered around her body like heat passing over glass. For less than a heartbeat, the outline of her face shifted before settling again, as though another version existed beneath the surface and was struggling to emerge.
A cloak.
Not fabric.
Magic.
Old magic.
The compound lights caught her fully.
She was strikingly beautiful, with a white dress soaked against her body and dark hair plastered across her face and throat. Rain traced the sharp line of her jaw and fell from the ends of her hair.
At first glance, she appeared delicate.
Her eyes destroyed that impression.
Fear lived inside them, accompanied by exhaustion and confusion. Beneath all three waited something older, watching the brothers even while the woman herself appeared not to understand what she was seeing.
Rhen’s body locked when her scent reached him.
It was neither perfume, blood, nor ordinary human warmth.
Magic moved into his lungs, clean and wild and deeply wrong, like poison threaded through a memory he could not reach.
The shadows surrounding her wrists flickered. For a moment, silver glyphwork became visible beneath her skin, spiraling along her veins before the glamour concealed it again.
“She is cloaked,” Rhen said.
His hand moved toward the blade strapped across his back.
“Witch.”
Malakai adjusted Cole’s weight again and signed one-handed.
What is a witch doing at our gates?
The woman stumbled closer. Her bare feet made almost no sound upon the flooded gravel.
Her gaze moved between them as though she could feel the violence radiating from every male and did not know which one would strike first.
“Please.” Her voice shook. “I don’t know where I am. I don’t know how I got here.”
Her terror was real.
Rhen could smell it.
So was the magic.
A witch appearing at their gates during a coordinated heretic attack was not an accident he was willing to entertain.
“I don’t care what she wants,” he said. “She is lying. Witches do not wander into vampire territory by mistake.”
The woman flinched but did not lower her gaze.
“I swear. I woke up and—I don’t know how I came here.”
Malakai looked directly at Rhen and signed with his free hand.
She is not the priority. Cole is.
“I know.”
Rhen crossed the courtyard and closed one hand around the woman’s upper arm. Her skin was cold enough to register through the heat still trapped beneath his own.
She did not fight.
Whether through weakness, confusion, or calculation, she merely stumbled when he pulled her toward the doors.
Beauty meant nothing to him. Witches had used beauty as bait for longer than most creatures had possessed language.
Inside the compound, warmth closed around them.
It did not feel like shelter.
It sharpened every detail: the blood covering the brothers, the violence still clinging to their bodies, and the sound of Cole struggling for each unnecessary breath.
The woman wrapped her arms around herself and stared at the estate’s vaulted ceilings, dark wood, and candlelit portraits with open disbelief.
Malakai placed Cole upon the nearest couch with brutal care.
Cole’s body jerked. Veins stood beneath his skin like bruised lightning, and aftershocks continued moving through him in vicious pulses.
Malakai straightened and faced Rhen.
Do you think she is connected to the attack? Bait?
Rhen did not take his eyes from her.
“She is a witch. That is connection enough.”
The woman shook her head.
“I don’t know what is happening. I am not a threat.”
“You are here,” Rhen replied. “That is enough.”
Malakai’s hands moved sharply.
Deal with her later. Cole first.
Rhen remained motionless, his attention fixed upon the stranger like a weapon left unsheathed.
“Lock her somewhere secure until we know why she appeared on our doorstep.”
Panic sharpened the woman’s expression.
“I don’t want trouble.”
“Too late,” Rhen said. “You brought it with you.”
Malakai released a controlled breath and approached her. He took her arm and pointed toward the back corridor, his grip firm without becoming cruel.
From beside Cole, Dax translated the gesture.
“Come on. We will work out what happened.”
The witch allowed Malakai to lead her away.