4. Rhys
RHYS
I’d made peace with the rage that lived inside me. It might seem odd that rage and peace could coexist, but that was where the numbness entered. If fury lived inside you for long enough, you got used to its burn and it sort of became background noise.
Not today, though.
Not when Pax had called me here. To her.
It had all the memories flooding back. My hand moved to the scar on my chest on instinct, feeling the raised flesh. The demon mark. Getting her to safety had cost me nearly everything. And it seemed this fated bond wasn’t done taking from me.
I gritted my teeth as I drove my Aston Martin DB12 through the streets of Boston.
Human cities were not for me. There was too much noise.
Pollution. Chaos. I preferred the wide-open spaces you could find elsewhere.
I’d lived in Montana, Alaska, Maine, Washington, and countless other places where I could find fresh air at least, but none of them were home.
My mouth curved the barest amount when I thought about how Soraya was seeking out her version of home.
Boston was only about an hour from Salem, the city that was home to the descendants of her kind.
Just as Nocturnae were vampires’ ancestors, witches descended from Luminaries.
If they only knew how much Luminaries despised the term—to them witches were merely less powerful versions of what they were meant to be.
It was as if some invisible tether had called Soraya here, to the closest to home she could get. A scowl twisted my lips. Even that could prove dangerous if the wrong people somehow put two and two together. We’d already had to move her once—not that she knew it.
I shifted in my seat, struggling to get comfortable. But I never was.
I made the hour-long drive to the small town outside of Boston. Normally, the farther I got from those crowded human streets, the more my tension eased. But not today. Today, each mile that passed wound my muscles tighter until I was pretty sure my jaw had a new hairline fracture.
It would heal.
As I wound my way through the picturesque neighborhoods, the properties slowly got larger and larger. When Pax informed me that Soraya was moving out of Boston, I’d put him up in a house that would provide privacy. Someplace close, but not too close.
Slowing at the gate, I rolled down my window and plugged in the code. In a matter of minutes, I was pulling up to the home on the estate. With eight bedrooms and ten bathrooms, I wasn’t sure what Pax was utilizing it all for, but at least we had room to talk.
I climbed out of my rental car and slammed the door. As I started up the steps, Pax appeared in the entryway.
“How was the trip?” he asked.
I glared at him as I reached the top stair. “How do you think? I don’t do well with being beckoned.”
Pax winced. He rarely demanded things of me. I could think of only twice before in our 160-year friendship. But he was now.
“It’s time,” he said softly.
Every thread of tension inside me wound impossibly tighter. I refused to believe that was the case. Fifteen years wasn’t nearly long enough. But who was I kidding? Endless centuries wouldn’t have been enough.
“Not yet,” I growled.
Pax sighed, opening the door wider and ushering me in. He walked through the echoey hallway, guiding us into a massive kitchen. It was bright. Too bright. Living in the dark for my entire life, I still hadn’t gotten used to the days in the human realm.
“Blood?” Pax asked.
He’d likely been living on bagged human blood, but that wouldn’t do for me. For so many reasons. Instead, I’d been forced to live on the animal stuff.
I shook my head and waited.
Pax gripped the edge of the counter. “She’s getting sick. It’s time. She needs to go home.”
Panic burned through me, its heat different than rage. This burned hotter, leaving scars in its wake. “What do you mean, sick?”
He grimaced. He’d never particularly enjoyed giving me bad news. “The headaches are getting worse. One took her down last night for six hours. If we leave her here for much longer, I fear it could do permanent damage.”
A battle waged within me: the fated bond versus my hatred.
The bond rode me hard, wanting to fix things for her, protect her, heal her.
It was the way mating bonds worked. They made you care for your fated.
But my hatred for her people—for her family—pushed back against it, fighting to burn the bond to ashes.
But it was also more than that. If we brought her back to Lumaria, our enemies would be everywhere.
Once the truth was revealed and they found out we were fated, no one would be on our side.
Her people. Mine. Every other Nocturnae House would worry that it might mean an alliance between the House of Firelight and the Luminaries.
And I couldn’t forget the demons. They knew she had power within her—a power they wanted.
“You need to see her,” Pax said softly.
“No.” The single word cracked through the air like a whip.
Since that day, I’d done everything I could not to see her.
Olympia had bound her magic and mind, so when she entered the human realm, Soraya wouldn’t remember her past or her magic.
Pax had placed her with a human family I’d vetted and he continued to watch over her—but he had been the only one with her, the invisible guard making sure she was safe until she was old enough for him to use a cloaking spell to look the right age to be one of her classmates.
“It’s time,” he pressed, albeit gently. “You can only fight this for so long. It will drain you and her.”
My back teeth ground together because I knew he was right. You couldn’t break a bond without it ending in death or madness because souls were linked.
I’d tried to find other options. I’d spent countless hours of my purgatory here in the human realm researching. Because it wasn’t like I could return home. Not when there was a price on my head.
But that’s what happened when you kidnapped the Luminary Prince’s promised one.
“I can bring you with me today, introduce you as my cousin or something,” Pax went on.
I scowled. “We look nothing alike.”
Pax rolled his eyes. “Cousins by marriage, maybe? She won’t question it. She doesn’t look for enemies and traitors around every corner.”
Unlike you.
I heard the unspoken words but took no offense.
If anything, I worried that Soraya didn’t look for those enemies and traitors because she’d have to start.
The people of Lumaria would see one of two things when they looked at her: either an abomination—something that went against the gods—or a source of power they wanted to tap.
Neither was good.
I couldn’t even count on my own brother. In the few hours I’d had before escaping with Soraya to stash her in the human world, I’d confided in Ayden. How else could I prepare him to protect our kingdom in my absence? To say he hadn’t been supportive was an understatement.
“And then what? We’ll have tea and tell her she’s from an ancient, magical race and that I’m her fated mate?” Even just saying the words made me sick.
“She’s kind, Rhys. She’s got a heart of gold. And she’s funny. You’ll like her.”
A storm swirled within me as a new wave of fury swept through me. “Have. You. Touched. Her?”
Pax stumbled back, his eyes going wide. “What? Are you mad? She’s your fated. I would never. And you know she’s not my type.”
The red tinge to my vision eased a fraction as I tried to regain control. I absently noticed that I’d cracked the edge of the island’s marble when I gripped it.
Jealous fury.
I was never jealous. But Pax had been in her life nearly every day. At first, watching from afar, and then inserting himself into her life in high school—a built-in best friend for everything she needed. He knew her better than anyone.
“Sorry,” I rasped.
Relief swept across his expression. “It’s okay. I get it. She’s your fated. Emotions are bound to run high.”
But I couldn’t afford any of them. I would not allow myself to care for this…Luminary. My lip curled just thinking the word.
Yes, I was bound to her. There was nothing I could do to change that. So I would protect her. But I would never love her.