Chapter 3
Rhett
Heat wakes me.
Not the good kind—the suffocating, crawling heat that makes you want to tear off your own skin. I surface from sleep gasping, my t-shirt soaked through with sweat that shouldn't exist. The room is cold. I can see my breath in the air, which means the radiator's busted again.
So why does it feel like I'm burning from the inside out?
I swing my legs over the side of the bed, bare feet hitting the floor. The shock of cold should help, but it doesn't. If anything, the contrast makes the heat worse—like my body's rejecting everything that isn't fire.
The bathroom mirror shows me what I already know. I look like hell. Dark circles, stubble, hair sticking up at angles that defy physics. But it's my eyes that stop me cold. They're bloodshot, sure, but there's something else. A flicker of gold in the hazel that wasn't there yesterday.
I lean closer, squinting. Just a trick of the light. Has to be.
The faucet handle is ice under my palm as I twist it, cold water rushing into the basin. I splash it on my face, gasping at the shock. Steam rises up from my skin where the water hits.
Steam.
I stare down at my hands, water dripping from my fingers. The droplets hiss where they slide off my skin, steam curling as if I’m the hot pan.
"What the hell," I breathe.
My reflection stares back, wide-eyed and spooked. The gold flicker is still there, brighter now. Like embers catching the wind.
This isn't happening. This can't be happening.
I've always run warm—genetics, maybe, or all those years working out, building muscle. But this... this is different. This feels like something living under my skin, clawing its way out.
I press my palms to the mirror. Steam blooms instantly, fogging the glass around my fingers. The heat doesn't hurt exactly, but it's relentless. Insistent. Like it's trying to tell me something I don't want to hear.
You're changing.
The thought slams into me, sudden and unwelcome. I can't change. I won't. I'm the steady one. The reliable one. The one who keeps everyone else safe when the world goes to hell.
I'm not supposed to be the thing they need protecting from.
But I can’t stay in this room, pacing like something's about to explode.
The hallway is quiet when I step out, my bare feet silent on the old hardwood. Bree’s still up in the attic. Still sleeping, hopefully. After what happened last night... she needs it.
I drift toward the kitchen on autopilot, muscle memory guiding me while my thoughts stay stuck upstairs. She looked so small in that bed. Pale. Hollowed out. Like whatever the crown took from her isn’t coming back.
The kitchen feels safer. Familiar. I can make coffee, keep my hands busy, pretend everything’s normal until this—whatever this is—goes away.
I reach for the coffee pot. The metal’s room-temp when my hand hits it, but that doesn’t last. The handle warms beneath my palm, faster than it should. Not scalding. Just wrong.
"Shit." I drop it, more reflex than pain, the pot clanging against the counter.
"Smooth, captain."
I spin around to find Jace leaning against the doorframe, his golden hair sticking up in sleep-mussed spikes. He's wearing yesterday's clothes, which means he probably didn't sleep any better than I did.
"Morning," I mutter, turning back to the coffee maker. Maybe if I ignore the heat issue, it'll go away.
"You okay?" Jace pushes off the wall, moving to lean against the counter beside me. "You look like you got hit by a truck."
"Feel like it too." I grab a coffee filter, trying to focus on the simple task. Paper crinkles under my fingers—and then the scent hits me.
Burnt. Faint, but sharp. Like scorched paper.
I freeze, staring down. The edges of the filter are curling in on themselves, browning like they’ve been too close to an open flame.
"Dude." Jace steps closer, squinting. "Are you—"
"It's fine." I toss the filter into the trash, fast. Too fast. Like that’ll stop him from seeing what he already saw.
"That filter just tried to self-destruct."
"Old batch," I say, not looking at him. "Probably already half toasted."
"Uh-huh." Jace doesn't push, but the doubt is all over his face. "Want me to handle the coffee? I promise not to melt anything."
"I've got it."
Even though I don’t. Not really
But my hands are shaking now, and when I reach for another filter, I can feel the heat building in my fingertips. The paper starts to curl before I even touch it.
"Rhett." Jace's voice has gone serious, the teasing edge completely gone. "What's going on?"
I freeze, staring down at my hands like they belong to someone else. The heat pulses under my skin, rhythmic and insistent. Like a heartbeat made of fire.
"I don't know." The admission thickens in my throat. "I woke up hot. Burning. And now everything I touch..."
I trail off, because if I say it, I have to admit I might be a threat. And I can’t be that. Not to them
Jace steps closer, his bright blue eyes studying my face with an intensity that makes me want to look away. "Hot how? Like fever hot, or—"
"Like fire under my skin. Ever since Bree touched that crown hot."
Something flickers across Jace's face—recognition, maybe, or understanding. "You think it's connected?"
"Has to be." I lean against the counter, the cool marble doing nothing to ease the heat crawling up my arms. "She does something impossible, and suddenly I'm a walking furnace. Can't be coincidence."
"Maybe it's not a bad thing." Jace's voice is careful, like he's testing a theory. "Maybe it's just... I don't know. Something unlocking. Like what happened to her."
"Unlocking what?" The question comes out harsher than I mean it to, sharp with fear I can’t quite hide. "Being dangerous? Hurting people?"
"Being different," Jace says. "Being something we don’t understand yet."
"I don’t want to be different." The words rip out of me, raw and honest. "I want to be safe. I want to keep her safe. And how the hell am I supposed to do that if I can’t even touch a coffee filter without setting it on fire?"
Jace opens his mouth to respond, but footsteps on the stairs cut him off. Light, familiar steps that make my chest tighten with equal parts relief and terror.
Bree appears in the doorway, hair mussed from sleep, one of my hoodies swallowing her small frame. She looks fragile in the morning light, still recovering from whatever happened to her last night. Still vulnerable.
"Morning," she says, voice soft and rough with sleep. Her eyes find mine across the kitchen, and she smiles—small but real. "Coffee smells good."
I haven't made any. Just burnt paper and whatever the hell is happening to me.
But I don't correct her. Can't. Because she's moving toward me with that unconscious trust she's finally started to show, and all I can think about is the heat radiating from my skin.
She slides up beside me, close enough that I can smell the vanilla scent of her shampoo. Close enough that she'll feel the heat rolling off me in waves.
"You okay?" she asks, looking up at me with those green eyes that see too much. "You look—"
"Fine," I cut her off, stepping back before she can touch me. "Just tired."
The hurt that flickers across her face is like a knife to the chest. She was reaching for me—something she never would have done a week ago—and I just pulled away like her touch would burn.
Which it might. Or I might burn her.
"Okay," she says quietly, wrapping her arms around herself. "I'll just... get some water."
She moves to the sink, and I watch her go, hating myself for the distance I've just put between us. Hating the thing inside me that's making me dangerous.
Jace catches my eye, his expression a mix of sympathy and concern. He knows. He sees exactly what's happening and why I can't let her close.
The problem is, pulling away from Bree might be the one thing that kills me.
But letting her close might be the thing that kills her.
I don't know what's happening to me. But I know one thing for certain—I can't let this thing inside me hurt the people I love.
Even if it means staying away from them forever.