Chapter 28 Thane
Thane
The door closes behind Stellan with a soft click that echoes louder than it should in the morning quiet.
I watch Bree for a long moment through the kitchen window.
She's still sitting at the table in Rhett's sweatshirt, hands wrapped around her coffee mug like it's anchoring her to something solid.
Her hair is still messy from sleep, and when Wes says something that makes her laugh, the sound carries through the glass like a bell.
She looks... settled. Happy, even.
The sight of it twists something in my chest that I don't want to name.
I turn without a word and follow Stellan out.
The morning air is crisp, charged with the kind of magic that clings to sacred places.
The sanctuary's grounds stretch ahead of us—pale stone paths winding between ancient trees that shouldn't be flowering this late in the season but are anyway.
Everything here responds to her, reshapes itself around her presence like the world is trying to make itself worthy.
Stellan is already halfway down the main path when I catch sight of him, moving with that liquid grace he's perfected over centuries.
I don't call out. Just track him through the dappled shadows, my footsteps silent on stone that hums faintly beneath my boots.
When I finally speak, my voice cuts through the morning stillness like a blade.
"You don't run. That's never been your style."
He doesn't stop walking. Doesn't even slow down.
"It's not running if there's nothing chasing you."
The casual dismissal hits exactly where he meant it to. "No. You just couldn't stand that it didn't revolve around you."
That makes him pause. Just for a breath. But he keeps walking.
Trees close around us as the path descends, their branches forming a canopy that filters the light into shifting patterns. The kind of beauty that should be peaceful. Instead, it feels like walking into a trap.
"You left because it felt too real," I say, letting my voice carry the accusation he's trying to avoid. "Because she didn't need you to hold the center."
Stellan stops walking.
The silence stretches between us, heavy with centuries of understanding that's never been spoken aloud.
When he finally turns, there's something raw in his expression that I've only seen once before—the night he found me half-dead in an alley, fangs still bloody from feeding on someone who hadn't consented.
"No," he says quietly. "I left because I saw myself in you. And that scared me more."
The words land wrong, cutting deeper than they should. "What the hell does that mean?"
His gray eyes are steady, unflinching. "You're still waiting for the version of her that fixes you. And when you realized she was real—kind, wounded, human—you couldn't look at her."
I want to deny it. Want to throw back some cutting response that will put distance between us and this conversation. But the words stick.
"She's not what I expected," I say finally.
"No?" Stellan's tone is careful now. Probing.
"No." The admission costs me. "I expected a weapon. Got offered breakfast instead."
The memory surfaces before I can stop it—that morning, the way she held my gaze when I mentioned the journey ahead. Not afraid. Not grateful. Just measuring. Like she was deciding if I was worth the effort.
"She looked at me like..." I stop. Cut the thought off before it goes somewhere I can't take back.
Stellan waits.
"Like I might be useful," I finish. Safe. Clinical. Not the truth.
Stellan's mask slips for just a moment, pain flickering across his features before he locks it down again. But not fast enough.
"Someone like you," he repeats, and there's something sharp in his tone now. "You still think every bond can be earned through suffering. Or worse—taken. You're a vampire, Thane. You take. That's what they'll always see when they look at you."
The word hangs in the air between us like a curse. Vampire. The first time either of us has said it aloud in decades.
I flinch—just barely, but enough for him to see.
"And you?" I fire back, letting my own venom surface. "You don't even feed. You seduce and call it mercy."
"At least I don't—"
A quiet sound interrupts him. A branch snapping. The soft intake of breath.
We both turn.
Theo stands a few yards back on the path, those deep brown eyes wide with something that looks like recognition. His chest rises and falls too quickly, like he's been running, but he's perfectly still.
For a moment, nobody moves. Nobody speaks.
Then Theo's voice cuts through the tension, quiet but carrying unexpected steel.
"You're both idiots."
I try to regain my footing, fall back on the authority that's kept me alive for centuries. "This isn't your—"
"Shut up."
The words are quiet, but they carry weight. Command. Like he's finally found his voice and decided to use it.
Theo steps forward, and I can see something shifting in his expression—the careful, thoughtful mind that's been watching and cataloging everything finally reaching a conclusion.
"You talk about her like she's a prophecy," he says, voice gaining strength with each word. "Like she's something to claim or be afraid of. She's not."
Another step forward. The morning light catches something fierce in his brown eyes.
"She's Bree. She's the one who asked me to help when everything was falling apart.
Who trusted me enough to let me see her scared.
Who thanked me after." His voice wavers slightly, but doesn't break.
"She makes space for all of us, even when no one made space for her.
And you… both of you… got scared the moment you felt it pulling back. "
The pain in his voice is raw, immediate. Like he's speaking from wounds that are still healing.
"You keep arguing about whether you deserve her—like that's yours to decide. But it's not. She already chose. Even if she doesn't realize it yet."
He looks directly at me, and there's something in his expression that makes me want to step backward. Not fear. Certainty.
"You want to know what real is? She is. That's what scared you. Both of you."
The accusation settles over me like ice water. Because he's right, and we all know it.
Theo pauses, glances between us, and when he speaks again, his voice is softer. More careful.
"And maybe it's not my story to tell. But there are things you need to know. About where she came from. About what she survived."
Something shifts in his posture, in the set of his shoulders. Like he's gathering courage for something difficult.
"About why the Ether didn't just find her—it chose her."
The words hang in the morning air, weighted with implications I'm not ready to face. Beside me, Stellan has gone perfectly still, that predatory alertness that means he's cataloging threats.
But Theo isn't done.
"She doesn't need saving," he says, and there's steel in his voice now. Certainty that cuts through every excuse I've been making. "But she deserves people who won't run the second they feel something. Who won't flinch when she lets them see the truth."
He turns then, starts walking back toward the sanctuary. Back toward her.
After a few steps, he stops. Doesn't turn around.
"What do you know about what she is?" I ask, my voice rougher than I intended.
Theo glances back over his shoulder, and for a moment, he looks older than his years. Tired in a way that has nothing to do with sleep.
"Enough to know she carries more than anyone should. And still chooses softness. If that scares you, you were never the one she needed."
Then he's gone, disappearing around the bend in the path like he was never there at all.
I watch the space where he vanished, trying to process what just happened. Trying to understand how the quiet one among them just stripped me bare with a handful of words.
Stellan and I stand in the growing silence, neither of us willing to be the first to speak.
Finally, he breaks.
"He's not wrong."
"No," I admit, the word scraping against my throat. "He's not."
"So what now?"
I don't answer immediately. Can't answer immediately. Because for the first time in centuries, I'm not sure I know.
What I do know is this: I came here to assess a threat. To determine if Bree Holloway was the weapon the Council feared she might be. To decide if she needed to be controlled or eliminated.
Instead, I found a girl who tries to make breakfast and doesn't flinch when she looks at me.
That's a problem I wasn't prepared for.
"I don't know," I say finally.
Stellan nods, like he expected that answer. Like he's been asking himself the same question.
We stand there in the dappled morning light, two predators who've spent centuries learning how to survive in a world that sees us as expendable. As dangerous. As less than.
And for the first time, I wonder if maybe the problem isn't that we're not worthy of her.
Maybe the problem is that we've never learned how to be worthy of ourselves.
The thought follows me as I start walking back toward the sanctuary. Back toward the girl who offered me coffee like it was nothing.
Back toward the moment when I'll have to decide what kind of operative I want to be when she looks at me again.
It's not Bree I have to earn, I realize.
It's the right to stay.
After a few steps, I glance back at Stellan. He's still standing in the dappled light, perfectly still.
"You coming?"