Chapter 5 Rhys
RHYS
“Damn Heraclids,” I muttered, shoving my way through the crowd that had gathered near the hospital. “Can’t go one week without turning a disagreement into a bloodbath.”
The Old Town’s cobbled streets were slick with last night’s rain, the damp air filled with the tension left over from the fight, and it made my wolf restless.
People parted as I stormed through. The gashes Sable left on me a week ago weren’t bleeding anymore—small victories—but the damn things still pulsed with every heartbeat.
“Beta,” Alden called as I passed, his voice hesitant, like he couldn’t decide if he was asking a question or apologizing in advance. “I’m going to see Blair, too.”
I ignored him, but heard him fall into step behind me.
Blair was in the hospital because his oversized ego decided to settle pack politics with a Heraclid using his fists instead of words. From what I’d heard, it started over something stupid—Heraclid traditions versus Orion protocols, as if that mattered when we were trying to build something new.
Now, I had to be the one to explain to Logan why half the pack was ready to rip the other half’s throats out.
The hospital door slammed against the wall as I shoved it open, the sound echoing in the small, makeshift space. Elder Raina was waiting just inside, her arms crossed and her expression surprised when she saw me.
“Rhys,” she started, her voice calm, measured. “Your cheeks are flushed. Take a breath before you go in there.”
“I don’t need to take a breath,” I snapped as I paced toward Blair’s room. “I need to figure out why we’re still letting these Heraclid idiots run loose when all they do is—”
Rhys.
Elder Raina’s voice cut through the bond, and I froze mid-stride, my wolf bristling but obeying at the weight of her authority.
“Settle yourself,” she said aloud, her tone softening. “Blair’s condition is improving. Seeing you storm in like a feral wolf isn’t going to help him, or anyone else.”
I clenched my fists, breathing hard as I forced the fire in my chest to simmer down. Raina studied me with that maddeningly perceptive look she always had.
“Something’s really come over you,” she said. “You’re not yourself. Are the wounds still bothering you?”
There are no secrets within the inner circle of Orion, but sometimes I really wished I could just keep this to myself.
Not being able to heal after a week made me feel like a pup and not the tough beta Logan needed me to be.
While the wounds weren’t bleeding anymore, the edges were raw, the skin tight and uncomfortable.
“It keeps me up,” I muttered, avoiding her eyes.
Raina hummed, but didn’t press me.
The truth was, the wound did keep me up at night. But not because of the pain.
I couldn’t close my eyes without seeing Sable.
The way her silvery eyes had burned into mine, daring me to cross the line between control and madness.
I told myself I couldn’t stand her, that she was a threat I had to neutralize, but my wolf didn’t buy it.
Every time I thought of her, the fire in my chest burned hotter.
She infuriated me. Her audacity, her power over me. Even as I replayed every moment of our encounter in my mind, my anger would twist, morphing into something darker.
I want her.
The thought hit me like a punch in the face every time, leaving me thrashing in bed. I hated her for making me feel this way—like I wasn’t in control of myself. Like I wasn’t the one calling the shots.
And yet, every single time, I’d find my cock hard and throbbing, and a hunger would take me over.
I’d stroke it as I imagined her biting my neck, her tongue running down my chest as she kissed the edges of the wound she had carved into me, descending until those plump lips circled around my length.
I wanted the wet smoothness of her mouth around me.
I pumped harder at the thought. Cold nights were nothing.
I was on fire with her in my blood, and even though I came long and hard, it was never enough.
Sable was under my skin. She was in my head, in my blood. I was losing my grip, and I hated it.
I told myself I’d find a way to deal with her, but the truth gnawed at me.
I didn’t just hate her. I also needed her.
And I didn’t know what the fuck to do with that.
I inhaled deeply, steadying my breath. The air in the hospital was sharp with antiseptics and the faint coppery tang of old blood.
I let it fill my lungs, cooling the fire inside me.
My wolf shifted, restless but listening, retreating enough for me to focus.
My fists unclenched, and the tension in my shoulders eased.
“Better,” Raina said. “Come on. He’s waiting.”
She turned and led the way down the narrow hallway.
I followed, scanning the space as we went.
The makeshift hospital wasn’t large, just a repurposed community building from when this town had been alive, but it had its share of corners and shadows.
My eyes flicked to every doorway, every movement in the periphery.
A Heraclid nurse walked by, her hands full of supplies, and I tracked her until she disappeared through another door.
Just in case. I knew many Heraclids were relieved to be here, but clearly there were more than a few who were ready to spill blood despite our union.
The door to Blair’s room was slightly ajar. I stepped ahead of Raina and pushed it open, my senses stretching as I entered. The air was heavy with the scent of healing herbs and sweat. Nothing else stood out. No hidden threats. No unwelcome visitors.
Blair was tucked into the single bed, his face pale but his eyes open.
He looked up at me, his expression full of guilt and exhaustion.
“Rhys,” he said. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me.
It’s like… it wasn’t me. Like something invaded my head and made me lash out.
I couldn’t let him walk away after what he said. ”
Raina and I exchanged a glance.
Blair had said almost exactly what Raina had just said to me. That we didn’t feel like ourselves. I straightened, my mind already moving ahead.
The curse.
If Blair’s temper and my distraction were tied to the curse on Orion, we had to get on that shit, and fast.
The thought of the curse took me right back to my brothers.
It was like they lived in my chest, two steady heartbeats just slightly out of sync. A life force that wasn’t mine but had rooted itself there anyway, refusing to let go. Nash and Wyatt. The twins. My younger brothers.
I didn’t care what the rumors said. They were alive.
Some nights, I could almost feel them—distant but real, a flicker of light on the horizon that refused to go out.
Maybe they had been captured, held by some pack with too much ambition and too little soul.
Maybe they were injured, waiting for a rescue that hadn’t come.
Maybe they were feral by now, lost to the wild, running on instinct because everything else had been stripped away.
But they were out there.
The twins had been the glue that held us together after we lost our parents.
When Logan and I didn’t know how to keep the pack from splintering under the weight of everything we’d lost, Nash and Wyatt had been there, their loyalty and confidence in our brotherhood unshakable.
They’d believed in us when we didn’t believe in ourselves, sure that we could bring the Orion pack back to what it once was: a leader of all the Shadow Moon packs.
And I’d let them down.
The guilt crept in, settling in the hollow space behind my ribs. If it hadn’t been for me, they never would’ve gone to that Southern Council meeting. If I’d been stronger, smarter, less rash, I would have been the one to go, not them.
Everything was fresh in those days. Mother and Father dead. Logan had taken Alaric as his beta. I hadn’t found a place for myself in this new pack configuration and was salty with Logan for thinking he was protecting me by not selecting me as his second.
So when Logan asked me to go and sway the Southern Council to back us, to see the Orions as more than a fractured pack licking its wounds, I’d refused.
“How about you send your beta, huh?” I’d famously said, like a fucking idiot.
“It has to be our family.” Logan was right—of course he was.
But I’d stuck my nose in the air and acted like I hadn’t heard.
“I don’t want to command you,” he’d said, “because they will scent my command and your apprehension like a month-old corpse.” He’d turned to the twins. “Are you ready to do this?”
They’d nodded in unison.
And they never came back.
Every step I’d taken since that day had been haunted by the weight of that failure. If I’d listened to Logan’s caution instead of my own ego… if I’d trusted my instincts instead of my pride…
Visions of them crept back in. Visions she had planted there. Sable was somehow mixed up in this. Maybe conspiring with that wretched witch, Mariyah. Or maybe she was playing her own game.
I exhaled slowly, rubbing my eyes.
The curse wasn’t just on the pack. It was on me, too, constantly reminding me of what I’d lost—and what I’d do to make it right.
Because I would find them. No matter how long it took, no matter how far I had to go, I’d bring Nash and Wyatt back. Or I’d die trying.
“Beta?” Blair looked up at me, helpless in his hospital bed.
I blinked and gave him what I hoped was a reassuring nod, but my mind was already elsewhere. I reached out through the bond, searching for Logan. He wasn’t far.
We need to talk, I sent, keeping my tone steady, but firm.
Not now, Logan’s voice snapped back, clipped in a way he rarely used with me.
I stiffened, taken aback by the force of his reply. Logan wasn’t one to brush me off lightly. I pushed back, leaning into the bond. It’s important.
I said, not now! His response came like a roar, a command that hit me square in the chest and made my wolf lower its head.