Chapter 15 Rhys
RHYS
Ididn’t remember moving.
One second her breath was ghosting across my cheek, her lips slick with the words—I killed them—and the next, my vision exploded. The world had become hell, and I was on top of her, teeth bared, my body pure heat and muscle and rage.
I slammed her down onto the floor, her back hitting hard enough to knock the wind out of her. My hands clamped around her wrists, pinning them above her head, and bones snapped as something in me shifted halfway—spine bowing, teeth sharpening to points.
Everything jerked back as I forced the change down.
“Say it again,” I snarled, my voice more wolf than man. My face hung inches above hers, sweat stinging my eyes. “Say it again, because—”
I’ll fucking tear her apart.
My wolf reeled back, howling at me. I won’t let you.
The man in me didn’t give a shit. The man wanted blood. The man saw the image she’d burned into me—ash, chains, my brothers broken and gone—and wanted to end her with his bare hands around her throat.
Her chest rose beneath mine in quick, taunting breaths. She didn’t shift, even though her wolf form could’ve given her an escape. Her body was soft under mine, curves pressed against my chest, and my wolf wanted again to claim her and tame her. He had lost his fucking senses.
My vision warped, the edges going fuzzy. Her scent filled my mouth, my lungs. Even now—after what she’d said—my body and my wolf still wanted her. Still recognized her as mine.
She has to be lying. The words came from my wolf.
Sable stared up at me with those unreadable silver eyes, and Goddess, that made it worse. She’d put a wall between us, thick and solid, and I couldn’t see through it.
My wolf whined low in my chest. Make her explain. She’s yours. She can’t—
“She said she killed them,” I whispered aloud to my wolf. My grip tightened on her wrists. “She said she killed my brothers.”
“And they deserved it,” she hissed, then spat in my face.
Everything went white.
Then red.
A sound ripped out of me—too raw to be human, too broken to be wolf. I was shaking from the inside out, every cell in my body wanting to claw through her, to drag the truth out inch by bloody inch. But the bond—the fucking bond—still whispered, Don’t.
“Rhys!” Logan’s voice reached me.
Other voices followed—Eve, Raina, Kenza. The sound of boots hitting gravel and the steps to the cabin, too many scents crashing into me: pine and sweat and fear and power. Even the damn wind was too loud.
“Rhys, let her go,” Logan barked with full alpha command. “Now.”
I couldn’t, no matter the alpha command. A part of me was already feral at the wretched thought that the twins were gone.
My hands were locked on her wrists, burning like brands.
Every muscle was on fire with restraint.
My vision doubled as memories ran through my mind.
The forest where she’d shown me my brothers, the way she’d carved me up with slashes that wouldn’t heal, all the lies she’d fed my soul about this cursed bond.
And still—my wolf ached for her. He still wanted to bury his face in her neck and never let go.
“Rhys, seriously, if you hurt her—” Kenza didn’t finish. Because she, like all of us, didn’t know whose side to be on.
“She killed them,” I rasped, still straddling Sable, teeth bared. “She fucking killed them.”
“Believe it,” Sable said, like it was a fact, not a knife in my heart.
The world tilted again, in my head and in my soul. Everyone heard her say it like it didn’t cost her a damn thing. Like she wasn’t tearing me apart with those words.
“I’m going to fucking rip your throat out,” I rasped. My arms shook while I held her wrists down.
“You don’t know what you’re saying,” Eve said with her hands up, like I was a live wire. “You’re not thinking straight.”
“Oh, I’m thinking straight,” I snapped. “I’m in her head. Or she’s in mine.”
“Rhys,” Logan barked again, stepping closer but staying out of range. “You feel them like I do. They aren’t dead.” His voice pushed into my head through our bond. You’re on the edge, brother. I can smell the feral on you. You can’t break the bond with her, or you’ll—
“This bond must end,” I said, and felt the shift starting again—claws fully out, holding her down as my teeth lengthened, body bending forward.
Sable didn’t fight. Didn’t beg. She just stared, as if she wanted this. Like she was daring me to do it.
Welcoming whatever I did next.
The noise in my head became unbearable. Wind and magic and bond and guilt and hate, all tangled together. I couldn’t think. Couldn’t breathe.
My vision split.
One eye saw her face—cool, cruel words still hanging on her lips like a challenge. The other saw nothing but red.
My spine arched, bones snapping in and out of place as the shift rippled down my back. My hands crushed the floor, claws punching through wood, digging deep. My jaw cracked wide, teeth growing, muzzle pushing forward before snapping back as I fought it.
I wasn’t man. Wasn’t wolf.
I was something in between. And it was killing me from the inside out.
They all just stood there, caught in the storm of me. Because they knew. They knew I was seconds from going feral. Seconds from becoming exactly what the curse wanted.
And Sable still didn’t move.
With her sandy-brown hair tangled against the floor and silver clinging to her lashes, she stared at me without fear. She’d planned this. Wanted me to break.
My wolf whimpered. Mourning what we were about to lose.
A scream built in my throat—raw, feral—tearing through the wall between man and beast. My body locked mid-shift, the bond stretching tight across my chest, trying to strangle me.
“You think you can carve me up from the inside out, and I’ll let this continue? You’re messed up. Something is fundamentally wrong with you,” I growled as the bond burned like acid in me. “I’d rather rip my own heart out than be bonded to you.”
The words I had to say dropped into the air like a guillotine.
“I sever this bond. I choose death over being mated to a sick freak of fate. I reject you.”
Everything went silent.
Then…
Thunder.
It started in my chest, a brutal quake that began at my sternum and roared outward like a bomb going off. I staggered back from Sable, my body shaking. Sable lurched forward onto her hands and knees, gasping. Around us, the others cried out. Eve clutched her head. Logan dropped to one knee.
A blast wave ripped outward, silent and deafening. The bond tore itself apart in real time, like a living thing being shredded.
Between us, something visible sparked—electricity trying to fry us both, tangled threads of silver and black arcing from me to her and back, vibrating harder and harder until it screamed. The world warped.
Outside, I could see wolves howling and collapsing, limbs twitching. Some turned away while others held each other, shielding pups as the broken bond sent shockwaves through the pack. A pup started crying somewhere in the distance.
My wolf was screaming. Sable’s scent was poison in my head. That venomous mouth had delivered the one truth I’d never survive.
A rope around my neck, pulling tight, tighter…
Everything went still.
Sable was on her knees, not moving. Her hair splayed across her face.
Throughout the pack, wolves gasped like they’d been drowning. Some were puking. Others just cried.
I felt nothing. No pain. No anger. Just emptiness. Hollow as a cave.
I'd done it. Severed the bond.
The emptiness came first—a howling void where Sable had been.
Then my wolf erupted from that void, a creature of pure instinct and rage, seizing control before I could stop it.
The shift tore through me with vicious speed, bones cracking and reforming, but I barely felt the pain through the wolf's fury.
No, not like this—
My human consciousness flickered, drowning beneath the wolf's feral hunger.
I tried to hold on, to stay present behind its eyes, but the bond's absence had unmoored me.
Without Sable to anchor my humanity, there was nothing to tether me to rational thought.
The wolf shoved deeper, forcing me down into the dark recesses of our shared mind where I couldn't reach the surface, couldn't control our body, couldn't even see what we were doing.
The last thing I felt before the darkness swallowed me completely was four paws hitting earth—and my wolf running wild with no one left inside to stop it.