Chapter 23 Rhys
RHYS
Death would have been kinder. Also more convenient for everyone involved.
I clawed my way back to consciousness like a man drowning in reverse—violent, desperate, my lungs apparently having forgotten their primary function during my impromptu vacation from reality.
The bed beneath me reeked of healing herbs and old wood, which was charming, but underneath lay something that made my wolf pace like a caged animal.
The hollow where my heart used to live… I felt more broken than ever.
My memory trickled back in unhelpful fragments: Sable channeling enough power through our bond to light up half the territory.
Magic burning through my veins like someone had replaced my blood with molten silver.
Her scream echoing through my skull as the backlash hit.
Then nothing—a convenient blank space where being heroic should have been, though my wolf stirred uneasily like he was keeping secrets from the management.
Had I actually managed to save her? Flashes came and went—her weight on my back, blood that might have been mine, crossing into Orion territory just as patrol wolves arrived to witness my dramatic collapse. The details felt borrowed, like someone else’s fever dream.
“Finally decided to rejoin the living,” Kenza announced from somewhere to my left, her voice carrying all the warmth of a tax audit. “Your pathetic whimpering was getting on my nerves.”
“Fuck off,” I rasped, and opened my eyes.
I was in the Orion hospital, a place I was getting to know better than I ever would have wanted.
I tried to sit up, and the world immediately punished me for the attempt by spinning sideways.
Outstanding. Nothing like a near-death experience to really highlight your peak physical condition.
“He’s awake.” Logan’s voice cut through the fog, relief bleeding through his carefully controlled alpha tone. “Kenza, go tell the others.”
I blinked until the room decided to hold still long enough for me to take in what I saw.
Stone walls, Logan and Eve positioned near a door like bodyguards.
Kenza leaned against the doorjamb with her arms crossed, looking ready to throttle me for the crime of inconveniencing everyone with my dramatic collapse.
“How long was I out?” I managed.
“Eighteen hours,” Logan said. “The healers weren’t sure you’d wake up at all. Whatever she channeled through that bond…” He shook his head. “We’ve never seen magical backlash like that. Honestly, we’re starting to think you two are just showing off at this point.”
Right. Because nearly dying was clearly a performance piece.
Her scent hit me.
Honey and rain, now with a tinge of silver in it. The hollowness in my chest contracted like someone had just adjusted the dial on agony I hadn’t realized was eating me alive.
I turned my head, and there she was.
Sable stood against the wall, looking like death had almost had its way with her. Pale as fresh snow, hair hanging limp around her face, dark circles carved deep beneath her eyes. She held herself like someone who’d discovered that moving incorrectly might cause spontaneous disintegration.
Seeing her that way—vulnerable, damaged, barely held together with stubbornness and spite—unleashed something primal and possessive in my chest.
Mine.
She sighed and rubbed her eyes, looking as fucked up as I was.
Mine, my wolf snarled again, shoving toward the surface with all the subtlety of a freight train. Hurting. Fix. Protect.
She’s not ours anymore, I reminded him with savage precision. We rejected her, remember? You were there for that conversation.
Logic had never been his strong suit. He only cared that our supposed mate was suffering, and that was apparently unacceptable.
“You look terrible,” I said, because nothing said “romantic reunion” like brutal honesty.
“Right back at you,” she shot back, shifting her weight and trying to hide the wince that followed. “I suppose that makes us even.”
“We’re nowhere near even.” I studied her face. “You look like you’ve been put through a blender. I just look like I got into a fight with one. So no, not even.”
Something flickered across her face—almost a smile. “No,” she agreed. “We’re not.”
The air between us hummed with all the unspoken bullshit, energy pulsing in time with heartbeats that had decided to synchronize.
Ever since I’d tasted her, everything had changed.
She no longer radiated danger signals that made my hunter instincts scream.
Now she just smelled like honey and rain and things I shouldn’t be thinking about while barely conscious in a medical facility.
“I’m aiming to arrive at the council session a few hours before the window closes,” Logan interrupted, his voice cutting through whatever moment we were having. “We leave in twelve to make the journey. Both of you need to be functional by then.”
“Both of us?” Sable’s voice could have cut glass.
“Eve made it clear you’re under Orion protection,” Logan said. “That means you’re part of our delegation whether you like it or not.”
“I’m not going to any Council meeting.” She said it as if Logan had suggested she volunteer for experimental surgery.
“You are if you want to survive the week,” Eve said quietly. “The magical backlash you both experienced, it’s not stabilizing. According to the healers, your life forces are intertwined. Separation beyond a certain distance will kill you both.”
Well, that was just fantastic. Stuck together like supernatural conjoined twins, forced to attend the political equivalent of a root canal.
“How far apart can we get?” I asked, though I was pretty sure I didn’t want to know.
“Close,” Eve said. “You have to stay very close.” She gestured to a chair positioned about three feet from my bed. “Sit,” she told Sable. “Both of you need to stop pretending proximity doesn’t help.”
Sable’s jaw tightened like she was chewing glass, but she did as told. The moment she sat down, the wrongness in my chest eased. My breathing deepened. The constant static that had been eating at my brain since the rejection quieted to a manageable whisper.
I could think clearly.
My first clear thought was that she looked beautiful, and I wanted her more than ever. My body reacted to the thought, and I had to adjust the sheets to keep it from becoming public knowledge.
Fuck my life.
“This is temporary,” Sable said, her voice tight, like she was trying to convince herself the Titanic was just taking on a little water. “Until we find a real solution.”
“What kind of solution do you have in mind?” I asked. Part of me wasn’t sure I wanted the answer.
“I don’t care. The kind that doesn’t require us to share breathing space for the rest of our natural lives.”
Something low and possessive rumbled in my chest—not quite wolf, not quite human. The sound an alpha makes when his territory is threatened by someone with exceptionally poor timing. “And if there isn’t one?”
Her eyes flashed. “There will be.”
“You sound awfully confident for someone who just tried to magically lobotomize herself and nearly killed us both in the process.” I leaned forward slightly, drawn by her scent growing stronger. “How’s that working out for you, by the way?”
Her face went still, and the color drained from her cheeks. “How did you know—”
“I felt it,” I said, studying her reaction.
“Every second of it. The silver magic burning through your veins like acid. The moment you realized you were hurting me too.” I paused, watching her.
“The moment you stopped. Tell me, Sable—if you really wanted this connection gone, why did you pull back?”
She didn’t answer. Color crept up her neck in a blush. My wolf panted in desire.
“We need to test the limits,” Logan said into the charged silence. “Once we’re in the council session, who knows what we might encounter. We need to see how close you need to be to each other for optimal function.”
“Function,” I repeated. “Like we’re broken machinery that needs calibrating. How romantic.”
Neither of us moved. “Move closer,” Eve commanded.
“This is ridiculous,” Sable muttered.
“You’re being ridiculous,” I shot back. “Admit it helps and stop making this harder than it has to be.”
“I’m not making anything harder. You’re the one who—” She cut herself off, mouth snapping shut like a steel trap.
“Who rejected you,” I finished helpfully. “Yeah, I remember. Fun times. Question is—do you remember why?”
The words hung between us like a blade waiting to fall. Her face went blank, emotions shuttering behind walls I was starting to recognize as her default defense mechanism.
“I remember,” she said quietly. “Which is why this is temporary.”
She moved closer anyway. One inch. Then another. Until she perched on the edge of my bed, close enough that her knee almost brushed my thigh.
The relief was overwhelming—like someone had just turned off a fire alarm that had been screaming in my head for days.
Every ache, every hollow space knitted itself back together.
My wolf stretched contentedly, no longer clawing at my ribs to escape.
The world brightened, sharpened, became real again instead of some pale imitation of existence.
I could tell she felt it too. Her shoulders dropped. Her breathing evened out. The mask slipped enough for me to see the bone-deep exhaustion underneath.
“Better?” Logan asked.
“No,” we both lied in chorus.
Logan exchanged a look with Eve that probably contained entire conversations about how screwed we all were. “We’re stepping outside. Test how separation affects you without supervision. We’ll be discussing security arrangements for the journey.”
As they moved toward the door, fragments of what happened at the border flickered through my mind. My wolf carrying her. How she didn’t protest. The way she’d felt small and broken against my back, like something precious that might shatter if I moved wrong.
“Don’t go far,” I said before I could stop myself.
The door clicked shut, leaving us alone with enough tension to power a small city.
Silence stretched between us, heavy with all the things neither of us wanted to acknowledge. I could hear her breathing, feel heat radiating from her skin. She sat close enough to touch, and the urge to do so was becoming overwhelming.
Especially knowing what touching her felt like. How she’d responded to my hands, my mouth. The sounds she’d made when I—
“This doesn’t change anything,” Sable said. Her voice held about as much conviction as a campaign promise.
“Obviously not.”
Her breathing steadied. She looked more alive, and seeing that eased something in my chest that had absolutely nothing to do with supernatural dependency. Nope. Completely unrelated.
“When this is over—”
“When this is over, we find a way to make the severance permanent,” I cut in, though the words tasted like ash.
She nodded. I could tell she was about as convinced as I was. Which was to say, not at all.
Voices echoed from down the hall—urgent, worried tones that made us both tense like animals scenting predators.
“Security meeting in the hospital means they’re desperate,” I observed.
“More like damage control.” She turned to look at me, her gaze traveling over my face, inspecting injuries with the thoroughness of someone who gave a damn. When her eyes lingered on my mouth, something hot and dangerous unfurled in my chest.
“You’re staring,” I said, my voice rougher than it had any right to be.
“You’ve got blood on your lip.”
She reached out and brushed her thumb across the corner of my mouth. The contact sent shockwaves through every nerve ending I possessed, and probably a few I didn’t know I had. My wolf surged forward, desperate for more of her touch, more contact, more everything she was willing to give.
Memory flooded back—her taste, the way she’d felt on top of me, the sounds she’d made when I’d used my tongue on her in ways that probably violated several public decency laws—
Before I could react, before I could grab her hand and hold it there like the desperate bastard I apparently was, she jerked back.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“Don’t.” The word came out harsher than I intended. “Don’t apologize for touching me.”
Her eyes widened. “Rhys—”
“Not after what we did. Not after how you felt in my arms.” My voice dropped lower, becoming something that belonged more to my wolf than the civilized man I pretended to be. “Don’t pretend you don’t remember.”
Color flooded her cheeks, but she didn’t look away. “I remember.”
“Then you remember why ‘temporary’ is complete bullshit.”
Her pulse jumped in her throat, and I caught the scent of the arousal she was trying to hide behind layers of stubborn denial.
The door burst open. Logan strode in looking like someone had just told him his favorite restaurant had burned down. “We’re moving you both to the safe house. Now.”
“Together?” I asked.
“Together. Because separating you two is no longer an option. Not if we want either of you functional for what’s coming.”
I looked at Sable, and she looked at me. Everything had just become infinitely more complicated, which was really saying something considering our starting point.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, my wolf was practically smug with satisfaction.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, already getting out of bed despite the fact that standing was apparently still a work in progress.
“There’s a vampire scent on the border. Fresh one. Moving fast.”
The word ‘vampire’ hit the room like a pinata bursting with particularly unpleasant confetti. Sable went absolutely still, and something shifted in her scent that made my wolf’s hackles rise.
“How many?” she asked, and her voice had changed. Gone cold in a way that reminded me there were things about her I still didn’t understand. Possibly important things.
“Only one as far as I can tell. Moving fast toward town.” Logan’s expression could have been carved from granite.
“It’s coming here.” The fear in Sable’s scent was real. The recognition underneath it made my wolf pace restlessly. And then I heard her through the bond.
They’re coming for me.