Chapter 35 Rhys
RHYS
Daddy dearest was one wretched motherfucker of a vamp.
The ancient vampire stood like death personified in expensive tailored clothing, his pale fingers clasped in front of him—Astrid hung limp and unconscious. Every instinct I had screamed at me to tear him apart, but the rational part of my brain knew I was outclassed.
It still didn’t stop my wolf from wanting to try.
I crouched behind Sable, ready to spring if she needed me to. She didn’t want anything to do with him, for all kinds of reasons, and if she so much as blinked her wish at me, I’d be on him in wolf form in half a second flat. Even if it killed me.
Sable was frozen, her entire body radiating a tension I could taste in the air between us. The silver magic that usually hummed beneath her skin went eerily quiet, as if her power recognized the magnitude of the threat standing before us.
“It’s a shame you’ve kept up this facade for so long.” The vampire’s voice carried centuries of authority and absolutely zero warmth. “Though I shouldn’t be surprised, given that hiding your true nature is what allowed you to survive among the animals for so long.”
My wolf stilled, confusion cutting through the bloodlust. The vamp wasn’t talking about her meddling with his business or raising hell with his minions..
Something didn’t feel right.
Sable’s shoulders straightened, and even I felt a spark of awe at her courage. “Let the shifter go and face me yourself, not like the coward you’ve always been.”
He laughed. “Such fire. You get that from your mother, I suppose. Along with her unfortunate tendency toward heroics.” He cast a wind with his fingers that made Astrid’s body swing as though she was a toy, but he never took his eyes off Sable.
“Tell me, child, do you still dream of avenging your mother’s death? ”
“Every. Single. Night.” Each word dripped acid.
Something was off. The vampire looked… bored. Like he was going through the motions of a conversation he’d rather not be having. His pale eyes kept drifting to me.
My wolf stirred uneasily. This isn’t about her.
“Mother died because of you,” Sable continued. “Because you couldn’t stand that she left you for a better life. So I could live free from—”
“Oh, for the love of—” The vampire rolled his eyes with theatrical annoyance. “Insolent children, always making everything about them.” His gaze locked on mine over Sable’s shoulder, and his smile turned predatory. “Hello, Rhys Orion. You’re more damaged than I expected.”
Ice crawled down my spine.
Sable went rigid. “Leave him out of it. Why have you come for me?”
Instead of answering Sable, the vampire stepped around her. As if she wasn’t even there.
He circled me slowly, the way a buyer would check out livestock at a market. “Fascinating,” he murmured, close enough that I could smell decay and expensive cologne. “The reports hardly did you justice.”
My wolf was close to the surface, but he and I both knew we had to understand the game the vamp was playing.
Sable leaned forward. “What reports?” Confusion crept into her voice.
He ignored her completely, continuing his slow orbit around me.
“Six years of searching,” he said conversationally, as if we were old friends catching up.
“Following every lead, tracking every whisper of a royal bloodline.” His fingers trailed through the air inches from my shoulder, not quite touching.
“And here you are, broken and bleeding and absolutely…”
He paused directly in front of me, head tilted as if he was solving a particularly complex puzzle.
“Perfect.”
The way he said it made my skin crawl. Not perfect, like attractive. Perfect, like I was exactly what he’d wanted me to be and finding me this way had made his fucking day.
Sable took a step forward, silver magic crackling around her fingers. “Leave him alone. Your business is with me.”
The vampire’s laugh was soft, almost fond. “Oh, my dear confused child. You really have no idea, do you?”
He nodded in her direction, and she doubled over with a groan, grabbing at her stomach.
My vision went red. “You fucking—”
“Language, pup.” His tone was mildly reproving. “We’re having a civilized conversation.”
Sable’s magic suddenly flared to life, silver light crackling around her fingers even though she was still hunched over with pain. “If you want me dead, then fight me.”
The vampire’s expression became almost pitying. “Oh, my dear, confused little abomination. You shouldn’t have been born at all.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “A Crux-vampire hybrid? The very thought is obscene. Had I known what your mother was carrying when she fled…”
He trailed off, but I could see the rage building in the way the muscle ticked in his jaw. Ancient fury that had been simmering for decades.
“She died protecting me from you,” Sable said, her voice shaking with emotion. “Died so I could live free, not as your weapon.”
“She died because she was weak! She could have been immortal. Could have ruled at my side. Instead she fooled me and polluted our bloodline with—”
“With love?” Sable’s silver magic was writhing around her like a living thing. “Sable’s silver magic lashed the air. “She had the strength to claim her fate rather than bow to your will.”
The rage in his eyes was building to critical mass. Sable kept pushing.
“She told me about you. About the way you broke people, piece by piece, then convinced them they should be grateful for the privilege of serving their destroyer. About how you couldn’t stand that she was stronger than you in the ways that actually mattered.”
“Enough.” His voice cracked.
She wasn’t done. “She loved me. She could have loved you too, but you made her loathe you. She chose Crux over your empty promises of power, and you couldn’t handle—”
The vampire moved faster than thought. His hand connected with Sable’s face with enough force to send her flying twenty feet across the chamber.
The sound of her jaw breaking echoed through my bones.
Pain exploded through our mate bond, white-hot agony that drove me to my knees. Her agony flooded through our connection like molten metal through my veins.
My wolf erupted inside me.
Before I could shift, before I could tear that bastard’s throat out for touching her, I was moving. Not by choice. Pure rage launched me at him with everything I had left.
For a split second, I thought I might reach him.
His hand closed around my throat like a steel vise, and he held me airborne. My feet kicked uselessly. No strain was visible on his pale face despite the fact that I had at least fifty pounds and six inches on him.
He was choking me, and I couldn’t shift. I was stuck in his grip despite my attempts to slash at him.
“There’s the fire I was hoping to see,” he said like he was commenting on the fucking weather. His fingers tightened, cutting off air. “But look at you, pup. So broken inside. Hollow. That little attempt at rejecting the bond did quite a number on you, didn’t it?”
Black spots started creeping in at the edges of my vision, and my body was desperate for a breath—but that wasn’t what made my blood turn to ice.
It was the sound behind me. Choking. Gasping for air that wouldn’t come.
Sable.
He was choking me, but she felt it too. I thrashed against his grip, trying to turn my head to see her. The vampire’s fingers dug deeper into my windpipe. Through our fucked-up bond, I felt her terror. Her lungs screamed for oxygen.
“Ah.” The vampire’s tone shifted. “How curious. The connection is still functional despite the trauma of rejection.” He adjusted his grip, angling me so I could see her. “Watch, wolf. Watch your half-breed mate die.”
Sable was on her knees, hands clawing at her throat, silver magic flickering weakly around her fingers as she struggled for a breath she couldn’t take. Her eyes were wide with panic, locked on mine.
“Fascinating,” the vampire continued. “Perhaps this will do it. At last, a part of this tedious story can come to an end.” His grip tightened further, and Sable’s face turned pale, her lips taking on a bluish tinge—same as mine, I was sure.
“A sickly bond, allowing you to die together. How romantic.”
Regret flooded the bond.
Rhys. Her voice in my head was weak, fading. I forgive you. For rejecting me.
Don’t, I sent back, but even thinking was getting harder. Save your strength.
I wanted you to reject me. I manipulated you, she continued. I was so scared of what we were. I wanted you to choose your pack over me because I thought you were fallen, soulless. I had no idea all the loyalty and love for pack in you.
The vampire’s grip loosened enough for me to gasp out, “Sable—”
She was still talking, her mental voice growing fainter. If we die like this, at least it’s together. I can’t live without you, anyway. Can’t exist in a world where we aren’t together.
Her lips were moving, fighting to get words out through the choking.
Please, I tried to say, my only breath being quick wheezes, our shared pain making it hard to think.
She met my eyes across the chamber, and somehow, impossibly, she smiled. A broken, resigned smile that nearly undid me completely.
“Rhys Orion,” she choked out between gasps. “I love you.”
The vampire’s grip loosened.
Genuine shock rippled across his ancient features. His fingers began to tremble against my throat. His entire hand was shaking, the effort of maintaining his hold suddenly requiring visible strain. Whatever power had been flowing through him was… ebbing.
My lungs sucked in air and color returned to Sable’s face as she drew deep, shuddering breaths.
The bond between us—that stubborn thing that had refused to leave us despite all our attempts to kill it—the bond pulsed with new energy, silver light peeking through the cracks like a golden glue on porcelain.
Her love hadn’t just saved us. It was healing what I’d wounded.
I could only hope it wasn’t too late to deserve it.
The vampire’s hand trembled. Sable straightened, blood in the corners of her mouth as she had wolf eyes and vampire teeth. Silver light crawled over her like dawn breaking through fog.
“Get your hands off my mate.” The command in her voice was unmistakable.
The vampire laughed—a low, cracked sound that bared his teeth more than his amusement. “Your mate? Oh, little hybrid—”
His words strangled mid-mockery. Smoke hissed from where his hand met my throat. The scent—burnt metal and decay—hit me a heartbeat before he snarled and squeezed harder. Bone ground in my neck. The world went white around the edges.
And then she breathed. One single, furious breath that lit the chamber like she’d pulled the sun underground.
The vampire reeled backward, clutching his blistering hand.
The light painted his skin in blistered cracks, his fine clothes melting into ash.
I collapsed, sucking air, my throat on fire but alive.
He stared at her through the glare, lips curling. “Strong genes. But you—” His tone thickened with hunger. “You might be what I was searching for all along.”
Sable swayed, the silver around her dimming. Through the bond, I felt her magic falter—her exhaustion dragging like lead through my veins.
He felt it too. The bastard smiled. “Every weapon needs a master.”
That was the last thing he said before I shifted.
No thought. No hesitation. The wolf tore through me, claws scraping stone, the chamber filling with the sound of bones reforming and air shredding.
I hit him mid-stride. His hiss split the air as I drove him backward, teeth grazing his throat, close enough to taste the ancient rot of his blood. He flung me off with a surge of black energy that stank of grave dust, and I lost my bearings.
“No!” Sable screamed and followed it with a battle cry that rallied my wolf. Sable’s power flared as I launched onto the vampire’s back. Sunlight poured from her palms, flooding every corner of the chamber, while my paws held him in place.
The vampire screamed—a sound so high it almost wasn’t sound at all—then he managed at last to escape from under my hold and run for the tunnels, skin flaking away like ash on the wind. Beneath the shriek, my wolf caught his final message, vibrating through the stone.
I’ll come back for you.
And then he was gone.
Sable dropped. I shifted back in time to catch her. The air still shimmered with what she’d unleashed.
I brushed damp strands from her face, my thumb tracing the line of her jaw. “You’re safe.”
“For now,” she whispered.