Chapter 5
Stellan
She breathes.
The sound cuts through everything—the chaos, the voices, the ringing aftermath of magic that almost destroyed us all.
Bree breathes.
Every wall I’ve ever built collapses at once.
I thought I lost her. Thought we lost her. I was certain of it. Watching the silver pour into her skin, watching her collapse, watching the light leave—I was certain.
I’m moving before I’ve decided to move.
My hands find her shoulders. I pull her upright, pull her against my chest, wrap my arms around her like she might dissolve if I don’t hold on hard enough. She’s limp. Unconscious. But warm. Alive.
My hands are shaking.
I don’t shake. I’ve spent centuries perfecting control, building walls so high and thick that nothing gets through. And now my hands are trembling against her back like I’m a child who’s just watched the world end.
I bury my face in her hair.
She smells like ozone and ash and her—that impossible combination of vanilla and lightning that I’ve spent too long pretending doesn’t affect me.
My magic flares.
Uncontrolled. Wild. Silver-white light pulses from my skin in erratic bursts, responding to the terror and relief and grief crashing through me in waves I can’t stop.
That’s when I feel it.
Nothing.
I’m touching her—holding her—and there’s nothing.
No pull. No leash. No price.
The contract is gone.
Ethos is gone.
The realization hits like freedom. For centuries, every touch cost me. Every moment of connection, every feeding, every time I let myself want something—Ethos took his cut. The consequences were always there, waiting, a leash I couldn’t see but always felt.
And now—
Nothing.
He’s gone. The consequences died with him. Nothing can punish me for touching her now.
The grief surprises me. Ethos wasn’t a monster to me—not only that, anyway. He was a constant. A master. The architecture my entire existence was built around.
And Bree destroyed him.
Saved me.
Almost died doing it.
I press my palm flat against her spine.
The pain hits me immediately.
Not a gentle siphon. Not the careful, regulated draw I’ve perfected. I rip myself open and take—brutal, unshielded, pulling everything she’s carrying into myself with zero self-protection.
Her physical trauma floods in first. Bones that almost shattered. Muscles torn from channeling too much power. A body pushed past every limit it had.
Then the Ether strain. The impossible weight of absorbing magic that was never meant for one person to hold. The magic Ethos pulled from her for years while holding her captive.
Then the emotional overload. Fear. Grief. Determination. Love so fierce it burns.
I can feel Ethos’s fingerprints on her soul, darkness she’s been fighting since the first time he touched her mind.
It wrecks me.
My breathing stutters. My hands shake harder. My vision blurs at the edges, silver and black swimming together. I sink lower, my knees hitting the ground, but I don’t let go.
I can’t let go.
“Stellan—”
Someone’s voice. Wes, maybe. I don’t look up.
“He’s taking it.” Theo. Sharp. Alarmed. “He’s draining her pain into himself.”
“He’s going to tear himself apart.” Thane.
Hands reach for me. Someone grabs my shoulder.
I jerk away.
“Don’t.”
The word comes out raw. Barely human.
I pull her closer. Tighter. My body curls around hers like instinct, like protection, like I can shield her from everything that’s already happened if I just hold on long enough.
“Stellan.” Thane’s voice is closer now. Careful. “You can’t take all of it. You’ll—”
“I can take it.”
“You’ll kill yourself.”
“She can’t hold this alone.”
The pain burns through my veins. I can feel it tracing silver lines under my skin, visible now, glowing faintly in the dim aftermath of the blast. Every breath is agony. Every heartbeat pushes more of her suffering into my body.
I don’t care.
I almost lost her. I will not lose her again.
“Let him.” Wes’s voice. Quiet. Understanding something the others don’t. “But we feed him. So he can keep going.”
I breathe deep.
Then I feel it—a hand on my shoulder. Solid. Warm. Magic flowing through the contact.
Thane.
He doesn’t try to pull me away. Just anchors himself there, and I feel his power threading into me. Steadying. Strengthening.
Another hand—on Thane’s shoulder. Rhett. Fire-warmth spreading through the chain.
Then Theo touching Rhett.
Jace touching Theo.
Wes touching Jace.
Gray last—one hand on Wes’s shoulder, the other stretched toward Seth’s unconscious form, completing some circuit I don’t fully understand.
Magic flows.
Through the chain. Into me. Out of Bree as my magic pulls past breaking.
Silver and white light arcs between each touch point, visible threads connecting us all. I feel their strength pouring in—their power, their love for her, their desperate need for her to survive.
And still I take more.
I pull harder. The corruption burns as it passes through me—Void-dark and vicious, fighting every inch of the way. But I don’t stop. I drag it out of her piece by piece, letting it shred me instead of her.
My body glows dangerously bright.
The pain is—
I can’t describe the pain.
But her heartbeat strengthens under my palm.
Her breathing evens.
The frantic silver flickering under her skin begins to calm.
I take three more breaths of her agony.
Then I stop.
Not because I want to. Because there’s nothing left to take.
She’s stable.
She’s alive.
My forehead drops to her hair.
I’m shaking so hard I can barely hold her. My magic flickers unsteadily, sparking and dying and sparking again. The chain behind me has gone quiet—hands still touching, but the desperate flow of power slowing to a trickle.
I should let go.
I should hand her to someone else—someone who hasn’t just torn himself apart, someone who can actually take care of her.
I don’t.
My arms tighten instead.
“Stay.”
The word comes out broken. Barely a whisper against her hair.
“Please stay.”
She doesn’t answer.
But her heart beats steady against my chest.
And I am not letting go.