Chapter 10
Bree
One year later.
One year.
I stand at the kitchen window, watching the sun set over a sanctuary that looks nothing like the ruin I first walked into years ago.
Houses dot the hillside now—dozens of them, nestled between the purple-leafed trees with their silver-veined bark.
Smoke curls from chimneys. Children chase each other through the gardens, their laughter carrying on the evening breeze.
The crystalline daisies catch the fading light, chiming softly as families make their way toward the main hall for dinner.
Four hundred and twelve people live here now.
I know because Theo keeps count. Updates me every morning over coffee, his notebook filled with names and needs and the endless logistics of running what has become, against all odds, a city.
“You’re brooding.”
Gray’s voice comes from behind me. I don’t turn.
“I’m reflecting. There’s a difference.”
“You’ve been reflecting at that window for twenty minutes.” His hand settles on my hip, warm and grounding. “Mairen’s going to come looking for you if you’re late to your own dinner.”
“It’s not my dinner.”
“It’s absolutely your dinner. She’s been cooking for three days.”
I finally turn. Gray’s watching me with those storm-gray eyes that see too much, always have.
Behind him, the kitchen is chaos—Wes arguing with Jace about something, Rhett trying to keep Theo from reorganizing the spice cabinet, Seth quietly setting the table while everyone else creates disorder around him.
Thane and Stellan are conspicuously absent. Probably still getting ready. Thane takes longer with his appearance than I do, though he’d never admit it.
“One year,” I say.
Gray’s expression softens. “One year.”
Since the battle. Since Riley. Since seventeen funerals and a blast that should have killed me and a choice I’m still not sure I understand.
Since I woke up surrounded by the people I love and realized I was finally, impossibly, home.
“Bree.” Gray’s thumb traces circles on my hip. “You’re allowed to celebrate.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
I meet his eyes. Hold them.
“I’m trying.”
The dinner is chaos in the best possible way.
Mairen has outdone herself—the table groans under platters of roasted meat, fresh bread, vegetables that Rhett somehow didn’t destroy. Candles float overhead, a trick Theo figured out three months ago and now deploys at every opportunity.
The seating happens naturally. Me at the center—always—with Seth on my right and Rhett on my left. Gray across from me, Wes beside him. Jace and Theo at the ends. Thane and Stellan anchoring the corners.
Mairen, Torn, and Kellan take the other side. Zira slides in late, as always, with zero apology.
“Traffic,” she says when Jace raises an eyebrow.
“There’s no traffic.”
“Emotional traffic.”
The food is perfect. The wine flows freely. Conversation overlaps and tangles—stories from the past year, jokes that only make sense if you were there, the easy rhythm of people who’ve become family.
I let it wash over me.
This is what we built. Not just the sanctuary, not just the houses and the gardens and the infrastructure. This. People gathered around a table, breaking bread, laughing at stupid jokes, belonging to each other.
A year ago, I didn’t know if any of us would survive the night.
Now—
“Bree’s crying,” Jace announces.
“I am not.”
“Your eyes are definitely wet.”
“It’s the candles. They’re smoky.”
“They’re magical. They don’t produce smoke.”
“Then it’s allergies.”
“To what? Happiness?”
I throw a bread roll at his head. He catches it, grinning.
“Violence,” he says. “At the dinner table. In front of the children.”
“Kellan’s sixteen.”
“I meant Wes.”
“Hey,” Wes protests.
The table dissolves into laughter. Even Thane’s mouth twitches.
Later, when the plates are cleared and Mairen’s dessert has been demolished and the conversation has wound down to comfortable silence, I push back my chair.
“I want to show you something.”
They follow me without question. Through the kitchen, out into the garden, past the crystalline daisies that chime as we pass.
The path leads to the hill—the same overlook where we first saw the sanctuary when we came back from the Void.
The highest point in the grounds, with a view that stretches for miles.
The sanctuary spreads below us like a living thing.
Lights flicker in windows. The training grounds where Rhett teaches fire control are empty now, but I can see the scorch marks from today’s session.
The library has grown three times the size since winter—Theo swears he’s not doing it on purpose, but the Ether has opinions about his book collection.
Houses. Gardens. A fountain the Ether made two weeks ago, complete with fish that have strong feelings about water balloon fights.
A place where Feeders can exist without hiding. Where families can raise children without fear. Where magic and humanity tangle together into something new.
“Four hundred and twelve,” I say softly.
“Four twenty-three, actually.” Theo’s voice is quiet. “Three new families arrived this afternoon.”
I turn to look at them. My men. Arranged in a loose circle around me, faces lit by starlight and Ether-glow.
“When we first came here, this was ruins. Broken stone and dead gardens and a magic that had been sleeping for generations.” I swallow. “Now look at it.”
“You did this,” Rhett says.
“We did this.”
“You started it.” Gray’s voice is steady. “You woke it up. You made it possible.”
I shake my head. “The Ether made it possible. And you. All of you.” I look at Thane, at Stellan. “You didn’t have to stay. After everything—the politics, the history, the fact that nothing bound you here—you stayed anyway.”
Thane’s silver eyes hold mine. “Where else would I go?”
“You had options.”
“I had excuses.” His voice is quiet. “There’s a difference.”
Stellan’s mouth curves. “Besides. Someone has to keep you all from making terrible decisions.”
“That’s rich, coming from you,” Jace mutters.
“I make excellent decisions. They just occasionally look terrible from the outside.”
I laugh. It catches in my throat, turns into something bigger.
“I’m proud of what we built,” I say. “All of it. The sanctuary, the families, the—” I gesture vaguely at the lights below. “Everything.”
“But?” Wes prompts.
He knows me too well. They all do.
I take a breath.
“I haven’t been back since before. Since the crown, since everything changed. And I think—” I stop. Try again. “I think I need to.”
Understanding ripples through them. I see it in the way Gray goes still, the way Rhett’s flame flickers between his fingers, the way Jace stops breathing for just a second.
“The house,” Theo says slowly.
I nod.
The house. Where they lived together before any of this. Where I stumbled back into their lives bleeding and broken. Where the attic door appeared and the crown chose me and everything I thought I knew shattered into something new.
Where it all began.
“I want to go home.”
The word hangs in the dark.
For a long moment, no one speaks.
Then Thane steps forward.
He moves with that ancient grace, the one that used to terrify me before I understood what it meant. His silver eyes hold mine as he crosses the distance between us.
And then he does something I’ve never seen him do.
He kneels.
Right there on the hillside, under the stars, the vampire who’s lived for centuries and served on councils and played political games older than most civilizations—he kneels at my feet.
“Wherever you go,” he says quietly, “I go.”
My heart stops.
Stellan’s laugh is soft, almost wondering. He steps forward too, but he doesn’t kneel. Instead, he offers his hand—palm up, an invitation.
“If you’re going home,” he says, “then I’m already packed.”
The others don’t hesitate.
“Obviously we’re coming,” Gray says.
“Was that even a question?” Rhett’s hand finds mine.
“Shotgun,” Jace calls immediately.
“There’s no shotgun. We’re not—”
“There’s always shotgun. It’s a state of mind.”
Seth just watches me with those quiet eyes. “You shouldn’t go back alone.”
Theo’s already calculating. “We’ll need to secure things here first. Make arrangements. But Mairen and Torn can handle most of it, and the infrastructure’s stable enough—”
“Tomorrow,” I say.
They all stop.
“Tomorrow, we leave.”
I look at Thane, still kneeling. Reach down and take his hand, pull him to his feet.
Okay, okay, I tug and he stands on his own.
“All of us,” I say. “Together.”
The night holds the words.
And for the first time in a long time, I let myself think about where I came from. About going back to the beginning. About being whole enough, finally, to embrace it.