Chapter Seventeen
Sage
The ride home is silent and heavy, with Kayden and Asher lost in their thoughts, while Eira's words rattle around in my skull. I will cause death and die.
Not prophecy. It's not certain, just a banshee's sense. But it loops in my head anyway, a splinter I can't dig out.
By the time we step inside the house, my head aches and every muscle begs to shed this damn dress and heels, to sink into a bath, to disappear. But I know a reckoning's coming.
I beat them to it. Arms crossed, I turn as the door closes behind us. "I know you're angry. Or disappointed. Or both. So can we just get it over with? Tonight's been exhausting enough."
Kayden's eyes burn into me, sharp and stormy. But it's Asher who answers, a faint smile tugging at his mouth. "It's not fair to ask us anything when you're dressed like that. Gives you a tactical advantage."
The tension eases a fraction. My arms loosen. "You're not angry? About… the whole family thing?"
Kayden tilts his head. "Not really. A bit. But mostly at the goat bastard, not you. Changing names, yeah, I've done that too. I get it."
Asher nods, standing shoulder to shoulder with his brother. Both still in tuxedos, looking sharp and dangerous. Kayden's tie is loose, buttons undone, which somehow only makes him look better.
"It's not anger or disappointment," Asher explains.
Kayden's jaw flexes. "It's that we're married, but he's the one who knows everything about you. You two have history. Us… not so much."
"Yes," Asher agrees. "That's the part that stings. He's had years. We've had weeks. Every time he looks at you, he's reminding us."
Their honesty cuts deeper than a fight. It burns in my chest where the new secret smolders.
"I know." My voice cracks. "But we'll have time to learn about each other. To make our history." I reach out, taking each of their hands, holding them like lifelines, while trying to smother Eira's words echoing inside me that maybe there won't be time, since death clusters around me.
Kayden tightens his grip. "I want to know everything.
Your laugh, your light. What makes you smile, what makes you squirm.
Every shadow in your soul—especially those.
I want it now, even if I'd savor the process of earning it over time.
" His frown deepens. "But then he walks into a room, and it's like gravity pulls you to him, whether you want it or not. "
Asher's hand slides slow up and down my arm, touch tender, longing in it. "And all we can do is stand outside that orbit and watch. Even while you wear our rings."
The words gut me. A tear slips free before I can stop it. That's what they felt when I danced with Darius, standing by, powerless.
"I'm sorry," I whisper. "I don't even know what else to say."
They pull me in, one on each side, surrounding me.
"You don't have to be sorry, Sage Sabrina Quinn," Asher says softly against my hair.
Kayden's arms tighten, rough but grounding.
"We knew the storm you were bringing," Asher continues.
"And we said yes," Kayden growls fiercely. "Hell yes. Fuck yes. Yes to all of it."
"We'll figure out the rest," Asher finishes.
Fresh out of the shower, scrubbed raw and free of the dress and heels, I pull on one of Asher's hoodies. It smells like him and feels like home.
I call the guys into my room. The whole 'family revelation' didn't blow up into the fight I expected, so I feel steadier, ready to get this off my chest. Maybe I owe them this much, after how long I've kept pieces of myself locked away.
I sit cross-legged in the center of the bed.
Asher takes a chair in front of me, in sweats and a neatly pressed t-shirt, because of course he can't not be neat.
Kayden perches on the edge of the bed, dress shirt unbuttoned, sweats below like he got halfway through changing and decided effort was overrated.
I clear my throat. "So… I want to tell you about this whole 'Sabrina Quinn' thing."
"You don't have to," Asher says quietly. "Not tonight."
"I know." I hug my knees for a second, then release them. "But I want to. Really. It's… it's a life I had before this one. Before becoming a nymph. So in a way, I'm living my third life now." I sigh, pulling the words together like loose threads.
Kayden smirks. "We already figured you were a rich girl."
I give him a tired smile. "Yeah. Quinns aren't top tier, not exactly second tier either, but still—old money, old connections.
That kind of thing. I was born into a world where everything was scripted.
The training, the expectations, the awareness that most of your choices had been made for you before you were born. "
Asher nods slowly. "That's a lot like how it used to be." His tone is quiet, reflective.
"Exactly," I say, meeting his eyes. "You know what it means."
Kayden shrugs. "You can always escape it."
Asher gives him a sidelong look. "Only if you're the irresponsible younger brother willing to dump everything on the elder."
Kayden shoots back, "Should I remind you that you were getting the estate while I got zilch? Couple centuries earlier, and I'd have been shipped off to the Crusades just to earn a living."
Asher shakes his head, muttering, "We're losing focus."
I can't help but smile at their back-and-forth, a small relief in the heaviness. Then I go on.
"No Crusades in my time," I say softly, "but I was expected to be…
someone. Proper clothes, posture, speech.
Every move polished. I lived in those boundaries, thinking—foolishly—that once I started university, once I began working, I'd finally be free.
I studied business, with environmental design as a minor. "
I huff a quiet laugh, but it tastes bitter. "The fact that my parents allowed that minor should've been my first clue. That's how little it mattered to them. A concession. A crumb of freedom."
"They didn't want you to work, but to marry?" Asher asks.
"You got it. When I came back before graduation, there he was. Someone I knew from childhood, a person who made my life hell back in boarding school. And suddenly, over dinner, I was informed I was expected to marry him. Not asked. Told. It had been decided. I was the last to know."
My throat tightens as I recall that evening. "I argued, of course. Asked why they bothered paying for my degree if I was going to be a housewife and a broodmare. Mother said it was proper and expected for a woman to have a degree, not use it."
"Charming," Kayden mutters, voice full of disgust.
"I tried." The words scrape out. "I tried to accept it.
Tried to swallow the life they'd written for me.
But then I talked to him, my so-called fiancé, and he laid it all out.
His expectations. The terms of our marriage.
How he'd 'manage' me." I shake my head. "That was the crossroads.
Either accept it and lose the last shred of freedom I ever had, or… leave."
"And you left," Asher says softly.
"I left." My voice is sharper now. "Ran, really.
Grabbed some jewelry, some cash, and escaped.
I couldn't trust my friends since most of them would've handed me back to my family.
So I lived out of a few hotels. Then the money ran out, and I hit the streets.
Learned to pickpocket, to survive. Slept rough.
When I realized I couldn't keep it up forever, I reached out to a couple people I'd known from my environmental club. "
Kayden studies me, head tilted. "And you never wanted to go back to that old life?"
I exhale. "Oh, many times. Believe me. Sleeping outside, freezing, scared out of my mind, I wanted to crawl back more than once.
But then I remembered that dinner. The pit in my stomach.
The way my life shrank in front of my eyes and I knew I'd be living dead if I went back.
At least on the streets, I felt alive. Even if I might die of pneumonia. Or by some stranger's knife."
My voice softens, almost against my will.
"So my club friends put me in touch with others—people in the trenches.
A radical group. They had barracks, shelter, purpose.
They struck at oil companies, sabotaged pipelines, hacked rigs.
I loved how unapologetic they were. It felt like making a real impact, not just throwing money at charities that bled it all away into middlemen's pockets. "
I pause, the old fire stirring in my chest. "I loved raging against the machine. Tearing down everything I grew up with. It felt like freedom. It felt like change. Even if, in the end, not much of it was true."
A bitter smile curls at my lips. "Still…
when they asked me to stay, to become one of them, I said yes.
That's when Sabrina died and I became Sage.
I shed the old skin, the old name. I wanted to be closer to nature even in what I was called, since she was my mother then.
" My laugh is low, humorless. "Funny, isn't it? That now, as a nymph, that's literal."
"So that's why you sabotaged those construction vehicles? How you ended up in that forest when you were turned?" Asher asks.
"Yes, but that was later." I take a breath. "First, I was running with those radicals. Getting into trouble. Sometimes too deep. We got arrested once, and of course my parents caught wind of it. They came to see me."
My voice falters. The memory still claws.
"I thought…" My throat tightens. "I thought they finally cared. That, maybe, they missed me. That they wanted me back. I even had this little speech prepared—my conditions, what I'd accept if I returned. But they had their own conditions."
Kayden's jaw tightens, waiting.
"They offered to bail me out… if I agreed to marry. A new man, the same type of cage. And if I didn't—"
"If you didn't?" Kayden growls, his voice rough with anger that's not aimed at me.
"If I didn't, they'd disown me." The words come out sharp, pitched too high.
"I wasn't prepared. I thought I'd always be their daughter, even if I ran.
But they had the papers already. And I said—'then disown me.
'" My hands curl into fists. "And they did.
Right there. They signed me off like I was nothing. Then they just… left."
My voice breaks.
Before I can fall apart, Asher and Kayden close in, one on each side, pulling me into their arms. I melt into the warmth of them, the solidity, the steady beat of two hearts that chose me when the people who made me didn't.
"Now you have us, Sage," Asher says quietly, fierce in his calm.
Kayden presses his cheek to my hair. "We might be assholes sometimes—"
"Some more than others," Asher cuts in, deadpan.
Kayden huffs. "But we're yours. And you're ours."
I pull back just enough to see them both. My chest is tight, my eyes burning, but what I feel most is need. Them pulling me into a place where everything else—the family, the past, the banshee's words, nature's ache—melts away.
"Then show me," I whisper.