Chapter 8
Thane
I’ve been avoiding her all evening.
Not difficult when she’s surrounded by the others—Rhett hovering close with protective tension, Wes trailing after her like a lost puppy, even Gray keeping her in his line of sight despite the unease I saw flickering across his face earlier.
They orbit her like moths drawn to flame, and none of them see the wrongness.
Or maybe they do see it, and that black mist has already convinced them it doesn’t matter.
I lean against the doorway to the common room, far enough back that I’m barely visible in the shadows. Watching. Cataloging the small tells that confirm what I already know.
The way she moves through space—too confident, claiming territory rather than navigating it carefully. The laugh that comes too easily, without the hesitation Bree always carried like armor. How she touches them—possessive rather than tentative, marking ownership instead of seeking connection.
But those are observations. Behavioral tells that could be rationalized away as growth, confidence, trauma response.
What I know with absolute certainty has nothing to do with observation.
It’s hunger. Or rather, the lack of it.
Bree is my bonded. The connection between us rewrote something fundamental—made her the only one who can sustain me. Mind, body, soul if I have one. Everyone else became inadequate. Unsatisfying. That’s how bonds work for vampire-class Feeders. Permanent. Exclusive. Absolute.
I’d expected the bond to settle slowly. To learn the rhythm of feeding from her, to adjust to having only one source after centuries of taking what I needed wherever I found it.
Instead, standing here watching that creature move through the room, I feel nothing.
Worse than nothing. My hunger—always present, always waiting—recoils from her like she’s poison. The instinct that drives me to feed, that’s kept me alive for centuries, turns away in revulsion.
It’s not her. My body knows it even if the others’ minds have been convinced otherwise.
And her Ether. Gods, her Ether.
Black threaded with silver instead of silver touched by shadow. An inversion so complete it should be obvious to anyone paying attention. But they’re not paying attention. They’re too busy being grateful she’s “safe,” too relieved she’s “back,” too desperate to believe everything’s fine.
Even Zira. I watched her approach the imposter earlier, saw the initial hesitation—that split-second pause where her eyes caught on the wrong-colored Ether curling around her feet. Her mouth opened, doubt flickering across her face.
Then the black mist touched her ankle, and she smiled. Relaxed. Leaned in to embrace “Bree” like the wrongness she’d felt had never happened at all.
Only Stellan sees it. I caught his eye earlier, that barely perceptible nod in the hallway outside her bedroom. Confirmation that we’re not imagining this. That something fundamental has shifted, and we’re the only ones who haven’t been convinced to ignore it.
She laughs at something Jace says, and the sound crawls under my skin like insects. Too bright. Too easy. Too wrong.
The imposter leans into him, and I watch Jace’s expression soften with trust that makes my chest tight with something between fury and grief. He has no idea. None of them do.
Except me. And Stellan.
The bond hums beneath my ribs—a constant, uncomfortable presence that’s been there since the Ashen Oath. Since Bree. The real Bree. My Bree.
And right now, it’s telling me she’s nowhere near this sanctuary.
I push off the doorway and slip into the hallway, moving with the silence that comes naturally after centuries of practice. No one notices me leave. They’re too focused on her.
My room is dark when I enter, but I catch it immediately—the pale edge of paper on the floor just inside the door. Someone slipped it underneath while I was watching the common room.
I pick it up. Three words in Stellan’s precise script.
Midnight. You know where.
The old stone well behind the gardens. We’ve been meeting there since we first arrived at the sanctuary with Bree—back when the others were still figuring out how to exist in the same space, and Stellan and I were mapping escape routes and defensive positions like the paranoid bastards we are.
Far enough from the main building that conversations stay private, close enough that we can reach the others quickly if needed.
I glance at the clock. Twenty minutes.
I tuck the note into my pocket and move back to the doorway, checking the hall one more time before I leave.
Good. Let them be distracted. Stellan and I have work to do.
The night air hits cold and clean after the stifling wrongness of the sanctuary’s common room.
I slip through the kitchen—dark and empty at this hour—and out the back door into the gardens.
The mist that usually clings to these grounds is subdued tonight, barely visible wisps that curl away from my feet like they know I’m not who they’re waiting for.
The well sits in a small clearing ringed by old stone markers, half-hidden by wild roses that haven’t been pruned in decades. Moonlight catches on the crumbling mortar, turning the whole space silver and shadow.
It’s always felt liminal here. Like standing at the edge between worlds.
I’m twenty feet away when pain steals my breath.
Heat flares sharp and sudden around my wrists—not external, but internal, like shackles of fire clamped tight and burning from the inside out. I stumble, one hand flying to grip my left wrist even though there’s nothing there to grab. Nothing visible.
But I feel it. Brands searing into skin that’s seen too much already, claiming space where bonds form and promises are written in magic and blood.
My ankles ignite next. Same sensation—shackles, burning, binding. The kind of pain that bypasses thought and goes straight to instinct.
I’ve felt hunger before. Centuries of it. The gnawing emptiness that comes from going too long between feedings, the sharp desperation when it gets bad enough to cloud judgment. This isn’t that.
This is different. This is her.
My vision fractures—silver edges going static like a signal cutting out. The world tilts sideways and suddenly I’m not standing anymore, I’m on my knees on cold stone that smells like moss and old water and something older than both.
The bond screams.
Not metaphorically. Not quietly. It tears through my chest like something trying to claw its way out, broadcasting distress so loud I can’t think past it. Can’t breathe past it.
She’s not here. She’s not safe. She’s hurting.
Then something shifts. A shiver races up my spine that has nothing to do with cold or fear. Heat follows—sudden, liquid arousal that definitely isn’t mine. The sensation is so foreign, so completely her, that for a moment I’m disoriented by feeling desire while drowning in pain.
Bree.
She’s alive. Conscious. And whatever’s happening to her right now is complicated enough that her body can still want even while she’s trapped.
The realization steadies me somehow, even as the pain continues. She’s fighting. She hasn’t given up.
Somewhere, Bree is suffering. And I’m feeling the echo of it carved into my bones.
My knees hit the ground, palms scraping on stone as I try to keep myself upright.
Fail. The hunger surges—not for blood, not for sustenance, but for her.
For the connection that’s supposed to run both ways but right now only broadcasts terror and isolation and wrongness so complete it makes my own emptiness feel like a mercy.
Somewhere through the haze of pain, I register footsteps. Running.
Stellan.
He drops to his knees beside me, hands immediately moving to steady—one on my shoulder, the other catching my arm before I can collapse completely. His touch is warm, solid, grounding in a way that cuts through some of the static.
“Thane.” His voice is sharp with urgency I’ve never heard from him before. “What’s happening?”
I try to answer. Can’t. The bond is too loud, drowning out everything except its insistent message: Wrong. She’s not here. Find her. Wrong.
“Your wrists,” Stellan says, voice sharp with alarm.
I follow his gaze down. Red marks are appearing on my skin—angry, raised welts encircling both wrists like shackles branded into flesh. As I watch, they darken, spreading up my forearms in thin lines.
“Burns,” Stellan breathes. “How is this happening?”
I manage to gasp out through the pain: “Ankles too.”
He shifts immediately, and I feel his hands on my legs, hear his sharp intake of breath. “Same marks. Thane, what—”
“I don’t know.” The words come out broken. “Bree. I feel—she’s—”
Another wave of burning cuts off whatever I was trying to say.
He doesn’t waste time on more questions. Just adjusts his grip, studies my face with that clinical intensity that would be unsettling if I wasn’t currently being torn apart from the inside.
“It’s the bond,” he says quietly. Not a question. A conclusion.
I manage a nod. Breathing is hard. Thinking is harder.
“She’s not here.” Stellan’s gray eyes are sharp, certain. “The real one. You’re still connected to her, and she’s—” He stops. Reassesses. “Where is she?”
I try. Fail. My legs won’t support weight, and the burning in my wrists and ankles has spread up my limbs like poison in the bloodstream.
Stellan doesn’t comment on the weakness. Just shifts position, taking more of my weight without making it obvious. His strength surprises me sometimes—easy to forget what he is when he moves through the world with such careful control.
“We need to find her,” I manage. “The real one.”
“We will.” Stellan’s voice is calm, certain. “But first, you need to breathe through this. Let the bond settle enough that you can think.”
“It won’t settle.” The truth tastes bitter. “Not while she’s—wherever she is. Not while that thing is wearing her face and sleeping in her bed.”
“Then we use it.” Stellan’s eyes meet mine, and I see the strategist sliding into place behind the concern. “You can feel her. Even across distance, even through whatever barrier separates you—you’re still connected. That’s an advantage.”
“Doesn’t feel like one.”
“It will.” He helps me shift position, getting me seated against the well’s stone base instead of collapsed on the ground. “When we need to prove she’s not Bree. When we need to find where the real one is hidden. Your bond is the evidence we need.”
The burning begins to ebb slightly. Not gone—just manageable. Like my body’s remembering how to function around the pain instead of drowning in it.
“The others don’t see it,” I say quietly. “They’re convinced.”
“For now.” Stellan settles beside me, his usual careful distance abandoned in favor of pragmatic closeness. “But manipulation has cracks. It always does. And we’re going to exploit every one.”
I look at him—really look—and see the same cold calculation I feel settling in my own chest. The grief and fury crystallizing into purpose.
“She made a mistake,” I say.
“Several.” Stellan’s mouth curves in something that’s not quite a smile. “Not knowing any of us have bonded with Bree. Overlooking me entirely. Thinking Jace’s devotion would be enough to keep the others from questioning.”
“What do we do?”
“We watch. We wait. We collect evidence.” His gray eyes are steady, certain. “And when she slips—because she will slip—we make sure everyone sees it.”
The bond pulses again, but quieter now. More settled. Like it heard Stellan’s words and understood: We’re coming. We haven’t forgotten. We won’t stop.
Somewhere across whatever distance or barrier separates us, I hope she knows she’s not alone, even if she’s not here.
“She’ll try to isolate us,” I warn. “Make us seem paranoid. Cruel.”
“Let her try.” Stellan stands, offering me a hand up. “I’ve been underestimated my entire life. It’s useful.”
I take his hand, let him pull me to standing. My legs hold this time, though everything still aches with phantom shackles.
“One more thing.” I meet his eyes. “You weren’t touched tonight. But if her Ether reaches you later—if you start to doubt what we know—”
“You’ll know,” he finishes. “And you do whatever it takes to snap me out of it.”
“Even if you fight it.”
“Especially if I fight it.” His expression is serious. “The bond protects you. I have nothing but awareness. If she gets to me, I’m counting on you to remind me what’s real.”
I nod. “And if the bond—”
It’s not a request. It’s an order dressed in concern.
I nod. “Same goes for you. If you see something the rest of us miss.”
“Deal.”
We stand there for a moment longer, two predators in the dark, bonded by purpose and the woman we can’t live without. Even if Stellan hasn’t admitted that to himself yet.
Then Stellan steps back, composure sliding into place like armor. “We should return separately. Can’t give her any reason to suspect we’re coordinating.”
“I’ll wait here. Clear my head.”
He nods once, then melts into the shadows with that unnerving grace of his. Gone so completely it’s like he was never there at all.
I’m alone with the well and the darkness, and somehow the solitude is comforting. The bond still burns quiet beneath my ribs, but now I can feel the echoes of Bree like they’re a part of my soul.
The imposter thinks she’s won. Thinks she’s claimed Bree’s place so thoroughly that no one will question it.
She’s wrong.
And by the time we’re done, she’ll know exactly how wrong she is.
I touch my wrist where the phantom shackles burned, feeling nothing but my own cold skin and raised scars that weren’t there before. The memory lingers—pain and connection and proof that somewhere, Bree is real and alive and waiting.
We’re coming, little queen.
Just hold on.