Chapter 21 Gray
Gray
Sleep won’t come.
I’ve been staring at the ceiling for hours, replaying what I saw in the garden last night. Jace and Wes. The way Wes dropped to his knees, desperate and hungry and real. The sound Jace made when he came apart, the careful way Wes worked him through it.
I press the heels of my hands against my closed eyes, but the images won’t fade. The memory sits heavy in my chest—not jealousy, exactly. Something more complicated. Something that makes my skin feel too tight and my pulse kick up every time I think about how long I stood there watching.
How much I wanted to step out of the shadows.
The pre-dawn air in my room feels suffocating. I need to move, need space to think without the weight of these walls pressing down on me.
My bare feet are silent on the cold stone floors as I head toward the kitchen. Maybe I’ll make tea. Maybe I’ll just sit and try to sort through what I’m feeling without anyone else watching me do it.
That’s when I hear it.
Rhett’s voice, rough and desperate: “I can’t lose you again.”
I freeze at the kitchen doorway.
Bree is pressed against Rhett’s back, her hand moving rhythmically inside his unbuttoned jeans. His hips rock into her touch, head thrown back, completely lost in what she’s doing to him.
Her eyes are calm. Predatory. Like she’s studying his reactions instead of sharing them.
That’s not the shy, overwhelmed girl who used to blush when we so much as held her hand too long.
Rhett shudders as he comes, and she whispers something against his spine that makes him go boneless. When she pulls her hand free, she catches sight of me standing in the shadows.
Our eyes meet.
She doesn’t look embarrassed. Doesn’t look caught.
She smiles.
“Gray.” Her voice is warm honey, like finding me watching was exactly what she hoped for. “Couldn’t sleep either?”
Jace would lose his damn mind if he walked in on this.
The thought hits me out of nowhere, sharp and defensive and completely irrelevant to the situation. But it grounds me somehow. Gives me something to focus on besides the way she’s looking at me like I’m her next meal.
Rhett’s still catching his breath, but he turns to face us both, tucking himself back into his pants. His fire magic is settling under his skin, satisfied and warm. He looks at Bree like she just gave him everything he’s ever wanted.
She steps away from him and walks toward me, still wearing that serene smile. Her hand—the same one that was just wrapped around Rhett—reaches for my chest.
I sidestep before she can touch me.
“I was just—” I clear my throat, backing toward the door. “Needed some air. Gonna run the perimeter.”
“Gray, wait—” Rhett starts, but I’m already turning away.
“It’s fine,” I say without looking back. “Just needed to clear my head.”
I leave them standing there—Rhett confused and sated, Bree watching me with those too-calm eyes.
As I reach the hallway, one thought cuts through everything else, sharp and certain:
That wasn’t Bree.
The realization settles cold and heavy in my chest, and something wild and desperate claws at my ribs. I need to move. Need to run. Need to get as far away from that wrongness as possible before it chokes me.
I walk quickly through the kitchen, past the lingering scent of what just happened, and slip out the back door into the garden. The pre-dawn air hits my skin, and I don’t make it more than a few steps before the shift takes me.
The change comes easier now than it did in the beginning—bones stretching and realigning without the sharp agony I remember from those first times.
White fur ripples along my limbs as I drop to four legs, and suddenly the world explodes into scents and sounds that make everything clearer.
I run through the garden and into the forest beyond, paws hitting soft earth and fallen leaves as I follow instincts that lead me exactly where I need to go.
The chamber.
The chamber calls to me like a wound that won’t heal.
I find myself at the top of the stairs without consciously deciding to come here. The space feels different than it did that morning we found Bree standing at the mirror.
“This fucking chamber,” I breathe as I head down the stairs.
As I reach the bottom, I see it—the mirror stands against the far wall, the mirror Bree was touching. Its surface reflects nothing but darkness.
As I approach it, I expect to see my reflection, but instead there’s nothing but black.
Weird.
All the ash piles are gone. Every trace of the failed attempts, the broken dreams, the people who reached for something and found only death—erased like they never existed.
Weeks ago, this place was a graveyard. Now it looks like it’s been waiting.
The temperature drops immediately, cold seeping through my skin and settling in my bones. My breath fogs in the suddenly frigid air, and something deep in my chest responds to the change—something that’s been stirring ever since Bree touched the crown.
The mirror’s surface ripples like disturbed water. I’m still standing directly in front of it, close enough to see my own reflection staring back. But there’s something else there too. Something moving behind my image, dark and indistinct.
That’s when I hear it, a murmur. Desperate. Coming from somewhere else in the chamber.
I follow the sound, moving carefully around the outer edge of the circular space. The voice grows clearer as I get closer—a woman’s voice, frantic with desperation.
“I can’t—why can’t I—where’s my other half?”
I find her on the far side of the chamber, pressed against one of the mirrors with both palms flat against the glass. She’s maybe forty, dressed in traveling clothes that look like she’s been on the road for days. Her dark hair is disheveled, and there’s a wild edge to her movements.
“They said it was open again,” she mutters, pressing harder against the mirror. “That the Ether restored the Oath. Where are you?”
“Hey,” I say quietly, not wanting to startle her. “Are you okay?”
She whirls around, eyes wide and desperate. “You can see me? You’re real?”
“Yeah, I’m real.” I take a careful step closer. “What are you trying to do?”
“The Oath,” she says, turning back to the mirror. “I felt it awaken. Felt the pull all the way from the mountains. My other half is supposed to be here. She’s supposed to answer.”
Footsteps echo from another part of the chamber. A man emerges from the shadows between two mirrors, and everything about him radiates power. His movements are too fluid, too controlled, and for just a second his eyes flash with an inner light—silver and predatory.
When he smiles, I catch the flash of fangs.
Vampire.
“Still trying, I see,” he says to the woman, his voice calm and almost gentle. He places a hand on her shoulder, and she seems to relax slightly under his touch.
“Put your hand on the mirror,” he suggests. “Sometimes it takes time for the connection to form.”
She presses her palm against the glass again, hope flickering in her expression. But nothing happens. The mirror remains just a mirror, showing only her own reflection.
The vampire turns to me, studying my face with those predatory eyes. “You’re one of hers.”
“Yeah.”
He nods knowingly, turning back to the woman. “Hybrid,” he says gently, like he’s stating a simple fact about the weather. “That’s why it’s not working. You’re already whole, you see. Two halves in one body.”
The woman lets out a broken sob, her hand sliding down the mirror’s surface. “But I felt the pull. I felt it calling to me.”
“Your Feeder half,” the vampire explains, still gentle. “It recognizes the hunger, the incompleteness others feel. But the Oath can’t give you what you already have.”
“She’s not coming,” the woman whispers. “She’s never coming.”
“Because she doesn’t exist,” he says softly. “The mirror realm sees you as complete. There’s no other half to call.”
I watch him guide the woman away from the mirror, his movements careful and kind. But there’s something in his eyes—satisfaction, maybe. Like he expected this outcome.
As they disappear into the shadows, I’m left alone with the mirrors.
Walking back through the chamber, my eyes catch on one mirror I hadn’t noticed before. The frame is carved with intricate wolf heads, their eyes seeming to follow my movement. Something about it draws me forward, a pull I can’t quite explain.
I stop directly in front of it.
The surface flickers—just once—like a candle flame disturbed by breath.
My reflection stares back at me, but there’s something different about it. Something in the eyes that doesn’t quite match what I’m feeling.
My hand rises toward the glass before I can stop myself.
The moment my palm touches the surface, my reflection changes.
It smirks.
Not me. Not my expression. But something wearing my face, looking back at me with knowledge I don’t possess and confidence I’ve never felt.
The reflection tilts its head, and I feel the pull—sharp and desperate, like hunger that’s gone too long unfed. It wants me to stay. To keep touching the glass. To let it show me what I could be.
I jerk my hand back, but every instinct I have screams at me to reach out again.
No.
I force myself to turn away, to walk toward the stairs, even though it feels like tearing something vital out of my chest.
Behind me, I swear I can feel it watching. Waiting for me to change my mind.
And I know—with terrible certainty—that I will.