Chapter 30 Thane
Thane
My phone vibrates in my pocket.
Stellan’s name flashes across the screen.
I almost ignore it—I’m in the middle of watching the imposter through the window, cataloging every tell, every wrong movement that proves she isn’t who she pretends to be. But something about the timing makes me answer.
“What.”
“You need to get to the chamber.” His voice is clipped. Sharp. Wrong. “Now.”
I go still. Stellan doesn’t sound like that unless something’s gone catastrophically wrong.
“What happened?”
“You’ll want to see this for yourself.” A pause, weighted. “And bring Zira.”
The line goes dead.
I stare at the phone for three seconds, then move.
Zira’s already waiting by the stairs when I find her, arms crossed, expression unreadable.
“He called you too,” I say.
“Five minutes ago.” Her gray eyes are sharp. Focused. “Told me to wait for you.”
That alone is enough to make my stomach drop. The three of us have been working together for a week—coordinating the Feeders coming through, managing the Oath complications, keeping the imposter distracted. Stellan doesn’t pull us both in like this unless something’s shifted.
We descend in silence.
The stairwell grows colder with every step, air turning metallic. The old wards hum against my skin—active, alert, responding to something they recognize.
“You feel that?” Zira mutters.
I nod. “Something’s changed.”
Wrong. Too strong. Too alive.
At the final turn, I catch Stellan’s voice echoing off stone—low, soothing, the tone he uses with frightened fledglings who don’t understand what they’ve become yet.
My instincts sharpen. Every nerve in my body goes taut.
I round the corner into the chamber, and everything stops.
The scent hits me first.
Old blood. Ether residue. And something else—cold that shouldn’t exist in physical form. The kind of empty that tastes like the Void.
Then I see him.
Standing near the black iron mirror, wild-eyed and lean. Pale skin that looks like it hasn’t seen real light in years. Dark hair falling into his face. The snake—Bree’s familiar—coiled around his wrist, glowing faintly silver.
And when he turns toward me—
“You.”
The word rips out of me like a snarl.
Seth flinches, and his lips pull back instinctively.
Fangs.
Sharp. White. Unmistakable.
My world narrows to a single point of rage.
I’m across the chamber before conscious thought catches up, hand closing around his throat, slamming him back against the mirror hard enough to rattle the glass.
The surface ripples behind him, silver light spilling across us both.
“Thane!” Stellan’s voice cuts through the static in my head. “Stop!”
But I can’t.
Because this is him. This is the man who betrayed her, who worked with Phil, who stood there and let her power tear through him while he smiled—
Except.
Seth’s eyes flash—not human, not quite vampire. Something in between.
The snake on his wrist glows brighter, wrapping tighter around his arm like a living shield.
My hand grows cold where it touches his throat. Not temperature—something deeper. Like the Void itself is pushing back through his skin.
My grip loosens—not because I want it to, but because the wrongness makes my instincts scream.
“What—” Seth’s voice comes out rough, panicked. His free hand flies to his mouth, touching his own teeth like he’s never felt them before. “What the hell—why do I have—”
He stares at me, horror bleeding across his face.
“What’s happening to me?” His voice cracks. “What the fuck am I?”
I freeze.
Because that’s not the reaction of someone who knows. That’s terror. Confusion. The kind of fear that only comes from waking up in a body that doesn’t make sense anymore.
“Thane.” Stellan’s hand closes on my shoulder, firm. “Let him go.”
I don’t move.
“Now.”
Something in his tone cuts through. I release Seth’s throat, stepping back but not far. Every muscle still coiled, ready to strike if he so much as breathes wrong.
Seth sags against the mirror, one hand pressed to his chest, the other still touching his fangs like he can’t believe they’re real.
“He’s not just a vampire,” Zira says from behind me, voice steady and clinical.
I snap my head toward her. “I can see that.”
Stellan moves closer to Seth, studying him with that careful intensity he reserves for things he doesn’t fully understand yet. He reaches out, stops just short of touching Seth’s arm.
“Feel the air around him,” Stellan says quietly.
I force myself to focus past the rage.
The cold isn’t coming from the chamber.
It’s coming from Seth.
Not physical cold. The absence kind. The kind that tastes like nothing and everything at once. The kind that lives in the spaces between worlds.
“Void,” I say flatly.
Stellan nods. “He reeks of it.”
“What the hell is he?” I demand.
Zira steps forward, tilting her head as she studies Seth like a scholar facing a living myth.
“He’s bonded.” Her voice carries certainty.
“The snake proves it—Bree’s familiar wouldn’t stay with him otherwise.
But something else happened too.” She pauses.
“I’ve heard about this. When a bond forms outside the human realm…
sometimes the magic doesn’t follow rules.
It adapts to the environment. Alters the Feeder’s base nature. ”
“You’re saying the Void changed him.”
“No.” Zira meets my eyes. “The bond did. The Void just gave it room to grow.”
Seth shakes his head, backing away from all three of us until his shoulders hit the mirror again.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” His voice is raw. Desperate. “I just—she was dying, I think—and then—” He touches his chest, right over his heart. “It hurt. It felt like everything inside me broke and rebuilt itself.”
The word she cuts through everything else.
“Bree.” My voice comes out flat. Controlled.
Seth’s gaze jerks to me. “You’re—” He pauses, uncertain. Afraid. “You know her too?”
“Thane.” I force the word out. “And yes. She’s mine.”
Stellan clears his throat. “Stellan. And she’s ours, actually.”
I shoot him a look but don’t contradict it. Because right now, that’s the only truth that matters.
The rage drains out of me all at once, leaving only awe and grief.
“She’s alive.” My voice sounds strange to my own ears. Hollow. Hopeful. “You found her. And you bonded her in the Void.”
Silence.
The mirror behind Seth ripples faintly, responding to his presence.
All four of us feel it.
Stellan glances toward the glass, something calculating in his expression. “That’s our path back, isn’t it?”
Seth’s face goes pale. “I—I don’t know. The creatures led me here once, but I didn’t control it. They just—” He gestures helplessly at the mirror. “I don’t know if I can do it again. If I can open it.”
“You will,” I say, and it comes out harder than I mean it to. “You came through once. You’ll do it again.”
“And if I can’t?” His voice cracks. “What if I try and it doesn’t work? What if—”
“Then we figure it out.” Stellan’s voice is calm. Certain. “But you’re going to try.”
I step forward, forcing myself to meet his eyes without violence.
“You’re going to take us to her.”
Seth nods, shaky but resolute. “I’ll try.”
The chamber settles into uneasy quiet, the mirror behind Seth still rippling like disturbed water.
Zira speaks into the silence. “Whatever magic created you, it did so for a reason. The Void doesn’t give gifts. It trades.”
I hold Seth’s gaze for a long moment. Conflict and fury and reluctant respect warring within me.
Because he came back. He found a way through the Void and came back for her.
That has to mean something.
“We need to talk to the others,” Stellan says, breaking the silence. “All of them.”
I tense. “Not yet. We don’t know—”
“They deserve to know,” Stellan cuts me off, voice firm. “Seth’s alive. Bree’s alive. And we have a way to reach her.” His gray eyes are steady, unyielding. “You can’t keep this from them.”
I want to argue. Want to control the narrative, manage the fallout, keep everything contained until I understand what we’re dealing with.
But he’s right.
“Fine.” The word tastes bitter. “But we do this carefully.”
Stellan glances at Seth, then back at me. “He’s coming too.”
“What?” The word comes out sharp.
“He’s hers, Thane.” Stellan’s voice is calm but firm. “Bonded. Just like you. They need to meet him. See he’s not a threat.”
My jaw clenches, but I can’t argue with the logic. Seth is bonded to Bree. That makes him part of this whether I like it or not.
“This is going to be a disaster,” I mutter.
Zira lets out a low whistle from across the chamber. “Better you than me.” She’s already backing toward the far wall, clearly planning to stay well clear of whatever’s about to happen.
Stellan moves toward the stairs. “I’ll get them.”
Seth looks between us, still shaky, still confused. “What are you going to tell them?”
“The truth,” I say flatly. “That you’re alive. That you found her. And that we’re going to get her back.”
His throat works. “They’re going to hate me.”
“Probably.” I don’t soften it. Wouldn’t be fair to him. “But you’re going to have to face them anyway.”
I watch Stellan disappear up the stairs, then turn back to Seth.
He’s still pressed against the mirror, looking like he might bolt if given half a chance. The snake around his wrist glows softly, a living tether to someone who isn’t here.
“They’ll never believe it,” I say quietly, more to myself than to him. “And I don’t know if I do, either.”
But the cold radiating off Seth says otherwise. The Void-touched emptiness that clings to him like a second skin.
The bond is real. The Void changed him. And somewhere, on the other side of that mirror, Bree is waiting.
We just have to figure out how to reach her before it’s too late.