There's light beneath my skin. Faint but unmistakable, tracing lines along my collarbone, my solar plexus. Right where Bree touched me after the crown.
I press my hand over it, trying to hide what's already been seen. But it's too late. They've all noticed now.
Shame floods through me, hot and immediate. Not just the hunger—though that's bad enough—but what it means. That I'm different. That I don't know what's happening to my own body. That Bree might see me like this.
I don't want her to see me like this. Not when I don't even know what I am.
I take a step toward the hallway, every instinct screaming at me to run. To hide. To pretend this isn't happening.
"Don't." Gray's voice stops me cold. Not commanding, just... certain.
I freeze, one foot already in the doorway.
"You're not the only one," Rhett adds quietly, lifting his hands. In the morning light, I can see the faint shimmer of heat rising from his palms.
The shame doesn't disappear. But it shifts, becomes something I might be able to carry instead of drown in.
"We don't tell her yet," Theo says, and there's steel beneath the gentleness. "Not until we understand what this is."
Rhett nods. "She's got enough to deal with."
"Unless it gets worse," Jace adds, his usual humor carefully restrained. "Then we make a grocery list."
The joke falls flat, but the intent behind it—the refusal to treat me like something broken—hits harder than any grand gesture could.
I sink back into my chair, hands still trembling. The cold ache in my chest hasn't disappeared entirely, but it's manageable now. Contained.
Gray is still watching me, but the intensity has shifted. Less confusion, more... recognition. Like he's seeing something that makes sense in a way it shouldn't.
Theo catches it too, his analytical gaze flicking between us with that quiet focus that misses nothing.
I don't sit right away. My hands are still shaking. My chest's still tight. That cold, empty ache still gnaws at the edges of everything.
But no one tells me to stop. No one pulls away.
They just... wait. Make room. And somehow that's worse and better all at once.
The hunger doesn't fade.
But it doesn't feel like a curse anymore.
It feels like something I might survive.
Chapter 9
Bree
I wake up drowning. Not in water—in pressure. Something pressing against my chest, my throat, my lungs until I can't tell if I'm breathing or suffocating. The dream fades before I can catch it, but the urgency remains, sharp and insistent beneath my ribs.
Get up. Move. Now.
I sit up in the dark, heart hammering against my ribs. The room feels too small, the air too thick. Like the walls are closing in or the ceiling's about to collapse. I need to move. Need to—
The house is too still. That's what's wrong. No creaking floorboards, no distant hum of the refrigerator. Just silence so complete it feels unnatural.
I slide out of bed, bare feet hitting the cool hardwood. Theo's old t-shirt hangs loose on my frame, the soft cotton falling to mid-thigh. I pull the sleeves down over my hands as I step into the hallway. No mist follows me this time. The air feels charged instead, like the moment before lightning strikes.
I pause at the top of the stairs, drawn by the soft murmur of voices drifting up from the kitchen. Low and familiar—the kind of conversationthat happens when sleep won't come and company feels necessary. For just a moment, warmth spreads through my chest. Even at four in the morning, they're there for each other.
