“Bree—”
“I felt it with Thane too. The pull, the exchange. But this is different.” My thumb traces his cheekbone, and he leans into the touch like he’s starving for it. “With him, it felt… controlled. Careful. This feels like need.”
“It is need,” he admits, voice raw. “I need you so much it scares me.”
“When I get close, I can feel it building. If I don’t control it, it can overwhelm… both of us.”
His eyes flick to mine, dark and unsteady. “But with you—it doesn’t feel like losing control. It feels like giving you exactly what you need.”
The honesty in his words, the vulnerability, makes something fierce rise in my chest. Here he is, admitting to being something the magical world considers lowest, confessing to a hunger he can’t control, and all I want to do is give him more.
The power to take what you want instead of waiting to be given scraps.
“Then take what you need,” I say, and before he can protest, I kiss him again.
The hunger simmers between us, unresolved and electric. Promise of more to come. I can feel it in the way he’s looking at me now—not like I’m something fragile that might break, but like I’m powerful enough to choose what I give and when.
Like I’m powerful enough to take what I want, too.
The moment stretches, charged and perfect, until footsteps echo down a distant corridor. Someone else is awake, moving through the sanctuary in the deep hours of night.
Wes and I exchange a look—loaded with everything we can’t say, everything we’re not ready to explain to the others yet. Not when they’re still the ones who lied to me. Not when I’m finally learning what it feels like to take instead of waiting to be given.
But as I watch him run a hand through his disheveled hair, still looking slightly stunned by what just happened, one thought settles into my mind with crystalline clarity:
For once, I didn’t wait for their permission. I took what I wanted. And it felt like power.
The black threads in my mist pulse once, as if in agreement.
And somewhere in the sanctuary’s depths, I notice the absence of silver eyes and controlled composure. Thane hasn’t come looking for me. Hasn’t reached out since the Void. And maybe the part that scares me most is how little that scares me now.
Chapter 18
Wes
I can’t sleep.
Not after the kitchen. Not after the taste of her Ether flowing into me like liquid starlight, filling hollows I didn’t know existed until they were suddenly, impossibly full.
The hunger that’s been clawing at me for weeks is sharper now—not worse, but more focused. Like it finally knows what it wants. Like it finally knows what it’s been waiting for.
Her.
I pace the length of my room, bare feet silent on the cool stone. The sanctuary responded to me when I moved in, shaping the space around my needs—soft textures, warm colors, a bed built for comfort rather than just sleep. But tonight it all feels too small, too contained for the restless energy thrumming under my skin.
Every time I close my eyes, I see her face in the kitchen. The way she looked at me when I admitted I’d fed from Gray. Not jealous or hurt—aroused. Like the thought of me with him turned her on instead of threatening her.
“Tell me what it was like,” she’d said, and her voice had gone rough with want.
Christ. What is she doing to me?
I run my hands through my hair, trying to shake off the memory. But it clings, stubborn and intoxicating. The way she stepped closerinstead of pulling away. The way she chose to kiss me again after learning what I was.
The way she let me feed.
A soft sound interrupts my spiraling thoughts—the quiet click of my door opening. I turn, expecting maybe Theo with another vision, or Rhett checking on everyone like he does when he can’t sleep.
Instead, it’s Bree.
