The air tastes metallic, like a storm breaking. The soil itself hums under my boots with barely contained power.
Our eyes meet across the space between us. Hers are bright with unshed tears and dark with fury. But there’s something deeper there too. Something that makes the air around us thrum with possibility.
He stepped onto your domain,I repeat, and somehow I think she hears it.Now show him what that means.
Chapter 23
Bree
Where are they?
The thought circles through my mind like a mantra as Phil’s laughter echoes off the sanctuary walls. Gray, Rhett, Jace, Wes, Theo—I can’t see any of them in the crowd. Can’t feel their presence the way I usually do, that warm anchor that tells me I’m not alone. And Thane, Stellan—where are they?
What if Phil hurt them? What if they’re lying somewhere bleeding while I’m trapped here, helpless? The possibility makes my chest seize with panic that has nothing to do with my own safety and everything to do with theirs.
I need them. I need to know they’re okay, need to see their faces, need—
Seth’s hands on my arms feel like shackles.
Phil’s laughter echoes off the sanctuary walls, bouncing back at us from every direction until it fills the air like smoke. The crowd presses against the buildings, a sea of faces watching our destruction unfold.
I can’t breathe past the panic clawing up my throat. Can’t think beyond the way Seth’s fingers dig into my skin—not cruel, but firm. Certain. Like he has every right to hold me here while Phil circles us like a predator.
“Let go of me,” I whisper.
Seth’s grip tightens. Not painful, but deliberate. His hands are warm and steady, the same hands that helped families at the border. The same hands that gestured gently as we walked through the garden, making me feel like I had a friend who understood.
The same hands that are now keeping me trapped.
“Let go of me.” Louder this time.
Phil’s smile widens. “Oh, I don’t think he will, Bree. You see, he’s been very patient. Very loyal.” His eyes flick to Seth with something like approval. “Haven’t you, Seth?”
Patient. Loyal.
The words crawl into my skin and stay there. How long has Seth been patient? How long has he been loyal—to Phil, not to me?
Every quiet conversation we’ve had over the past weeks flashes through my mind. Every time he asked how I was doing, every gentle question about my day, every moment I thought someone actually cared about me without wanting something in return.
Was any of it real?
“How long?” The question tears out of my throat before I can stop it. “How long have you been lying to me?”
Seth doesn’t answer. His face remains calm, gentle even. But there’s something different in his eyes now. Something that was always there, maybe, but I was too grateful for kindness to notice.
Distance. Calculation. The look of someone playing a role.
“Such a dramatic little thing,” Phil says, and his voice carries that same reasonable tone he used to use when he’d corner me in my apartment hallway. When he’d explain why the rent was late and what I could do to make up for it. “Always making everything so much harder than it needs to be.”
The Ether stirs around my feet, responding to the fear and rage building in my chest. Silver light flickers, shot through with black threads that pulse with power.
“You have no idea what you are, do you?” Phil continues, stepping closer. “What you could become with the right guidance. Daddy’s been so looking forward to meeting you properly.”
Daddy. The word sends ice through my veins. Not Phil, then. Someone else. Someone worse.
The ground beneath us trembles.
“All those times you helped around the sanctuary,” I say to Seth, my voice cracking. “All those conversations in the garden, all those times I showed you around because I thought you cared. Was it all just… surveillance?”
