“You mean besides the fact that she’s been avoiding all of us like the plague?” Jace’s mouth quirks in what might be sympathy. “Or the way her Ether looks darker than it used to?”
That stops me cold. “You’ve seen it too?”
“The black threads?” He shrugs, but his casual tone doesn’t match the sharpness in his eyes. “Hard to miss. Rhett thinks it’s trauma from the Void thing. Wes thinks it’s her power evolving. Thane won’t talk about it, even though he was there.” His voice drops slightly. “What do you think it is?”
I stare at him, pieces clicking together in my head. The vision fragments, the black threads in Bree’s Ether, the way she’s been different since she came back. Not just distant—changed in subtle ways that make my instincts scream.
“I think,” I say slowly, “that something’s coming. Something that’s going to change everything.”
“Well.” Jace’s grin turns sharp, but there’s genuine concern underneath it. “That’s not ominous at all.”
He moves toward the door, then pauses on the threshold. “For what it’s worth? Whatever you saw, whatever’s coming—we’ll handle it. For Bree.”
Then he’s gone, leaving me alone with fragments that feel like prophecy and a growing certainty that I’ve seen something I wasn’t supposed to.
Two versions of Bree. One broken, one whole. One uncertain, one commanding.
Both equally real.
Both impossible.
I close my eyes and let my head fall back against the wall.
If that’s what’s coming… how do I tell her without breaking her again?
Chapter 29
Bree
The world folds like a page and I’m somewhere else.
No transition, no falling asleep. One moment I’m lying in my bed, the next I’m standing in a room made of mirrors and golden light that smells like sweat and honey.
The chamber stretches impossibly wide, each surface reflecting warmth that makes the air shimmer. This isn’t the sanctuary—definitely not anywhere I recognize. But it feels like home in a way that makes my chest tight.
“You came back.”
I turn toward the voice and see her. The woman from before. Dark hair, green eyes that actually sparkle instead of carrying all the weight mine do. She looks like me, but… better. Like someone took all my broken pieces and put them back together the right way.
Riley.
“I’ve been waiting,” she says, and even her voice sounds more confident than mine ever has. “They’re here too.”
Gray appears at my left, shoulders relaxed for once instead of tensed for the next disaster. His thumbs circle my cheek, slow as worship. “Let me keep this,” he breathes, and the word feels like a promise.
Rhett’s hand finds the small of my back, protective warmth turned intimate. “You’re mine to keep,” he says like a vow, voice low and certain in a way that makes heat pool in my stomach.
Wes moves to my right, none of that careful hunger in his eyes that makes him hold back. His palm settles over my heart. “Here. I belong here,” he says, steady as a promise, and for once his touch doesn’t make him flinch.
Jace laughs, soft and edged with ownership. “Don’t go anywhere. Not on my watch,” he murmurs, fingers tracing the line of my jaw like he’s memorizing it.
Theo steps closer, none of the guilt that’s been weighing down his words lately. “No more distance,” he says, hands anchoring me like salvation. “No more walking on eggshells.”
And Thane—God, Thane. He leans against one of the mirrors with his usual elegant composure, but there’s no coldness in his silver eyes. His gaze is hungry and soft at the same time, watching me like I’m something worth keeping instead of something that might break his careful control.
Even Stellan is here, and his touch barely brushes my shoulder, but there’s approval in the stillness. That polite distance he always maintains has melted into something warmer, more present.
This is what I’ve been craving. What I’ve been missing since everything went to hell. To be cherished instead of managed, claimed instead of protected from afar.
