Blood. Real blood, which means this place can hurt me.
Which means I might not be getting out.
The thought sends panic crawling up my throat, and I have to press my hand over my mouth to keep from screaming. I need to think. I need to figure out how I got here, how to get back.
But before I can form a coherent thought, a voice cuts through the silence.
“Brielle.”
My name, spoken low and intimate, like a caress that turns my skin to goosebumps.
I freeze, heart hammering so hard I can feel it in my throat. I know that voice. I’ve heard it in dreams, felt it whisper through the dark corners of my mind when I’m trying to sleep. Heard it here, in the Void for the first time not long ago.
Ethos.
“No,” I breathe, but even as I say it, part of me—some deep, secret part—responds to the sound like a flower turning toward sunlight.
“You’re frightened,” he continues, and I can hear amusement threading through his tone. “Lost. Abandoned by the very people who swore to protect you.”
“They didn’t abandon me.” But my voice shakes, because what if they did? What if Riley is right, and they’re better off without me? What if they prefer her certainty to my constant questioning?
“Didn’t they?” Footsteps echo from somewhere in the dark, getting closer. “You called for help, and they walked away. You reached for them, and they saw only her.”
“Because they don’t know—”
“They don’t know because they don’t want to know.” His voice is closer now, close enough that I can feel warmth radiating fromwherever he is. “It’s easier to believe you’ve finally become what they wanted you to be than to acknowledge what you’ve always been.”
For just a moment, the darkness shifts. A silhouette emerges from the Void—tall, imposing, with an athletic build that speaks of dangerous strength. But it’s his head that makes my breath catch: curved horns rising from a skull, pale bone gleaming against the black.
The horned mirrors. The twisted frame in the chamber.
Terror shoots through me and I stumble backward, nearly tripping over my own feet.
“And what’s—what’s that?” The question comes out broken, stuttered, as he melts back into shadow.
“Mine.”
The word sends heat spiraling through me and ice through my veins at the same time. My knees threaten to buckle. I should run. I should fight. I should do anything except stand here letting his voice wrap around me like silk.
But there’s nowhere to run in the Void.
And part of me—the part that’s tired of being afraid, tired of questioning, tired of feeling like I’m never enough—doesn’t want to run at all.
“Come to me, little queen,” Ethos whispers, and his voice sounds like coming home. “Let me show you what it feels like to be wanted without reservation.”
I close my eyes, torn between the terror of what he represents and the terrible, seductive promise in his words.
In the distance, something howls again—that same wrong, animalistic sound that makes my skin crawl.
But Ethos’s voice drowns it out, warm and patient and utterly certain.
“I’m waiting,” he says.
And despite everything—despite the danger, despite what I know he is, despite what choosing him might cost—I find myself taking a step forward into the dark.
Chapter 10
Bree
