And I don’t know how to keep going in a world where I can’t trust my own heart to know the difference between truth and lie.
Gray doesn’t answer. He just looks out at the garden like it’s a battlefield only he can see, his hands still clenched, the air around him still humming with something that feels dangerous and wild and completely unlike the Gray I know.
And for the first time since this whole nightmare started, I wonder if we’re all about to lose more than just Bree.
I wonder if we’re about to lose ourselves too.
Chapter 5
Gray
The bones in my spine feel like they’re grinding against each other.
It starts there, between my shoulder blades, then spreads down through my ribs like fire. My skin is too tight, stretched over a frame that’s trying to become something else entirely. Every breath feels like I’m drowning in my own body.
“Gray?” Wes’s voice sounds far away even though he’s right next to me. “What’s wrong?”
I can’t answer. Can’t form words around the pressure building in my head, behind my eyes, in the space where my jaw connects to my skull. Something is clawing its way out from the inside, and I’ve been fighting it for so long I don’t remember what it feels like to not be at war with myself.
Not now. Not in front of Wes.
But my body doesn’t care what I want. The change has been building since Bree touched the crown—every time I felt the urge to pace, every moment of restless energy, every night I couldn’t sleep because something under my skin was trying to break free. Her awakening triggered something in all of us, but I’ve held it back through sheer will. Bree’s disappearance, the chamber, the growing certainty that I failed to protect her—it’s all too much.
My knees buckle, and I hit the garden path hard enough to split stone. Wes’s heartbeat thunders in my ears like a drum, too loud, too fast, layered with the scent of his fear.
“Gray!” Wes shouts, and I hear him running. “Help! Someone help!”
The world tilts sideways. Every sound becomes a symphony—the wind through leaves, insects in the soil, Wes’s frantic breathing, footsteps pounding toward us from the sanctuary. I can smell each person approaching: Stellan’s scent like expensive cologne and something darkly sweet that must be what an incubus carries, Thane’s distinctive lack of heartbeat that marks him as vampire.
My vision blurs as my skull reshapes itself. Not breaking—expanding. Making room for senses I’ve never had, instincts I’ve kept buried so deep I almost forgot they existed. The pain is excruciating, but underneath it runs a current of relief so strong it nearly makes me sob.
“What’s happening to him?” Wes demands as they reach us.
“About damn time,” Stellan says, and there’s satisfaction in his voice that cuts through my agony.
Through the haze of pain, I see Thane nod once, studying me with those calculating silver eyes. Not concerned. Not trying to stop what’s happening.
Almost like he approves.
“You’re not going to help him?” Wes’s voice cracks.
“This isn’t something that can be stopped,” Thane says simply. “Only endured.”
The bones in my arms start to lengthen. Not breaking—changing. Like they’re remembering a shape they used to hold. My teeth ache,my jaw pops and stretches, and suddenly I can taste the air in ways I never imagined. Every molecule carries information: the iron tang of Wes’s blood, the old magic soaked into the sanctuary stones, the faint trace of something wrong that clings to the building like smoke.
I try to hold on to myself, to the Gray who observes and calculates and stays in control. But that version of me feels small now, cramped, like I’ve been trying to fit into a space that was never meant for what I’m becoming.
My muscles tear and rebuild themselves. Tendons stretch and snap back stronger. My ribcage expands to accommodate lungs that suddenly need more air, more space. Somewhere in the distance, I hear myself making sounds that aren’t quite human—growls and whimpers that seem to come from something buried so deep I forgot it existed.
The scent of earth and growing things floods my senses. I can smell the individual trees in the garden, track the path of every small animal that’s passed through in the last day, feel the pulse of life that runs through everything around me like a heartbeat I can finally hear.
The pain reaches a crescendo that whites out my vision completely.
Then it stops.
The agony cuts off like someone flipped a switch, leaving behind a calm so profound it’s almost shocking. My breathing slows, deepens. The frantic energy that’s driven me for months—the constant need to pace and watch and catalog threats—simply vanishes.
I feel right for the first time in my life.
