“But you couldn’t even see me standing right in front of you,” he purrs as shadows form at his feet. “Not even when I was inside of you.”
The words crawl under my skin like hands.
I can’t breathe.
Horror crawls up my throat.
The supply room. His hands on me.Your father says hi.
The sanctuary. The corruption threading through my Ether.Daddy will be so pleased.
In the Void when I wanted nothing more than his touch, his power to consume me.Do you feel it? How right this is?
Every moment I thought I was escaping him, he wasright there.
The mist lashes outward, striking the ground in silver arcs that hiss like lightning in rain.
Behind me, someone makes a sound—half rage, half devastation. Gray’s voice cuts through the shock, raw and broken: “You son of a bitch.”
Rhett’s heat flares so violently the air shimmers. Wes goes absolutely still, the kind of stillness that comes before violence. Theo’s breathing turns sharp and uneven, like he’s fighting not to collapse under the weight of what this means.
And Thane—
Thane already knew.
I can feel it in the way he doesn’t move, doesn’t react. He’s known, or suspected, and never said a word.
The ground trembles. The silver veins pulse erratically, light flickering like a dying heartbeat.
“No,” I whisper again, but it’s not denial. It’s rage.
The mist rises, wild and bright, straining against my control.
Ethos smiles—Phil’s face wearing an expression that was never his to begin with.
“Welcome home, little queen,” he says softly. “We have so much to discuss.”
Chapter 51
Bree
The glamour falls.
Not slowly. Not dramatically.
It juststops.
Phil’s body doesn’t twist or transform—it simply sheds pretense like a snake shedding skin. His eyes go black, shot through with silver that moves like liquid mercury. His voice reverberates, layered over itself until I can’t tell where one tone ends and another begins.
The air around him hums like a tuning fork struck too hard.
I try to move—try to call the Ether,something—but he’s faster.
“Don’t—” I start.
Too late.
The guys charge as one. Rhett leads with fire blazing around his fists, Gray half-shifted mid-motion, Jace’s blades flashing silver in the light. Theo and Wes channel energy behind them.
