Chapter 16 Sixteen
THERON'S POV
When I saw red, it was primal.
Rhea was sitting on Cassian’s bed in his room when he appeared. She had his hand clasped with hers, and I could only see it as a lover’s grip.
It took every ounce of control I had not to descend into the room and rip her away. Mine. You’re mine. As if I hadn’t declared as much and fought for her to know the same. Blood ties were ancient, and while every fiber of my being screamed against it, the rational Alpha, fighting its way through three hundred years of war and betrayal, understood.
The prophecy was playing out as predicted. Four mates. Four bloodlines. I should have expected this. “Get out,” I told him in a dead calm voice, on the edge of violence. A shiver ran through Rhea as she stood up, putting herself between us. “Theron, no, we were just talking.”
“In his room. Alone. In the middle of the night.” We had spoken in low tones after everyone else went to bed. I was aware now of Cassian’s scent playing around my nostrils and hers; it was too soon to be strong, too soon to compare to the mate I could still smell in her skin. The tiger, the one whose blood created us. I sawed out each word. I could have ripped his throat out with them without breaking a sweat. She was coming to my side.
“Theron, please. Can we talk about this somewhere else?”
“So you can protect him?” I was cruel without meaning to be. “He doesn’t need your protection anymore, Rhea. He’s a true Alpha now, remember?”
“That’s not fair,” she said softly.
"None of this is fair." I made myself breathe, to keep the rage at bay before it devoured me. “You’re forming those relationships with him, too. The prophecy is real. You have multiple mates."
"I know," Rhea whispered. "I can feel it. The pull toward him. “It’s not like it is with you, but it’s there.”
The admission shouldn't have hurt. I'd known it was coming. But hearing her speak it out loud, something snapped in me.
“Rest up,” I told her, my voice flat. "Both of you."
And then I walked away before I did something stupid.
I got to my study before the shaking began.
My hands shook as I poured myself a glass. Whiskey, amber and burning. I drank it in one gulp and I poured another.
Three hundred years alone. 300 years of exile and solitude and that fucking curse rotting me from the inside out.
What’s more, just when I had at last located the woman of my dreams there was another guy in on the action.
The universe had a vile sense of humor.
I was going for a third drink when the pain came.
It began with a dull ache in my chest, and then it shot out through me like lightning in my veins. I inhaled sharply, dropping the glass and its contents which crashed upon the floor.
Not now. Not again.
I tried to keep standing up, but my legs went out from under me. I fell against my desk, causing papers and books to scatter. My vision blurred. For a moment, I was not sure if I was in my study or back in that accursed forest where it had all started.
“Breathe,” I hissed to myself through clenched teeth. "Just breathe."
But breathing hurts. Everything hurts.
The door burst open. Marcus showed up, scanning the situation at a glance.
“FUCK,” he groaned, running over to where I was lying. "How bad?"
"Bad," I managed to get out.
He seated me in a chair, his firm hands supporting my trembling frame. "This is getting worse. More frequent."
"I know."
"You must come to the mating ceremony with Rhea. Tonight. Or this will kill you."
I knew he was right. The curse, it was… speeding up, my body pushing back against the unfinished bond. The longer I waited every day was a day nearer to death.
“She’s making connections with Cassian as well now,” I whispered when I could finally form words. "The prophecy is real. She has multiple mates."
There was a moment of silence with Marcus. "Then you just need to finish first in forming the bond. Prove your right to it before the rest."
The mercenary logic made sense. In a universe of alphas and ranks, position one mattered. It would be an advantage for me, a stronger tie.
But something about that felt wrong. Like I’d be using her… like I’d be taking unfair advantage of her kindness and her healing nature to save myself. “I can’t,” I said.
“You can’t, or you won’t?” Marcus asked. “Because from where I’m standing, you’re choosing pride over survival.”
“I’m choosing her agency over my needs.” I forced myself to stand, testing my legs. They held.
“She deserves the freedom to make her own choice, rather than being virtually forced to accept me by the hanging axe of my curse.”
“Noble,” Marcus snapped, “and stupid. What good will you do for her if you’re dead?”
“Fine,” I said. “I’ll talk to her. In the morning. Let her decide.”
Marcus didn’t look happy, but he nodded. “Don’t wait too long, Waterbinder. I’ve seen men die from less aggressive curses than yours.”
After he was gone, I sat in my study and watched the sun rise through the window slits. I was incapable of sleep, though the ache-after the agony that throbbed my body from grim dusk to new dawn-was gone. But the fear Ursula had driven into my bones-that remained, a wound I couldn’t heal no matter how I grappled with it. I was running out of time. At dawn, I went in search of Rhea... and found her in the garden, sitting slumped by the fountain. She looked exhausted, dark circles under her eyes. She hadn’t rested, either. I sat beside her, not bothering to ask permission. For a long moment-a long time-we said nothing. We just sat side by side in the growing morning light, listening to the water.
“I’m sorry,” Rhea finally said. “I shouldn’t have gone to his room.”
“You have nothing to apologize for,” I said, for the words seemed right. “Your mate is being drawn to him: I understand that.”
Rhea swiveled to look at me, really regard me. “But it’s dragging me ashore, to you as well. Even stronger, maybe, just because we’ve had more time together.”
Except now the tightness in my chest was for another reason. Not jealousy, but something warmer. Dangerous in its own way.
“The curse is getting worse,” I murmured. It cost me words to say each one, but she deserved the truth. "I'm dying, Rhea. Slowly, but inevitably. Unless we finish the mating.”
"I know," she said softly. "Miriam told me."
Of course she did. The witch just never kept her trap shut when she could sense someone needed a bit of intel.
Rhea laid her hand on mine, and its contact seemed to give me a kind of feeling within. Comfort. Peace. Things I'd almost forgotten existed.
"I'm not ready to give you up, Theron," she replied. “Even though I hardly know you. Not that any of this isn’t proceeding too quickly already.”
She rose, taking me with her. The morning light tangled in her brown hair, setting it aglow. She looked determined. Beautiful. Mine.
"So let's do it," she said. "The ritual. Tonight."
I looked at her, hoping to see a reluctance. For doubt. For any hint that she was feeling guilty rather than opting with her whole earnest heart to do this.
“You don’t need to do this,” I said. "Not for me."
“Perhaps I don’t just do it for you. She took a couple of steps closer, until I could feel her breath on me. "Maybe I'm doing it for us. For while despite everything I think they kidnapped you and created chaos and fulfilled some prophecy”
Something inside of me came undone with the confession. Some wall I’d been keeping, some distance I’d been maintaining.
I clutched her close to my body, as if a space of even an inch between us would make her vanish. She was a perfect fit in the curve of my body; her head snugged underneath my chin.
"Rhea," I breathed into her hair. "I don't deserve you."
“Let me be the judge of that.”
I was both wanting to reply, unable to hold back all that I had secreted away, when suddenly a howl cut through the air.
We both tensed. That wasn't one of my pack. The tone was wrong, aggressive.
Marcus charged through the garden, a fierce look on his face.
"My lord," he said urgently. The alpha twins have an army on our borders. They're saying that we should return Lady Rhea."
My arms tightened around Rhea. "Tell them no."
"There's more." Marcus looked at Rhea, then he turned around and looked at me. "They've brought someone with them. A woman. A Lycan."
My blood ran cold. "What?"
“Says her name is Lilith. Marcus hesitated, not getting the point. “She claims to have searched three centuries for you.”
The world seemed to tilt.
Lilith. Alive.
I'd watched her die. Had watched the shifters tear our people apart, had seen her fall to their claws.
I'd mourned her for centuries.
And now she was here, at my border, with the twins who sought to take my mate.
I wasn't feeling strong enough to lift her; but she drew back from me and lifted up her face. "Who is Lilith?"
“Someone who is part of my past,” I murmured, hollow. "Someone who should be dead."