Chapter 28 Twenty Eight
Theron's POV
I found myself outside the chamber where I knew Lilith would be waiting, almost every single one of my instincts telling me it was wrong to let Rhea go in there.
The female Lycan was dangerous. Not in a literal sense, although she was more than capable of defending herself in battle. But in the manner she contorted truth and memory, weaponizing the past to clobber the present.
“You don’t listen to anything she says, whatever she tells you,” I said, holding Rhea’s hand. “Keep in mind, it is her version of the truth. Painted in the solemn colours of three hundred years of suppressed anger and pain.”
Rhea gripped my hand and held my gaze with her steady blue eyes. "I can sense your fear down the link. What is she about to say to me?”
My jaw clenched. We had bonded and she could feel my feeling even when I tried to bury them. It was comforting and terrifying at the same time.
“Something I should have informed you personally."
I inhaled and squeezed the words out. Lilith's sister, the witch who cursed me. I didn’t just defeat her in the battlefield. I tortured her first. To report an attack on my pack.
This time Rhea’s eyes drifted a little wider, but she didn’t recoil.
“She died in torment, cursing me with her dying breath. The curse was not only a punishment for killing her. That was punishment for how I murdered her.”
"Why didn't you share this in our bonding ceremony?" Rhea asked quietly. “I saw a lot of your memories. Why hide this?"
"Shame," I said simply. “I still feel nauseous when I think about it, three centuries later. I was another person then. Cruel, ruthless. I reassured myself that it was needed, that war called for tough measures. But the fact is I loved it. The power. The control."
Rhea contemplated my face for a long time. "And now?"
"Now I know better." I kissed her hand from my mouth. “Curse taught me what I was doing to the others. A thousand years of loneliness, of isolation, of pain. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.”
She nodded slowly. ‘I will give a listening ear to Lilith. “But I’m not going in there blind anymore.”
She gently withdrew her hand and stepped into Lilith's room. The door slammed shut behind her, and I was alone in the corridor.
I wanted to follow. Stand between Rhea and whatever venom Lilith intended to spew. But Rhea was adamant about going solo, and I respected that.
Footsteps approached. Cassian emerged, his alpha power humming in the air around him.
We eyed each other warily. Just two days before, we’d been enemies. Now we were married to the same woman, a union neither of us craved.
"She's tough," Cassian finally said, ending the silence. "Stronger than either of us gave her credit for."
I nodded stiffly. “The chains are making her stronger. With each one she completes, more of her hybrid power is unlocked. By the time all four are complete, she’ll be dangerous.”
We fell into uncomfortable silence. I heard sounds of muted voices from Lilith’s room, but couldn’t distinguish the words.
“I don’t want this anymore than you,” Cassian said quietly. "Sharing her. But the prophecy—"
“To hell with the prophecy,” I snarled, losing it. "I have known what it is to be three hundred years alone. Centuries of isolation and pain. I finally have a mate, and now I’m supposed to share her with three others?”
There was possessiveness in my voice for sure. I was aware of Rhea through the bond back then all the time. Knowing that she was mine, that we were bound on a primal level.
But she was also Cassian's. And Orin's bond was forming. (
And Kieran’s would, one day, despite his refusal.
Cassian's silver eyes flashed. "You think I'm thrilled? I have loved her my whole life. I kept an eye on her from afar, would protect when I could. I’d been in love with Rhea since before I knew what love was.”
His voice roughened. “But this is about more than what we want. The prophecy foretells four mates to bond four bloodlines. To create peace between shifters and wolves. If we squabble over her, if jealousies between us rip us apart, then everyone dies. Including her."
He was right, and I hated it.
"How do we do this?" It was the question I had been avoiding so, naturally, that is what I asked. “How do four territorial alpha males share one mate without killing each other?”
Cassian sagged against the wall, appearing as drained as I felt. "I don't know. But I know that we’ll just have to agree not to fight over her. That’s precisely what our enemies want. For us to eat each other alive so they can swoop in and snatch her.”
I considered this. "A truce, then. Between the four of us. For her sake."
"For her sake," Cassian agreed.
We shook hands, though the gesture rang empty. How could we make a promise of not being jealous when every cell in our body would screech such a violation screaming? “I don’t want to share it!” When the mate bond asked for nothing less than singular linkage?
“The twins are the wild cards,” Cassian replied. “Orin’s bond is pulling together now that he’s been healed by Rhea. But Kieran..."
"Kieran suppresses everything," I finished. “He’s been dead inside for twenty years. He’s gonna fight the bond harder than all of us combined.”
“Can anyone fight off a mate bond entirely?” Cassian asked.
"No." I shook my head. "Eventually, it will break through. The question is how much damage he does to himself and everyone else in the meantime.”
‘Before we could say more, Rhea came out from Lilith's room.
She looked white and her hands trembled. I could feel through the bond her shock, her confusion, her hurt.
It was her, and I hugged her to me. "What did she tell you?"
Rhea's voice was flat she said. "Everything. About the torture. How Lilith had tried to prevent you, but you would not listen to her. About how her sister’s curse was supposed to teach you empathy, explain that which you caused others.”
She pulled away and looked at me, tears streaming down her face. “But that’s not the worst of it.
My stomach dropped. "What else?"
Rhea took a shuddering breath. "Lilith is pregnant. With your child. From before the wars, from before you were cursed.”
The words didn't make sense. "That's impossible. It's been three hundred years."
“She’s been in stasis,” Rhea muttered. “Living the pregnancy through dark, dark magic. The curse held her in limbo between life and death, the pregnancy with her. Now that you fixed the curse, by getting all connected to me, she’s pregnant again.”
She covered her mouth with her hand. "She showed me. The magical signature. It's definitely yours."
The world tilted beneath me. A child. My child. With Lilith. After three hundred years.
"Rhea, I didn't know—"
“I know you did not,” she interrupted. "I can sense it in the bond. Your shock is genuine. But it doesn't change anything. You're going to be a father, Theron.”
Her voice broke. "And Lilith wants to help raise the child. She wants you back."
I cupped Rhea's face and made her gaze up at me. "I don't want her. I want you. Only you."
"But the child—"
“We’ll find a way,” I said, my heart about to break. "Together. It's the child who is blameless in this. But Lilith and I are done. We’v been done for three hundred years. Nothing changes that."
"How can you be sure?" Rhea asked. "She was your first love. She's carrying your child. How do I compete with that?"
"You don't compete." I leaned my forehead against hers. "You've already won. When I had finished melding with you, from that very moment on, you became my world. That is just what a true mate bond was all about.”
Cassian cleared his throat. "Even though we know she has every reason to be scared. Do not imagine that Lilith will surrender just like that. And a child provides her lever.”
An explosion shook the building before Rhea could answer.
We were banged against the wall by it. Chunks of stone and dust fell from the ceiling.
A sheet of flame burst out on the western wall itself, rising a pair of coronas up either side of it into the corridors.
Deciphering figures through the smoke, I saw men rushing in. Not shifters. Not organized soldiers. These were a flailing, insane mob, all sense of organization gone in the blood frenzy.
Rogues. Hundreds of them.
Marcus dashed forward, with a dour look on his face. "My lord! We're under attack by rogues. Five hundred or so at least, I would guess. And they're being led by—"
He paused and stared in disbelief, at something beyond the flames.
I turned to where he was looking and my blood froze.
The rogues were led by a face I had last seen 20 years ago. A face I’d seen every time I looked in a mirror.
My face. But wrong. Twisted by madness and hate.
"Damon," I breathed.
My brother. My twin. The one I had killed to stop a civil war that would have wiped out our pack.
Unless, it seemed, I hadn’t killed him at all.