Chapter 21 Twenty One
Kieran's POV
I broke the kiss, gasping. My heart was thumping at my tasting the lining of my ribs.
I shouldn't have done that. I had held my emotions in check for twenty years, never allowing anyone close enough to hurt me. Never letting myself feel as much as a cold calculation.
But Rhea’s eyes were wide and blue, her mouth swollen with my kiss, and I found I couldn’t regret it.
“I’m sorry,” I said, the sounds foreign in my mouth. I never apologized. "I shouldn't have—"
"Please," Rhea interjected, her hand grasping mine. “Don’t be sorry about telling me the truth.”
She got up, and I did too, knowing without thinking about it that I would have to get to my feet if she did.
“Everyone else is trying to save me, control me, work me over,” she continued, her voice steady in spite of everything. ” “But you just told me the truth. Even if it hurt."
Well, I wasn’t quite sure how to respond to that. In my experience, truth was a weapon. Something to be used sparingly or done without at all.
She stepped a little closer, and I determined not to fall back. I wasn’t going to build the walls I’d just torn down.
"Talk to me about Elara," she whispered. “Talk to me about who you were before you learned not to feel.”
I should have been angered at the request. Should have sent me running. Instead, I found myself nodding.
The two of us sat together on the bench, and I began to jabber.
This is a name I haven't said out loud in 20 years. Twenty years since I’d allowed myself to think of her as anything other than a cautionary tale about the perils of caring.
“We got together when we were eighteen,” I started, looking at the fountain. "I was arrogant back then. Thought I was invincible. Orin and I had just helped our father claim the Moonvale packs, and I thought nothing could hurt us.”
Rhea heard and listened in silence, her hand resting in mine.
“Elara had been of one of the smaller packs we'd taken in. She fucking called me out in a training session, knocked me on my ass in front of everyone.” The memory did elicit a ghost of a smile to my lips. "I was furious. Humiliated. But she only laughed and extended her hand to me.”
“She sounds brave,” Rhea said softly.
"She was fearless." I swallowed hard. "She challenged everything about me. Made me wonder about my assumptions, and my cruelty. She looked through the cold warrior to something warmer underneath.”
The memories were arriving more rapidly now, painful and bittersweet. Elara's laugh. The way she’d roll her eyes at my emotions. And how she had the power to make me smile when nothing else did.
"The mate bond formed quickly. In a matter of weeks, we had gone through the ritual. I was whole for the first time in my life. As if I’d discovered the part of myself that was missing.”
"What happened?" “Why was he in Washington?” Rhea said, though I suspected she knew already.
"Rogues attacked. It was coordinated, planned. They hit multiple borders simultaneously." My hands clenched into fists. “I was in charge of the defense on the western border, where their main force hit. Elara was the eastern continent, it was supposed to be safe with its full garrison of warriors.”
With sick precision, the night rolled back in my head. The sounds of battle. The smell of blood. The moment I’d sensed the mate bond beginning to deteriorate.
“I got to her too late. The rogues had broken through. She was being torn apart trying to defend the civilians.” My voice broke and I did all I could not to allow it. "I held her as she died. Felt the mate bond Shear through him like a physical wound. She said, “Keep pushing, take care of Orin, don’t let her death break you.”
“But it did,” Rhea said softly.
"Yes." The admission cost me. "I wanted to die too. I plunged into the fight, hoping something would kill me. But Orin pulled me back, made me keep living. After that, I repressed all feeling. Built walls so high nothing get through.”
I finally looked at Rhea. "I became this. Cold. Calculating. Empty. It was safer than feeling.’
I’m not asking you to replace her,” Rhea said, her voice gentle but firm. "I could never do that. But perhaps you could allow yourself to feel again without it being a betrayal of her memory.”
The blows didn’t hurt as much as the words. Because that’s what I’d been thinking too. That caring about Rhea was a betrayal of what Elara and I had had.
“The mate bond doesn’t leave us much of a choice, in any case,” I said bitterly.
"Maybe not." Rhea shifted closer. “But what we can decide is how to deal with it. We can fight it and be miserable, or we can..."
She faltered, biting her lip. The gesture was unconsciously seductive.
"Or we can what?" I said, leaning in against my will.
Rhea's cheeks flushed. "Accept it. Try to make it work."
There was a hole in her voice that kicked something loose inside me. I held her face, my thumb caressing her cheek.
"You have four mates, Rhea. Each will be owned by four men, and they will own all of you. How does that work?”
"I don't know," she whispered. “But I’m game if you are.”
The offer was genuine. I saw it in her eyes, I felt it in the growing connection between us.
I was just about to kiss her again, to cement whatever it was that we were starting when Orin's voice cleaved the night.
"There you are!"
I withdrew from Rhea as my sister came near. He was doing better than he had been hours earlier—having lost the pain and stiffness, although still favoring his injured ribs.
“We’ve been searching everywhere for you,” Orin said, then fell silent.
He noted the fact that Rhea and I were so close together, hands still joined. For a second, something passed across his face. Jealousy, perhaps, or hurt.
But then his usual cocky smile slipped back in, slick as oil. "Am I interrupting?"
"Yes," I said flatly.
But Rhea looked down at my hand, squeezed it, and rose. "What's wrong?"
Orin's smile faded. "Theron collapsed again. The curse. It's getting worse."
We ran back to the mansion together. I matched Rhea’s pace, my hand on her lower back in a protective gesture that was as strange to me as it was second nature.
Theron's quarters were in chaos.
On the ground was The Lycan, his huge form writhing. Miriam was on her knees next to him, her hands alight with healing magic that obviously wasn’t working. Marcus and a few would-be warriors stood helpless.
"What happened?" “Theron!” Rhea screamed, falling to her knees beside him.
“The curse speeded up,” Miriam said hastily. “His mind and body are refusing to accept that their bond is not whole. He must go through the courtship. Tonight. Or he won’t live to see the morning.”
There were other vampires and Rhea’s terror spiked into our bond. She held Theron’s hand, and his silver eyes opened a little, but they were unfocused when he gazed at her.
"Don't," he rasped. “Don’t you do this to save me.
But I could already see the resolve hardening into Rhea’s face. She'd made her decision.
“What do I do?” she whispered to Miriam.
Cassian walked in as the witch started to tell them about the ritual. He blinked at the sight and moved to Rhea’s other side.
Now Orin and I were there too. Her four mates all in one place, for the first time.
The tension was suffocating. I could smell everyone's emotions. Cassian's desperate concern. Orin's barely contained jealousy. My battle of wanting Rhea to be safe, but not want her to have an attachment with another male.
And beneath it all, Theron’s pain and pride battling against his will to survive.
“Everybody out,” Rhea announced, her voice somehow full of authority. "Except Theron. We're doing this now."
"Rhea—" Cassian started.
"Out." She eyed us one by one. "Please. He needs this, and I can’t do it with an audience.”
Orin reached in his hand and touched her shoulder and moved first toward the door. Cassian hesitated but followed, stealing one last anxious glance.
I was the last to leave. I looked into Rhea’s eyes and spotted the fear behind the determination.
"You're sure?" I asked quietly.
She nodded. "I'm sure."
I wanted to caution her to be careful. That there was no undoing a mating bond. That she ought to think about it.
But Theron was dying, and Rhea had made her decision.
So I walked out and closed the door behind me.