Chapter 18 The Hollow Howl
Rhett POV
They laid her on the table like a sacrifice.
The healers whispered, their hands slick with blood, relics glowing faintly as they tried everything they knew. Herbs. Heatstones. A defibrating rune. Nothing worked. The light in her chest was gone.
I stood over them, my fists clenched, every breath a fight not to shift.
Her body looked small now, stripped of armor and defiance. The black and red hair I’d fisted when I’d bitten her hung limp against her neck. My mark was still there, two crescent scars over her pulse. My claim. My curse.
Garran’s voice cracked from the doorway. “We found her near the ruins, my king. The vampires drained her. The blood loss...”
“Stop.”
He fell silent.
The word drained hit me harder than claws.
Kaen prowled just beneath my skin, pacing and snarling. "They touched what’s ours."
“She was never ours,” I said, though my throat burned.
"You bit her," Kaen snapped. "You made her ours."
“She was human.”
"She was fire."
The healers stepped back at last, their faces gray with failure. “Her heart stopped,” one whispered. “It’s over.”
I barely heard him. The room pulsed with the smell of death and smoke, and something deep inside me broke.
She’d been alive when I last saw her, snarling at me through blood, defiant as any wolf, throwing herself at monsters twice her size. I hadn’t meant to bite her that night. It had been instinct, madness, and battle haze.
I stared at her pale throat, at the bruise around my bite. My hand twitched.
Kaen’s voice softened, low and ragged. "Call her back."
I didn’t answer.
Because I couldn’t.
The healers murmured prayers, covering her with a linen sheet. I wanted to tear it off, to shake her until she opened her eyes, to scream until the walls fell. Instead, I just stood there while the sound of my own heartbeat filled the silence.
Too loud. Too fast. Too wrong.
“Leave,” I said.
The healers froze. Garran took a cautious step forward. “My king...”
“I said leave!”
My voice came out raw, breaking the air like thunder.
They scattered, their heads bowed. The door closed behind them, leaving me alone with her and the echo of my own breathing.
Kaen growled low inside me. "You shouldn’t have sent them away."
“I don’t want witnesses.”
"To what?"
I didn’t know.
The den felt smaller by the second. The smell of her blood soaked everything. I ripped the sheet off her, needing to see her one last time, and nearly choked on what was left of her scent, smoke, lavender, and something wild beneath.
My pulse thundered again erratically. My chest ached.
Kaen went quiet. "You feel that?"
“Pain,” I bit out.
"No. Listen."
It was faint, a flicker at the edge of sense, a beat inside my ribs that didn’t match my own. I pressed a hand to my sternum, frowning. The rhythm was there and not there, soft and foreign, like the echo of another life trapped under my skin.
I shook my head. “Hallucination.”
Kaen snarled. "It’s her. She’s still here."
“Shut up.”
"You can deny it, but the bond doesn’t lie."
I looked at her again. She didn’t look alive. Her skin was cooling, and her lips were cracked. But I could still feel her heartbeat somewhere deep, muffled and strange.
It made me furious.
“How dare you,” I whispered. “How dare you die with my mark still on you.”
The rage came fast and ugly. I slammed my fist into the wall, stone shattering under my hand. Pain shot through my arm and I welcomed it. Anything to drown out that phantom pulse.
Kaen didn’t speak. He just ached with me.
“I didn’t even know your name when I bit you,” I said. “Didn’t know you’d crawl under my damn skin.”
The silence that followed was unbearable. My heart thudded again, hers, mine, both, and I hated that I couldn’t tell them apart.
Garran’s scent approached the door. I didn’t turn when it opened.
“My king,” he said carefully, his eyes flicking to her body. “The pack waits for your orders.”
I didn’t move.
“She’s gone,” he said softly. “There’s nothing left you can do.”
He shouldn’t have said that.
I turned slowly, the air between us thick with threat. “You think I don’t know that?”
Garran lowered his gaze immediately. “Of course not. I only...”
“Get out.”
“My king...”
“Out!”
The roar ripped from my throat before I could stop it. Garran flinched, bowed, and left without another word. The heavy door slammed behind him.
The silence returned, thick and choking.
Kaen’s voice was softer now, almost mourning. "You always push them away when you’re breaking."
“I’m not breaking.”
"Then what’s this?"
I didn’t answer. My hand was still pressed to my chest, tracing the rhythm that wasn’t mine.
I’d felt her heartbeat inside me the moment my teeth sank into her flesh. I hadn’t understood it then, just a flicker of heat and a strange tether. Now it was an anchor dragging me under.
I reached out, my fingers trembling, and brushed her cheek. Cold. Too cold.
Kaen whined, a sound I’d never heard from him before. "She’s ours, Rhett."
“She was human,” I whispered. “And she’s dead.”
"Then why does she still burn through you?"
I wanted to tear that feeling out of my chest. I wanted to run until the forest swallowed me whole. Instead, I sank to my knees beside the table and let my hand rest against her arm.
The bond flared. A flash of heat, a faint spark, gone before I could grasp it.
My breath caught.
Kaen went still. "She’s not finished."
I squeezed my eyes shut. “Stop. You’re hearing ghosts.”
"Maybe." His voice rumbled through my bones. "But that heartbeat isn’t a ghost, my king. It’s a promise."
I opened my eyes again. She looked peaceful, almost smug, like she’d known she’d get the last word.
“I should burn you,” I said quietly. “That’s what we do with the dead.”
But I didn’t move. Couldn’t.
I just sat there in the half-light, the echo of her pulse whispering through my veins, and waited for it to fade.
It didn’t.
By the time the candles guttered out, I realized something else.....I wasn’t waiting for it to fade.
I was waiting for it to come back.