LOGIN• Nelson •Fuck, he smells divine.I muttered the words into his hair without meaning to, inhaling him like I’d been starving for it and hadn’t realized until just now. Jason and I had both wrapped around him at the same moment, and neither of us seemed inclined to let go anytime soon.. not after everything, not after the portal, not after weeks of not knowing if he was even alive.“You guys are really here,” Caleb said again, like he needed to say it out loud a second time to believe it.“Are you okay?” I asked, pulling back just enough to look at him properly, searching his face for anything he might be trying to hide from us. “Have you been fine?”His jaw tightened, and something flickered behind his eyes before he answered. “No. I’ve not been fine.”The honesty of it hit harder than I expected. Part of me had wanted him to lie, to say he was okay so I could pretend the last few weeks hadn’t been what they were. But Caleb had never been good at giving us easy answers, and I loved t
• Jason •Walking through the portal and stepping out into total silence should have felt like relief. Instead, it felt wrong.I had braced myself for chaos... for guards swarming the second we crossed, for a war breaking out before we’d even gotten our bearings. I had pictured blood before I’d pictured Caleb. That was what centuries of training did to you; it made you plan for the worst first and hope for anything better second.But there was nothing. No vampires rushing toward us with weapons drawn. Just stone room stretching out in front of us, quiet and undisturbed, like we’d stepped into an empty house instead of enemy territory.“This is way too easy,” I said, turning to my brother. “I mean, walking in here and finding no one waiting for us on the other side… that’s suspicious. I was expecting a full-blown war the second we crossed.”Nelson didn’t answer right away. He was looking past me, his expression caught somewhere between confusion and disbelief.“Look,” he said instead.
• CALEB •“Seriously, man, you need to stop all this drama.”I froze.The words did not come from James. They came from inside my head. I wiped the tears from my face and stared at the man standing in front of me, while Stormy continued before I could tell him to shut up.“Yes, you were hurt. Congratulations. You have discovered that the ancient vampire king who kidnapped you and has been manipulating your life for centuries is not exactly the most trustworthy person in the world.”“Stormy.”“No, listen to me.”“I am listening.”“Then use your brain.”I stared at James.He was still standing in front of me with that expression on his face. The expression that had once made me want to reach for him. The expression that had made me believe he was hurting because of me.The expression that could still be completely genuine.Or completely fake.And that was the problem.I had no idea anymore.“Caleb.”I blinked.James was watching me.“Are you alright?”Stormy made a sound inside my head.
• CALEB •“Stop.”The word came out louder than I meant it to and James stopped, for a moment, neither of us moved.My chest rose and fell too quickly, my fingers still digging into my arms as if I could somehow scrub away eight years of memories by force. I wanted to get him off me. I wanted to rip every memory of him out of my body and throw it away.I wanted to go back to the moment before I recognized him and I felt like laughing at my own stupidity for eight fucking years.I looked at the man standing in front of me and my stomach twisted again. Heaven I feel so disgusted with myself and the way he was looking at me.“Don’t look at me like that,” I said.James frowned slightly. “Like what?”“Like you don’t understand why I feel disgusted.”Something moved across his face, I almost hated him more for that.“You are not allowed to look hurt,” I said.His expression stilled.“You are not allowed to stand there and look at me like I have done something to you.” My voice shook as I po
• CALEB • “Luke~~~” The name left my mouth before I could stop it. I stood in the middle of the room, staring at the man in front of me, and for a second, my mind refused to process what my eyes were seeing. Luke. The man I had known for eight year and who had held me while I cried when my mom died, who had listened to me complain about my life, who had kissed me in the back of his car when we were both too young and stupid to understand that love was supposed to be complicated. The man I had loved and I had left and also cried over when I had convinced myself that walking away from him was the right thing to do. He stood in front of me now with the same face after seeing him melt like butter months back. He still has the same brown hair, eyes and the same mouth that had once smiled at me across a tiny restaurant table because I had accidentally spilled an entire glass of water into his lap. “Cal.” he called my entire body went still. Stormy moved inside my head. “Wait.” I didn't
• JAMES • The door closed behind me and my face changed, no sudden coldness, no mask dropping with theatrical finality. Just a settling. The particular settling of a face that had been holding something for several hours releasing the effort of it, the way a hand released a grip it had been maintaining carefully for a long time. The warmth that had been present in that room stayed in the room. Out here, in the corridor, with the door between us, I didn’t need it. I walked the corridor outside Caleb’s room connected to the main residential wing of the Obsidian Hall through three successive passageways, each one older than the last, the stone becoming more worn and more intricately carved as you moved deeper into the structure. I had walked this route thousands of times in various states of mind over the centuries and my feet knew it without my attention, which freed my attention for other things. The first servant I passed bowed immediately and said nothing. The second did the
•CALEB•I didn’t realize how much a place could hold you until I had to leave it. The bus moved slowly at first, pulling away from the station like it was giving me one last chance to change my mind. One last chance to stand up, grab my bag, and run back to everything I just destroyed with my own h
•CALEB•“Let’s break up.” The words came out of my mouth, but they didn’t feel like mine. They felt forced. Dragged out of a place inside me that was already bleeding.Luke froze like I had just hit him.Worse.His fingers tightened around mine almost instantly, like letting go would make it real.
•JASON•I stared at my brother like he had finally lost whatever sanity he had left. Not the usual kind of crazy Nelson carried around like a second skin.No.This was different, this was the kind of madness that could get us both killed.“Mark him.” The words still echoed in my head like he hadn’t
•NELSON•“Alpha Nelson…” Derick’s voice cut through my head without warning, sharp through the mind link, and every instinct in me went on alert immediately. Not because of what he said. But because of what I was holding in my arms.My mate.I tightened my grip slightly around him as I moved throug







