Chapter 64: Ash Between Their Steps
"Why the hell are you out here alone?"
Rhett’s voice snapped through the silence like a whip, raw and unforgiving. Savannah didn’t flinch, she had been expecting him, just not so soon. Her arms folded over her chest, the wind tugging at her coat as if trying to pull her away from the cliff’s edge. The desert stretched endlessly before her, dust clouds rising in the distance like ghosts of old wars.
"Because I needed to think," she replied calmly, though her pulse betrayed her stillness. "And because you wouldn’t."
He moved closer, his boots crunching over gravel and cracked earth. His eyes, wild with a sleepless fury, found hers in the dim moonlight. "So you run off to the ridge like a lost soul? You think that solves anything?"
"No," she said, chin lifted. "But silence does."
His jaw clenched. The air between them carried a heat that had nothing to do with weather. The kind that sparked off kindling long before the fire appeared. But tonight, that fire had too many names: Camille. Lucia Thorne. The Ghost Alpha. The Syndicate. War.
"You were supposed to stay inside. You’re not safe out here," he hissed. "Not now. Not after what she said."
Savannah took a slow breath. "You mean your mother?"
He turned away, shoulders tight with the weight of that word. "She’s not my mother. Not anymore."
"Rhett," she stepped forward, voice softer now. "She’s real. She’s coming. Hiding won’t erase her name."
He didn’t speak for a moment. When he finally did, it wasn’t to her. "I buried her. With my own hands. I saw her bleed out. I felt her body go cold. If she’s alive... then everything I knew, everything I built, was a lie."