WAR OF HEARTS ↠ KOL MIKAELSON [1]

2:17

| THE STAND:
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN |

Rhea had been trying to clean her apartment for over an hour.

Books reorganized. Furniture shifted. Rugs re-centered. Her hands were raw from scrubbing the floors—blood and magic had stained the tiles near the entryway, and she swore she could still smell her mother's perfume lingering in the air like a curse that refused to fade.

She changed the throw pillows. Burned sage. Even switched out the curtains.

But nothing worked.

No matter how many cosmetic changes she made, the memories clung to the walls like shadows. The betrayal. The pain. The sound of her own gasps as her magic was torn from her body. The sight of Ares lying beside her, unconscious, the life nearly drained from both of them.

This place had been hers. A sanctuary.

Now it felt like a crypt.

She stood in the center of her living room, surrounded by the echo of silence, when her phone buzzed sharply on the kitchen counter, startling her. She glanced over and frowned. Freya.

Of course.

Rolling her eyes, she picked it up and answered with a flat, "The answer is no."

A low chuckle hummed through the other end. "As hard as it is to believe, I'm not calling to ask for your help, Rhea."

Freya's voice was unusually calm. There was no urgency, no spell request, no veiled manipulation.

"I just wanted to let you know," Freya continued, "Tristan won't be around much longer. If you want to say goodbye... you should get to Patrick's Dock. Sooner rather than later."

Rhea let out a huff of disbelief. "And what makes you think I'd want to do that?"

Freya sighed softly, as if already expecting the resistance. "Because I know you, Rhea. And I know that somewhere—deep down, maybe even buried under a mountain of hate—you still care about him. Even just a fraction. And I think you might regret not saying what you need to."

There was a pause.

Rhea didn't answer. She simply ended the call.

Click.

She stood in the middle of the room, phone still in her hand, staring at nothing.

Her mind spun.

She hated him. She loathed him.

But some truths had teeth. And Freya had struck a nerve.

She looked at the time. Thought about the years she had known Tristan. About the war he'd waged. About the man he once was, and the monster he'd become. About how close she'd come—how damn close—to choosing him once.