Bound By Rejection

18 - The Edge of Night

The drop was vertical, breathtaking, and terrifying.

Lyra’s muscles, already screaming from the climb, protested savagely against the sudden, violent weight of her body on the rope. The residual energy from her divine blast still vibrated beneath her skin, making her grip unsteady. She was running on pure, toxic adrenaline and the cold high of victory.

She slid down the rope, the thick hemp scorching her palms, ignoring the fresh sting where the silver cuffs met her wrists. Below her, Caz was a dark shape descending with the liquid grace of a veteran.

Click, click, click.

The sound of the carabiner sliding against the secured line was a nervous rhythm in the night. Above them, the circular vent opening looked like the smoking eye of a vengeful god, peering down into the abyss. Lyra didn’t dare look up. She focused only on the solid line of Caz’s back, trusting him implicitly.

Just as the line went taut for a brief, controlled slide, the mountain answered.

A siren wailed.

Not the immediate, panic-stricken shriek of an alarm—this was deeper. A foghorn blast that echoed across the valley, signaling not just an escape, but a disaster. The sound itself was ancient, reserved only for mass security breaches, or worse: an Act of War.

Lyra heard the frantic bark of wolves shifting, the immediate, confused roar of Alpha Kael, and the distant, rapid thump-thump-thump of helicopters ascending from the main fortress landing pad.

“They know we took out the ledge,” Caz’s voice was strained, amplified by the stone cliff face. “We have less than five minutes before they track the heat signature. Faster, Lyra! Don’t stop for anything!”

The siren's sound pierced through the last of her self-control, and the exhaustion that had been held at bay by the Goddess fire slammed into her like a physical blow. Her body seized up, her slide stopping abruptly. She hung suspended, gasping, her head swimming.

I killed them. I killed them for freedom.

The shock finally hit, not as remorse, but as chilling realization: she had crossed the rubicon. She was a murderer. A saboteur. And she was alive.

“Lyra, goddammit, move!” Caz hissed, his voice full of savage urgency.

He stopped his own descent, and with a terrifying, efficient maneuver, he slid up the rope until he was directly above her, pressing his body against the cliff wall. He shifted his weight, using his lean strength to secure them both against the sheer stone.

“Look at me,” he commanded, his breath warm against her ear. “Lyra. Look at me.”

She forced her eyes open. His single silver eye was wide, feral, reflecting the distant, frantic torchlight of the approaching air patrol. But it wasn't judgment she saw there. It was awe.

“You didn’t just escape,” he muttered, his voice barely audible over the roaring alarm. “You vaporized the rock. That wasn’t a wolf. That was a god. Do you understand what you are now?”

He didn’t wait for an answer. He kissed her.

It wasn't a sweet, comforting kiss. It was hard, desperate, and possessive—a sudden, brutal claim made on a precipice between death and freedom. His mouth crushed against hers, tasting of granite dust, adrenaline, and shared violence. It was a kiss of strategy and necessity, cementing their immediate, shared survival pact.

Lyra, stunned, responded with a hungry, desperate fire she didn’t know she possessed, the lingering rage in her chest finally finding a volatile release.

Then, just as quickly, Caz pulled back. He gave her one last, intense look—a silent vow.

“Save the fire for the forest,” he ordered, already sliding down the line again. “We’re almost there.”

The kiss had shocked her back into motion. Her limbs obeyed again, fueled by the terrifying intimacy of the last few seconds. She continued her frantic descent, the roar of a helicopter now a deafening, insistent threat overhead.

Seconds later, she landed with a jarring thud on the soft, mossy earth of the North Woods.

Caz immediately cut the rope, bundling it quickly. He grabbed her arm, his grip firm and insistent, and pulled her into the dense cover of pine trees.

The forest was a wall of black shadow, thick with the scent of damp earth and pine. Above them, the searchlights of the hovering wolf patrol carved bright, dangerous slices through the canopy. They were close. Too close.

“They’ll shift and track the scent,” Caz whispered, pulling her deeper into the thicket, moving with the preternatural speed of a creature born to the dark. “We need to move past the salt line, now.”

Lyra forced herself to run. Her legs were shaky, her lungs burning, but her mind was clearer than it had been in weeks. The wolfsbane was gone, and the Goddess fire had cauterized the wound of her betrayal.

She was not running away from Kael. She was running toward the inevitable conflict.

As they crashed through the underbrush, Lyra stumbled, catching herself against a thick tree trunk. She glanced back at the mountain. The sheer cliff face, once her prison, was now a monument to her escape—a huge, jagged, smoking scar on the stone.

She took a shaky breath of free, cold air.

I’m not coming back.

Suddenly, she felt him. A jolt through the mate bond—not the dull ache of distance, but a blinding, searing spike of pure fury and loss.

LYRA.

It was Kael’s voice, raw, unchecked, flooding the bond with venomous rage and disbelief. He had felt the collapse, the deaths, and her shift in power. He knew she was free. And he knew the cost.

You will pay for this, witch.

Lyra stumbled, her hand flying to her chest, trying to block the psychic scream. But she didn’t recoil. She met the fury with a cold, devastating calm she hadn't known she was capable of.

"He felt the kill," she choked out to Caz.

Caz grabbed her hand and began dragging her, sprinting full-out through the dark woods.

“Good,” Caz snarled over the sound of their breaking pace. “Let him feel it. Now he knows he’s hunting not just a traitor, but a goddess. That changes the game.”

They ran into the deep woods, trading the silver chains of the mountain for the dark freedom of the night. The scent of pine and wet earth became the scent of war.