Bound By Rejection

Chapter 9: First Escape Attempt

The plan wasn’t perfect. But perfection was a luxury Lyra no longer possessed.

She was waiting for an opportunity, and it came three nights after Caz’s arrival. The guards had grown lazy, complacent with the monotonous misery of the dungeon. They were bored of watching a shackled, half-broken wolf wilt in the dark.

Lyra played the part of the docile victim well: she barely moved, barely spoke, and often let out weak, miserable moans when footsteps passed her door, just to keep the illusion of utter defeat alive.

Caz noticed, of course.

“You’re up to something,” he observed one evening, his voice a low, musical rumble as he lounged against the wall, tossing a small, smooth pebble into the air and catching it without looking. “You’ve got that glint in your eyes. The one wolves get just before they bite the hand that feeds them.”

She didn’t look at him. Didn’t confirm or deny. She simply waited. Waited for the uneven gait of the young guard, Marcus, the one who always sighed as he entered the lower levels, the one who wore heavy leather gloves to handle the silver because he was new enough to still be afraid of the metal's ancient, pain-inducing power. He was young. Distracted. Weak.

When Marcus came in that night, Lyra kept her head bowed, her breathing shallow and deliberately choked.

He knelt clumsily to check the chains, the heavy jangle of his key ring a jarring, hopeful sound in the silence.

And she struck.

Her hand, blistered and scabbed from weeks of silver contact, lashed out with a desperate, shocking speed, grabbing his wrist and yanking him forward. His head cracked against the stone with a sickening thud, and he slumped, momentarily stunned.

The sudden rush of raw, savage adrenaline was intoxicating. It was the first true surge of power she’d felt in weeks that wasn't immediately snuffed out by the wolfsbane vents.

She scrambled forward, her teeth gritted, ignoring the agonizing protest of her muscles. She fumbled at his belt. The keys were there.

Shaking violently from effort and pain, she jammed the master key into the first lock. The silver cuff hissed as it fell away, the freed skin underneath screaming from the sudden release and exposure. Then the second lock.

The pain was immediate, a wave of pins and burning lava through her hands. The silver had not just shackled her physically; it had been actively draining her magic, and the abrupt cessation of the siphon left her body vibrating with overcharged, volatile energy.

“Lyra, stop,” Caz commanded from the darkness, his voice low and urgent.

She didn’t listen. She was blind to everything but the door. Two more cuffs on her ankles. She slammed the keys into the locks. Click. Click. The final chains fell to the stone floor with a deafening, ringing clang, the sound of true freedom.

She rose, swaying on legs that had forgotten how to bear weight, her body a raw, trembling shell.

And that was when the wolfsbane hit her with full force.

Without the silver’s neutralizing presence, the poison rushed into her bloodstream, crippling her systems. Her fire magic sputtered, collapsing inward. The raw, exhilarating high of adrenaline vanished, replaced by an overwhelming, suffocating weakness.

Simultaneously, the un-severed mate bond flared.

A sudden, sharp spike of Kael’s cold fear and confusion pierced the haze. He was close enough, or powerful enough, to sense the rupture in his prison, the disturbance in the link. His emotion was a confusing, violent mix of territorial rage and primal panic. Lyra gasped, clutching her chest, the unexpected psychic blow compounding her physical agony.

He knows. He knows I’m moving.

She stumbled toward the iron gate. She had the keys. She could open it. She could run.

But before she could reach the latch, a large, warm hand clamped down over hers.

Lyra wheeled around, fire blazing in her eyes. “Get off me!”

Caz was there, his expression grim, his silver eyes cold and devoid of his usual amusement. He didn't use magic. He used simple, superior physical strength, anchoring her in place.

“You absolute i***t,” he snapped, his breath hot in her ear. “You think Kael and the Elders are stupid? They didn’t put simple locks on the last cell in the mountain.”

He didn't fight her. He simply pointed to the base of the cell door, just below the latch.

“Look closely, Lyra. Below the bolt. That’s an Ancestral Seal you didn’t see. It’s wired to the main pack alarms. You turn that key, and the entire mountain goes into lockdown. They don’t chase you; they drop the ceiling on you.”

Lyra stared. Through the shimmering haze of wolfsbane and pain, she saw it: a tiny, almost invisible runic carving etched into the stone, glowing faintly with barely contained power. A primitive, brutal spell work designed not to lock, but to kill.

She had been seconds from triggering a Pack-wide self-destruct sequence.

Rage, cold and sharp, replaced her panic. She struck him, not with magic, but with a desperate, wild punch that landed squarely on his jaw.

“I was free!” she screamed, the sound tearing her throat. “You stopped me!”

Caz didn’t flinch from the blow. He grabbed her wrists again, careful not to touch the raw wounds.

“You were going to die, Lyra!” he snarled back, finally losing his cool. “Look at yourself! You barely have the strength to stand. The moment you stepped outside the wolfsbane’s reach, your magic would have flared, and the entire mountain would have converged on you. You’re not strong enough to shift, let alone fight an Alpha Guard.”

He released her, shoving her away from the door with desperate force. Lyra fell back onto the cold stone, the finality of the failure a crushing blow to her soul.

“I’d rather die in the tunnel than rot here,” she whispered, burying her face into her knees, shaking with fever and shame.

“You don’t get it, do you?” he snapped, hauling her upright with surprising ease. His body was warm and steady, smelling of cedar and wild rain. “You’re not going to die here. But you keep pulling this hero s**t, and you’re not going to live long enough to matter.”

He pulled her into his chest, supporting her collapsing weight. She shivered violently, the contrast between the cold cell and his heat a perverse comfort. She hated how safe it felt.

“Next time you try to be clever,” he muttered into her matted hair, “at least wait until the wolfsbane cycle dips. You nearly cooked yourself from the inside out.”

“It’s not pity,” he said flatly, when she tried to pull away. “It’s strategy. That door is a trap. The way out is through the Ancient Seal in the eastern wall. It’s too deep to trigger the alarms, but it’s too strong for my power alone.”

He scooped her up, surprisingly strong, and carried her back to the corner of the cell. Lyra drifted in and out, fevered again. Weak. Furious at her own body. At Kael. At the treacherous hope Caz had just murdered.

When he laid her back down, she caught his sleeve, her fingers clenching the rough fabric. “Why help me, Caz?”

He crouched beside her, one hand braced on his knee.

“Because the Pack has been sitting on that Ancient Seal for centuries,” he said, his silver eyes gleaming with a terrifying ambition. “They don’t know what’s on the other side, but I do. And when the time’s right, I’m going to need someone who knows how to burn a kingdom down to open it.”

Lyra blinked slowly, the pain dragging her under again.

The escape attempt had failed. But the goal had shifted from freedom to strategic destruction.

And for the first time, she had a partner who wasn't her fated mate. A partner who knew she was a weapon.