Bound By Rejection

Chapter 11: Caz’s Game

“You’re different now.”

Caz’s voice sliced through the silence, low and deliberate, like a blade dragging through velvet. “What was that? What just happened?”

Lyra didn’t answer right away. She sat curled against the far wall, her knees tucked to her chest, her chains slack but still cold against her skin. The scent of wolfsbane lingered, bitter, cloying, but it didn’t choke her like before. It sat around her now like smoke instead of a smothering flame.

The haze had thinned. Just enough for her wolf to stir. Just enough for clarity to return and with it, rage. Not the reckless kind that burned too fast. The slow kind. Coiled. Controlled.

Her shoulder still throbbed, the Brand of Shame pulsing in time with her heartbeat, but beneath that pain, the Goddess Mark pulsed back stronger, colder, utterly resolute.

Lyra opened one eye, turned her head slightly, and found Caz watching her. Of course, he was. He missed nothing.

“You always talk like you’re holding back a punchline,” she rasped, her voice scratchy but steady.

His grin was lazy, half-shadowed in the flickering torchlight. He lay sprawled on the worn cot, all sharp elbows and lean muscle, looking like a wild thing pretending to be at rest. But there was no mistaking the tension in his frame. He was alert, poised. Coiled like a trap.

“I like puzzles,” he said, his voice smooth with amusement. “You’re a particularly pretty one. Complicated. Fractured in just the right places.”

“Spare me the poetry, one-eye.”

He laughed low, rich, and utterly genuine. “I only have one eye, Lyra, so I don’t waste time looking at things I don’t want.” He sat up then, his silver gaze intense. “I saw what happened. The walls shook. That was your doing, not the earthquake. You went somewhere, and you came back with a crown on your mind.”

Lyra pushed her exhaustion aside, sitting taller. “I saw the war that Kael started when he chained me.”

“And you think you can win it with pretty visions?”

“I know I can win it with fire,” Lyra countered, meeting his stare without flinching. “But you’re right about one thing: I need a way out that doesn’t end with the ceiling dropping on my head.” She motioned to the Ancestral Seal he had pointed out on the iron door. “The Ancient Seal you mentioned in the eastern wall. Tell me what it is. And tell me what you need the fire for.”

Caz picked up the small, smooth pebble he’d been tossing, turning it over and over in his long fingers. “The Emberfang Mountain isn’t just a Pack stronghold. It’s an ancient altar. And these cells? They’re built over a natural convergence of magical energy.”

He tossed the pebble and caught it one last time, then finally looked at her, his expression serious.

“The eastern wall leads to the Forbidden Chamber,” Caz explained. “It was sealed centuries ago by the first Emberfang Alpha. They didn’t use silver or iron. They used raw, primal magic. That seal is a weave, a complex, self-repairing pattern designed to keep something in that they couldn’t kill.”

“What is it?” Lyra leaned forward, her heart hammering with a terrifying mix of dread and anticipation.

Caz’s smile returned, cold and excited. “A curse. A void-wolf spirit. Something terrible and ancient that feeds on rage and fire.”

Lyra felt a chill deeper than the dungeon’s cold. The vision. The prophecy. The scorched earth. A war Kael started.

“And you want to unleash it,” Lyra stated flatly.

“I want chaos,” Caz corrected. “The Emberfang Alpha line, Kael included, has always been addicted to control. The only way to break that addiction is to give them a threat they can’t possibly manage. Something that forces the entire Pack to collapse or choose a new leader.”

He walked over to the eastern wall, running his hand over the damp moss and stone where the seal lay hidden.

“I’m an alpha, Lyra. And I have enough primal power to sense the weak point in the seal’s weave. I can pinpoint the crucial node that needs to be broken to bring the whole thing down. But my magic is… earthy. Grounded. It can’t cut through that pure, silver-based ancient weave.”

He turned back, his single silver eye blazing. “Your fire, though? Your Goddess-claimed, raw, divine fire? That can burn anything. And when that seal shatters, Lyra, we don’t just get freedom. We get an earthquake that opens up half the mountain. We get a distraction that will make the entire Pack forget you even exist for twenty-four crucial hours.”

Lyra took a slow, deep breath, pulling the icy resolve from her Goddess Mark. This wasn't just about revenge against Kael or Raina anymore. This was about ripping the Pack apart from its foundation.

“What if it kills us both?”

“Then we die free, and the Pack still collapses,” Caz said with a shrug, utterly pragmatic. “But it won’t. That seal is designed to be broken by a very specific kind of fire. The fire of a rejected mate. It’s poetic, really. The one thing Kael refused to sever, your bond, is the exact kind of volatile power that will destroy his kingdom.”

Lyra looked down at her hands. The silver cuffs still held her captive, mocking her strength.

“Then let’s play your game, Caz,” she said, her voice a low, dangerous growl. “But if we get out, your alliance ends at the mountain’s edge. I don’t trust rogues, and I certainly don’t trust a man who wants to unleash a void-curse on the world.”

Caz grinned, a flash of white teeth in the dark. “Fair enough, Queen of Fire. But first, you have to find the key to the final chains.”

He reached inside the collar of his ruined shirt and pulled out a delicate, intricate piece of bone and silver wire. It was tiny, almost invisible, but beautifully carved.

“Riddles,” he announced, tossing the wire to her. It landed with a soft clink on the stone floor. “It’s too small for the guards to find, and it bypasses the main key-ring. But it’s not for your wrist cuffs. Those are standard.”

He pointed to the heavy, thick collar that still encircled her throat. An Omega’s submission collar, specially fitted and enchanted to prevent magic from leaving her body.

“The final key to freedom, Lyra, is hidden in plain sight. It’s what keeps the wolfsbane running, and it’s the only way to disable that collar. You have one day before the next Alpha patrol sweeps the lower levels. Find it. Or we burn right here.”

He leaned back, eyes half-closed. “And here’s your riddle, Queen:

“I feed the air with poison sweet, I guard the door, though I have no feet. Count the pipes, left, then right… The sixth bears more than rust.”

He closed his eyes, feigning sleep. Lyra stared at him, then at the silver wire and the heavy, humiliating collar around her throat.

Her fire was waiting. Her destiny was waiting. But first, she had to play Caz’s game. She had to use her mind, not just her rage.

She picked up the tiny silver wire, tracing the delicate, cold runes with her thumb.

“Count the pipes. Left, then right. The sixth bears more than rust.”

The escape wasn’t just physical. It was intellectual. And Lyra Blackthorn, the woman Kael tried to destroy, knew how to win a riddle.