Chapter 13 - Crossing The Line
635 Words
The decision came easier than she expected.
If she wanted answers, she would have to find them herself.
Elara moved through the pack house without drawing attention, her pace steady as she followed the quieter passages where fewer people lingered. Conversations softened when she passed, picking up again once she moved on, but she didn’t slow for any of it.
Her focus stayed ahead.
She already knew where she was going.
By the time she reached the corridor leading to Thorne’s office, the air had shifted. The quiet pressed in more heavily here, carrying a presence that didn’t need to be announced. His scent lingered, strong and unmistakable.
But he wasn’t there.
She stopped outside the office.
The door stood slightly open.
Elara watched it for a moment, letting the weight of the choice settle. Waiting would get her nowhere. This was why she had agreed to the bond, why she had stepped into a place that didn’t want her, why she had tied herself to a man who might have had something to do with Draven’s death.
She was here for the truth.
And truth never came without risk.
She pushed the door open and stepped inside.
Nothing had changed. The space carried the same rigid order, everything placed exactly where it belonged, the room reflecting the man who owned it.
For a brief moment, unease brushed through her.
Thorne’s reaction to her presence in his territory had been clear enough.
This would make it worse.
She closed the door behind her and moved forward.
The desk drew her attention immediately.
She approached it without hesitation.
There was no turning back now.
The first drawer slid open, and she skimmed through the contents quickly, her gaze moving from one page to the next. Reports, agreements, daily records—everything current, everything useless.
She closed it and moved on.
The next drawer offered more of the same.
Her frustration stayed contained, though it forced her to slow instead of rush. She shifted around the desk, her hand trailing lightly across the surface as she searched for something that didn’t belong.
Her fingers stilled.
The wood felt wrong.
She leaned in, her focus sharpening as she traced the edge, finding where it gave just enough to reveal what had been hidden.
A compartment.
Built cleanly into the desk, nearly impossible to notice.
Elara drew a steady breath and opened it.
This was different.
The files inside were fewer, older, worn in a way the others weren’t. They didn’t belong with the rest.
Her pulse quickened.
She reached for one and opened it, her eyes moving across the page as she tried to make sense of what she was seeing.
The names didn’t match anything she recognized.
The details were fragmented, incomplete, but the dates stretched further back than anything she had seen so far.
Not enough to explain.
Enough to question.
Her attention sharpened.
This was what she had been looking for.
Her pack’s name appeared again and again, woven through the documents in a way that made her chest tighten.
Something was wrong.
What she had been told—what she had accepted—had never been the full truth.
This had been recorded.
Then buried.
Her focus locked onto the page as she leaned over the desk, reading faster, her thoughts racing as she tried to piece together what little she had.
Everything else faded.
The room.
The silence.
Even the bond.
She didn’t hear the door open.
Didn’t sense him step inside.
The first thing she felt was the shift behind her.
Heavy.
Sudden.
It pulled the air from her lungs before she could turn.
Her breath caught as cedar, pine, and whiskey filled her senses, her wolf recoiling under the dominance that closed in around them.
“What are you doing?”
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