Chapter 15 - This Isn't Over
1080 Words
Elara held his gaze while silence stretched through the office.
Thorne remained braced against the desk beside her, one arm planted close enough to block the easiest path away without ever touching her. Cedar, pine, and whiskey crowded her senses with every breath she took while the bond pulsed restlessly beneath her skin, keeping her painfully aware of how little space existed between them.
The files lay scattered across the desk beside her.
She had barely managed to skim through them before he walked in.
His eyes flicked toward the papers briefly before settling back on her face.
“You overstepped one of the few boundaries I gave you.”
The quiet control in his voice tightened something inside her chest far more effectively than shouting would have.
“I needed answers.”
A muscle shifted in his jaw.
“That doesn’t give you permission to walk into my office and search through things that were never yours to touch.”
The anger beneath the words remained tightly restrained, though that only made the atmosphere heavier.
“You hid them,” she said. “What was I supposed to think?”
“I expected you to leave them alone.”
Frustration pushed through the anxiety twisting inside her chest.
“You expect me to ignore hidden files connected to my pack?”
His arm flexed slightly beside her, drawing her attention back to the fact that there was nowhere for her to go without brushing against him. The edge of the desk pressed against her lower back while awareness rushed through her again, sharp enough to make her pulse stumble.
“This bond was agreed to for peace,” he said, his voice lower now. “You were brought here to stop the fighting between the packs.”
“You keep saying that like the fighting never ended.”
“It didn’t.”
The answer came instantly.
Heat crawled beneath her skin while the bond reacted sharply to the shift in his mood.
Silence settled between them before she pushed again.
“What’s in those files?”
His expression hardened immediately.
“You already saw too much.”
“I barely had time to read anything before you walked in.”
“That changes nothing.”
The sharpness in his tone sent tension climbing higher through the room.
Elara searched his face carefully, trying to catch something beneath the anger he held so tightly under control.
“You’re hiding something.”
His gaze locked onto hers.
“And you keep pushing where you shouldn’t.”
The answer sliced through the room cleanly.
Frustration flickered through her chest.
“If this is connected to my pack, then I deserve to know.”
“You deserve the truth when it stops putting both packs at risk.”
“That’s still not your decision to make.”
“It is inside my territory.”
Silence crashed between them again.
The bond twisted painfully beneath her skin while anger and awareness tangled together until she could barely separate one from the other. His attention dipped briefly toward her mouth before returning to her eyes, and the small movement still sent her pulse stumbling unevenly inside her chest.
“You should’ve stayed out of my office.”
The anger in his voice remained fully intact.
“I know.”
A faint crease appeared between his brows.
“If you knew, then why do it?”
“Because none of this makes sense.”
The answer slipped out before she could stop it.
“The fighting. The bond. The way everyone reacts whenever the past gets mentioned.”
Something tightened in his expression.
“Stop digging into old ghosts, Elara.”
The warning settled between them heavily enough to pull the air from her lungs for a second.
She held his gaze anyway.
“That still isn’t an answer.”
“You’re not getting one.”
Frustration cracked through her chest.
“Why?”
“Because some things stay buried for a reason.”
The response came harder this time, irritation edging through the control he’d been holding onto since the moment he walked in.
“You walked into my office, ignored every boundary I gave you, and started searching through things that could destroy this peace if the wrong people got hold of them.”
“You already think the peace is fragile.”
His jaw tightened instantly.
“You don’t know enough to make that judgment.”
The bond pulsed harder beneath her skin while heat rolled from him in waves, trapping her between the desk and the solid wall of his presence. Every breath carried cedar and whiskey deeper into her lungs until thinking clearly became almost impossible.
For one dangerous second, the argument felt close to tipping into something worse.
Then the office door opened.
The sound cut through the room instantly.
Kaia stepped inside before stopping short, her attention moving between them.
Her eyes narrowed slightly at the closeness she found them in and the tension hanging through the office, though she didn’t comment on it.
“I need you,” she said to Thorne. “Pack business.”
The atmosphere shifted immediately.
He stepped back at last, though his attention remained fixed on Elara for another second before his gaze drifted briefly toward the files beside her.
Whatever had nearly surfaced disappeared behind restraint again.
“Get out.”
The command cut cleanly through the room.
Heat rushed into Elara’s chest at the instinctive reaction that followed.
Arguing further would only make everything worse.
Carefully, she stepped past him, awareness still tracking every inch of closeness between them. Her shoulder brushed lightly against his sleeve as she passed, and the contact hit far harder than it should have.
Kaia moved aside enough to let her through, observant eyes following her briefly without hostility.
Elara walked out without speaking.
The office door shut behind her hard enough for the sound to echo down the corridor.
Her thoughts refused to settle during the walk back to her room. The files, the anger in Thorne’s voice, and the warning beneath every word stayed tangled together in her mind long after she left the office behind.
By the time she reached her room, tension still sat tightly beneath her ribs.
She stepped inside, closed the door behind her, and leaned against it for a moment longer than intended while her heartbeat slowly fought its way back under control.
None of this was over yet.
- Writer
