CHAPTER SEVEN:The Bait
2000 Words
The woods were full of wolves.
Thirty black-robed figures fanned out, forming a half-circle around us. No words. Just the hiss of blades being drawn and the smell of old blood magic thick in the air.
The hooded figure in front didn’t move. Their voice was distorted, like it was coming through water and a bad connection.
“Kill them,” it said.
Kade shoved me behind him, claws out, teeth bared. “Run. Now.”
I didn’t.Running meant leaving Mara and Darian. Leaving him.
“Not without you,” I said.
Mara grabbed my hand, fingers ice-cold. “Lyra, we can’t fight all of them. Not here. Not like this.”
Darian stepped forward, blade up, blood still drying on his temple from the safehouse fight. “I’ll hold them. You get her out.”
Kade’s head snapped toward him. “Don’t play hero now.”
“I’m not,” Darian said. “I’m buying time. Go.”
The hooded figure raised a hand.
“Do it.”
All at once, the sect moved.
--
Kade hit the first one before I could blink. He moved like the bond had sharpened him, every strike precise, brutal, efficient. A robed figure lunged at me, dagger aimed for my throat. I caught their wrist, twisted, and slammed my knee into their ribs.
Pain lit up my palm. The silver from the chapel blade was still in my blood. It burned them on contact, and they recoiled with a hiss.
Mara wasn’t a fighter, but she wasn’t useless. She grabbed a fallen staff, swung it into the knees of a second attacker, and bolted for the tree line. Darian was already there, cutting down two more, his back to us.
“Lyra!” Kade shouted.
I turned just in time to see a blade coming for my ribs.
Kade moved faster.
He stepped in front of me, took the hit across his shoulder, and drove his fist into the attacker’s face. Blood and bone cracked. The man dropped.
The bond screamed at me. His pain hit me like a punch. I tasted copper, felt his shoulder split open, felt him hold back a snarl so I wouldn’t freeze.
“Stop holding back!” I yelled.
“I’m not,” he growled, pulling me back as another sect member swung.
“You are. Let me in.”
His eyes flashed. “Now’s not the time”
“It’s always the time.”
I reached for the bond. Not to feel him. To fight with him.
The moment I opened up, it was like stepping into the same body.
His stance became mine. My breath matched his rhythm. When he feinted left, I knew he’d strike right. When I ducked, he covered my back before I even moved.
We weren’t two people anymore. We were one weapon with four hands.
Three sect members came at us together. Kade took the high one, I dropped low and swept the legs of the second, and together we brought the third down with a coordinated strike to the throat.
It was fast. Brutal. Addictive.
For ten seconds, nothing else existed. No sect, no ritual, no fear. Just him and me and the bond humming between us like a live wire.
Then the hooded figure spoke again.
“Enough.”
The air changed. Cold. Heavy. The temperature dropped twenty degrees in a heartbeat.
The sect members stopped attacking. They stepped back, forming a wall around us.
Kade and I were breathing hard, blood on our hands, standing back-to-back. Mara was against a tree, bleeding from a cut on her arm. Darian was down on one knee, holding his side.
The hooded figure walked through the circle like they owned it.
“You’re good,” they said to Kade. “But not good enough.”
Kade spat blood. “Show your face, coward.”
The figure reached up and pulled back the hood.
My blood went cold.
It was her.
Or it looked like her.
Elena Blackwood. Kade’s mother. Dead for ten years.
Kade froze. His claws retracted like his body had forgotten how to fight.
“Mom?” he whispered.
The woman smiled. It didn’t reach her eyes. “Hello, son.”
“No,” I said. “She’s dead. You said...”
“She was murdered by the sect,” Kade said, voice hollow. “I saw the body.”
The figure tilted her head. “You saw what they let you see.”
Kade took a step forward. His hands shook. “Why?”
“Because the alpha line is weak,” she said. “Because you’re weak. Because you let her live.” She pointed at me. “She’s the problem, Kade. Kill her, and the pack will be yours. Clean. Strong.”
Kade looked at me.
Then at her.
Then back at me.
The bond between us was open. I felt his rage, his grief, his betrayal.
I felt him choose.
He stepped in front of me.
“No,” he said.
Her face twisted. “You’re a fool.”
Kade smiled. It wasn’t kind.
“I’m bonded,” he said. “And I’m done being your puppet.”
He moved.
---
*The fight was over in seconds.*
Kade’s claws went through her chest.
She gasped, looking down at the wound like she couldn’t believe it.
“You… you can’t…”
“I can,” Kade said quietly. “Because she’s my mate.”
Her body hit the ground.
Then her face rippled.
Bones shifted. Skin melted. The illusion fell away, revealing a woman I didn’t know. Mid-40s, gaunt, eyes black with blood magic. A shapeshifter.
Kade staggered back like he’d been hit.
“It wasn’t her,” he said. His voice broke. “It was never her.”
The remaining sect members ran.
It was over.
---
*Mara was crying.*
Darian was alive, barely, leaning against a tree with his hand pressed to his side.
Kade was in front of me, hands on my face, checking me for injuries like I might disappear if he looked away.
“You’re an i***t,” he said, voice rough.
“I know,” I said.
“You could have died.”
“I didn’t.”
He pulled me into him, hard, like he was afraid I’d break.
The bond was warm. Steady. Complete.
“I thought I lost you,” he whispered against my hair.
“You didn’t,” I said. “Not this time.”
He pulled back just enough to look at me. His thumb brushed my cheek, wiping away blood. His eyes were silver, wolf close to the surface, but it was Kade looking at me. Not the beast.
“When I saw them take you…” He swallowed. “I’d rather die than feel that again.”
I smiled. “Good. Because you’re stuck with me now.”
His mouth quirked. “Yeah. I guess I am.”
He kissed me.
It wasn’t gentle. It was desperate, relieved, angry, and real. His hands were in my hair, holding me like I was the only thing keeping him anchored.
I kissed him back, tasting blood and victory and him.
When we broke apart, we were both breathing hard.
Mara cleared her throat. Loudly.
“We’re still in a clearing full of dead people,” she said. “Can we do the romance thing somewhere else?”
Kade grinned against my forehead. “She’s right.”
I laughed. It felt good.
For the first time in days, it felt good.
---
*But it wasn’t over.*
The ground shook again.
Not from magic.
From footsteps.
Dozens of them. Coming from the north.
Darian pushed himself up, blood on his lips. “We have company.”
Kade pulled me behind him, stance shifting back to fight mode in an instant. His hand found mine and squeezed once.
I’m here. I’m not letting go.
The trees parted.
A dozen enforcers stepped out.
Leading them was Elder Mara.
Alive.
Her face was a mask of rage.
“You didn’t kill me,” she said. “Big mistake.”
Kade’s jaw tightened.
I stepped forward.
“Yeah,” I said. “It was.”
Elder Mara’s eyes flicked to me, then to Kade. She saw it. The bond. The way we stood together.
“You think you won,” she said. “You didn’t. The ritual was only part of it. The sect has a backup plan.”
Kade stepped forward. “What plan?”
Elder Mara smiled. It was ugly.
“The girl’s already in position.”
Mara’s face went white. “What girl?”
Elder Mara looked past us, to the woods behind.
“Your sister.”
The name hit like a punch.
Mara had never mentioned a sister.
Because she didn’t have one.
Until now.
From the trees, a girl stepped out. 16, maybe 17. She looked like Mara. Same eyes. Same jaw. Same stubborn set to her chin.
Her wrists were bound. Her lips were blue. But she was alive.
And she was wearing a collar carved with serpent sigils. The stone pulsed faintly, in time with her heartbeat.
Elder Mara spread her hands.
“Meet Mara’s backup,” she said. “If you kill me, we kill her. If you let us go, she lives. Your choice.”
Kade’s hand found mine again. His grip was iron.
The connection hummed with one thought:
We don’t leave anyone behind.
Mara broke first.
“Don’t! I’ll come with you. Just don’t hurt her.”
“No,” Kade and I said at the same time.
Mara looked at us, tears streaming. “She’s my family.”
“She’s bait,” Kade said quietly. “And if you walk over there, we lose both of you.”
The bond screamed at me.
Choose. Save one, lose the other. That’s what they want.
I hated it.
I stepped forward instead. “Then change the game.”
Elder Mara frowned. “What?”
I dropped Kade’s hand.
The bond protested instantly, a cold ache spreading through my chest. I ignored it.
“I’ll come with you,” I said. “Alone. No tricks. No fighting. Take me to the ritual site. Let them go.”
Kade grabbed my arm. “Lyra, no.”
“They won’t kill me,” I said. “Not before they try to use me. And if I’m with them, they won’t touch Mara’s sister.”
“You’re insane,” Kade said. His voice was rough, barely controlled.
“Maybe,” I said. “But I’m bonded to you. You can find me. And I can fight from the inside.”
Elder Mara laughed. “Finally, sense.”
Kade pulled me against him, his forehead against mine. For a second, the world fell away. Just him, and the bond, and the frantic beat of his heart against mine.
“Don’t do this,” he whispered.
“I have to,” I whispered back. “Trust me.”
His jaw clenched. “I always do. That’s the problem.”
He kissed me again.
Fast, hard, desperate. Like he was memorizing me in case I didn’t come back.
When he pulled away, his eyes were silver, wolf close to the surface.
“If you die,” he said quietly, “I will burn the world.”
I smiled. “Don’t make me die then.”
Elder Mara cleared her throat. “Touching. Now, come here, girl.”
I walked forward.
The bond stretched between me and Kade, thin and painful, but it didn’t break.
Two enforcers grabbed my arms. The silver cuffs came out.
They bit into my skin immediately.
Kade flinched like I had been hit.
Elder Mara turned to her people. “Take her. Kill the rest if they move.”
Kade didn’t move.
Neither did I.
Because I saw it.
The girl Mara’s sister was looking at me. Not at Elder Mara. Not at the blades.
At me.
And she mouthed one word: RUN
- Writer
