Chapter 11 – Pulled Apart
1061 Words
They’re so small in the infirmary beds.
Smaller than they looked bundled in burlap, smaller than they felt when I helped carry them in from the snow. Without dirt and tape and terror, they’re just boys—pale faces, wide eyes, IV lines snaking from bruised arms.
Elrin straightens when we enter. “Keep it quiet,” he warns softly. “They’re still coming down off the sedative.”
Corin nods, all coiled control at my side. Ardyn and Marek linger near the door; Seræn melts into a corner with a notebook. I feel the weight of every gaze on my back.
Tessa sits on the edge of her older son’s bed, fingers wrapped white-knuckled around his. The younger boy—Eli, I remember now—watches me from under a too-large blanket, pupils blown wide in the dim light.
“Lysa,” he whispers, like a secret.
My throat tightens. I step closer, slow and careful. “Hey, shadow. You gave us all a scare.”
His lip wobbles. “You came.”
“Of course I came.” I manage a smile. “You think I’d let you nap through dinner without checking on you?”
A flicker of amusement cracks through the horror in his face. It fades quickly.
“Can you tell us what happened?” Corin asks, voice gentler than I expected.
Eli’s little fingers twist in the blanket. “We were…we were in the den. Mama said bed. I was thirsty.” He glances guiltily at Tessa. “I went to the kitchen. Th-there was a truck sound outside. I thought it was Marek coming back with meat. I wanted to see…”
His brother, Jace, swallows. “Door was open a little. We just wanted to look. Then…then there was a smell. Like…sweet and sharp. Like when Elrin puts you to sleep for stitches.”
Sedative. My stomach knots.
“Did you see who it was?” Seræn asks softly from her corner.
They both nod, in unison.
“Can you describe them?” Corin says. His knuckles are white where his hands rest on the bedrail.
“Wolf,” Jace whispers. “Big. Coat like…like the ridge pines. Grey and dark. He said not to be scared. Said he was taking us to see…to see—”
His gaze slides to me. My name forms on his mouth before sound follows.
“You,” Eli blurts out. “He said he was taking us to Lysa. That you needed us.”
The room goes very, very still.
Behind me, I can hear the tiny intake of breath as every adult processes that sentence.
“He said you were lonely,” Eli adds, small shoulders hunching. “That Duskvale was mean to you. That you missed pups. He said…he said you asked for us.”
My legs feel suddenly unsteady, like the floor dropped half an inch.
“I did not,” I say, too sharply. I soften my tone. “I would never ask anyone to take you from your bed. Do you understand me?”
Eli looks between me and Corin, confusion clouding his face. “But he smelled like you,” he says. “A little. Like you and the alpha and the woods, all mixed up.”
My heart slams once, hard.
“Like me how?” I ask. My voice sounds wrong to my own ears.
Jace frowns, trying to find words. “Like…like the big fire night. When you came back from the border.” His eyes flick to Corin, then away. “He smelled like your house.”
Our house.
Cold seeps into my bones.
“Could you see his face?” Corin asks, and now there’s steel under the softness. “Any scars? Hair? Eyes?”
“Dark hair,” Eli says. “Short. He joked with Mama last week when we brought boxes up from the cellars.” He squints, struggling. “Said she made the best stew in the pack.”
Tessa goes rigid. “That was Orren,” she whispers. “Kestrel captain. He helped me with the crates.”
The room contracts.
Orren. Quiet, unobtrusive Orren. The patrol lead who never had much to say, who everyone trusted to be exactly as dull as he appeared. Who ran half the routes I’d designed, who knew every back road between us and the human town.
Who went missing with his patrol on the east ridge.
Ardyn swears under his breath. Marek’s hands curl into fists.
Seræn already has her pen flying across the page. “Kestrel’s route that night included the gas station on Maelin’s list,” she mutters. “Of course it did.”
I barely hear them. The boys’ words replay in my head on a loop:
He said he was taking us to Lysa.
He smelled like your house.
Like me. Like Corin. Like the home I’ve tried to build in a place that still looks at my blood and sees a weapon.
Corin’s hand brushes my elbow, grounding. “This isn’t on you,” he murmurs, so low only I can hear. “He used your name. Your trust. That’s on him.”
Is it? whispers a bitter part of me. Or on the alpha who made me the easiest ghost to pin a story on.
“Why would Orren take our pups?” Tessa chokes out. “He’s held them. He’s babysat—”
“Because someone paid him more than loyalty is worth,” Marek growls.
“Or because someone in the human world owns something on him,” Vesha says quietly from the doorway. I hadn’t even seen her slip in. “Debts. Family. A record.”
Corin straightens, alpha in full. “We have a name. A face. A pack connection. That’s more than we had yesterday.”
He looks at me, then, eyes burning.
“Lysa,” he says. “You wanted the real traitor. You found him.”
The triumph I thought I’d feel isn’t there.
Just relief that the noose around my throat finally has another neck in it.
And underneath that, a coiling dread.
Because if Orren smelled like our house…
If he’d been close enough to pick up my scent, to wear it like a cloak—
What else has he done in my name that we haven’t uncovered yet?
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