The Storeroom Key

Chapter 3 The Severed Bond

Poison fog rolled between the trees and into camp. Warriors at the perimeter were already screaming.

One fell beside the medical hut. His body convulsed as the fur around his throat darkened.

The fog stung the back of my nose. Beyond the first huts, bone cracked and a wolf went silent. The northern watch horn stopped halfway through its next call.

The antidote was in the storeroom.

I pulled the iron key from my satchel and ran. Before I reached the door, Caleb hit me from the side and drove my shoulder into the hut wall.

The rough timber caught my cheek. I kept the key raised so it would not fall into the mud.

“The key,” I said. “I need the antidote.”

He was looking past me at Elara, who had crouched beside the storeroom entrance.

“She needs somewhere secure.” Caleb seized my wrist. “She's not a fighter.”

Rogue blood streaked his face and arms. He had come straight from the line, yet he watched Elara while another poisoned wolf collapsed behind him.

“Our warriors are dying. Let go of me.”

“They have you.”

He twisted my hand until my fingers opened. The key cut a line across my palm as he tore it free.

His grip ground the small bones in my wrist together. I reached for the key with my other hand. He knocked it aside and closed his fist.

Caleb unlocked the storeroom and pushed Elara through the oak door. “Stay here. Don't open it for anyone but me.”

The bolt dropped into place. Every vial of antidote in the pack was now locked inside with her.

“Go to the northern front,” he told me. “The poison is thickest there. Hold the barrier.”

The order struck through the mate mark. My body pitched toward the northern path before I forced my feet still.

The northern line would empty what little magic I had left. He had seen what twelve hours of healing had done to me. Now the medicine was locked out of reach.

“That's an order, Aria.”

Blood ran from my palm to my wrist. Behind the door, Elara was safe among the remedies. Beyond the huts, another warrior started choking.

I turned away from both sounds.

The oldest oak in camp hid a narrow chamber beneath its roots. No one in the Silver Moon Pack knew it was there.

I opened the stone hatch and descended into damp soil and old magic.

I prepared the chamber when I first chose Caleb, leaving myself one road home in case the Sanctuary ever called me back.

For five years, dust gathered on its altar while I answered every call from his pack.

Moonlight entered through a split in the rock. On the altar below it lay a silver dagger made by my own people, an artifact meant to unmake sacred vows.

A pale line of light ran along its blade even in shadow. A High Priestess used it only when a vow had become captivity. One cut would break the promise and return the power still bound inside it.

I drew back my collar and touched the mate mark on my neck. It was hot and swollen from Caleb's command.

The blade went through the mark.

Pain tore down the bond. My voice locked in my throat. For one second, Caleb was there, startled and reaching. Then the connection split.

Years of commands and shared wounds rushed through the cut, along with all those nights spent listening for his breathing.

I bit down on my sleeve until my knees struck the stone and the pressure passed.

Above me, something cracked across the whole valley.

My magic had held the barrier around Silver Moon territory for five years. When the bond broke, the barrier broke with it.

The pressure against my mind vanished. Poison poured through the northern line.

The c***k traveled through the roots and shook dirt from the ceiling. Everyone had called it a pack ward. Caleb never learned that my blood fed it through our bond.

The screams outside changed.

I pulled the dagger free. Silver light mixed with the blood on its tip. Behind the altar, moonlight circled into an open gateway.

I pressed a piece of my torn collar to the wound. The storeroom bolt dropped again somewhere above me. Screams carried through the roots. The gate waited behind the altar.

I stepped through. It closed behind me.