Chosen by the Alpha Who Destroyed My Pack

Chapter 10 – Echoes in the Quiet

The infirmary felt wrong without the constant hum of adrenaline.

Too quiet. Too watchful.

Mara slept, color returning in slow degrees. Jorek dozed in fits, cursing under his breath whenever the pain pulled him back. Kalen had retreated behind a book he clearly wasn’t reading, eyes glassy over the same page.

Sylvi sat on an empty cot with her back against the cool stone wall, elbows resting on her knees. Her hands were steady now. Her insides weren’t.

“You should be in bed,” Ilyss said, dropping down beside her with more grace than any forty-something with a bad knee had a right to.

Sylvi managed a half-smile. “You just want more bodies to monitor.”

“Oh, absolutely.” Ilyss passed her a mug. “Drink.”

The steam rose, sharp-sweet: willow bark, mint, something bitter beneath.

Sylvi eyed it. “Is this going to knock me out?”

“If I wanted you unconscious, I’d have done it hours ago.” Ilyss’s gaze softened, the lines at the corners of her eyes deepening. “This is for the edge. Not the center.”

Sylvi took a cautious sip. Heat slid down her throat, unwinding muscles she hadn’t noticed were clenched.

Across the room, Corren stood with Maerin and Riven near the far doorway, voices low. They kept glancing at her like she was a bomb someone had defused but not disarmed.

“Say it,” Sylvi murmured.

Ilyss lifted a brow. “Say what?”

“Whatever evaluation is sitting behind your eyes.” She gestured vaguely. “About the not-quite-bond. About me. About the mysterious enemy who now has us circled in his little black book.”

Ilyss snorted. “Direct. I like that.” She studied Sylvi for a moment, more clinician than aunt. “First: whatever that thing is that’s gnawing on bonds, it’s clever. It rode Jorek’s rage. It erased Kalen’s path. It tried to gut Mara’s connection mid-surge.” Her gaze flicked to Corren, then back. “It saw that little flash between you two and lunged.”

“And we burned it,” Sylvi said quietly.

“Some of it,” Ilyss corrected. “Enough to make it flinch. Not enough to make it forget.” She sighed. “Second: your… connection to Corren? It isn’t a full mating bond. Yet.”

Sylvi’s heart stuttered. “That’s a very loud ‘yet.’”

“His wolf grabbed yours like a drowning man reaching for a rope,” Ilyss said, not unkindly. “Yours grabbed back.”

“Instinct,” Sylvi said quickly. “Survival. Not some great cosmic—”

“Oh, spare me fate speeches.” Ilyss rolled her eyes. “I’ve stitched up enough couples who thought the moon would solve their communication issues. Bond or no bond, you still have to talk—and apparently shout—your way through the mess.”

Despite herself, Sylvi huffed a laugh. “We’re very good at shouting.”

“I noticed.” Ilyss took a sip from her own mug. “What I’m saying is: the line between you is real. Raw. Damaged by that thing’s claws, but alive. It’s not trapping you. Not yet. If you both walked away right now, it would scar over. You’d feel each other like a phantom limb for a while and then… it’d fade.”

The thought made Sylvi’s stomach twist in a way that had nothing to do with tea.

“And if we don’t?” she asked softly.

“Then over time,” Ilyss said, “if you keep feeding it with… whatever it is you do when you’re not trying to die in my infirmary, it will settle into something sturdy. Not the old-style chain. More like…” She searched for the word. “A graft. You can still lose a limb, but the body won’t bleed out instantly.”

Sylvi stared into her mug. “You make it sound so romantic.”

“My job is to keep you alive,” Ilyss said. “Romance is Serah’s department.”

Silence hummed between them for a moment.

“I felt him,” Sylvi said finally, barely above a whisper. “In there. When it hit. Not just his wolf. Him. It was… loud.” She laughed once, short and helpless. “Infuriating. And—”

“And you didn’t hate it,” Ilyss supplied.

Sylvi’s throat tightened. “I don’t want the only reason I’m tied to anyone to be because some monster with a grudge took an interest.”

“Then make sure it isn’t,” Ilyss said simply. “You’re the one with the overpowered empathy tricks. Use them for something other than taking on everyone else’s pain.”

Sylvi swallowed hard.

Across the room, Corren’s voice dropped; Maerin peeled off to check on Jorek. Riven slipped outside. Corren hesitated, then started toward them.

“I’ll leave you two to your staring contest,” Ilyss murmured, levering herself up. “Try not to crash my patients into the walls this time.”

Sylvi shot her a look. “No promises.”

Ilyss snorted and moved away, intercepting a young assistant at the door with a clipped instruction.

Corren stopped a polite distance away, hands loose at his sides, as if approaching a skittish animal. Or a tripwire.

“How’s the edge?” he asked.

She lifted the mug. “Blunted. Center’s still a mess.”

A flicker of humor touched his eyes. “Honest. Good.”

He didn’t sit, just leaned one shoulder against the wall opposite her, keeping enough space that their knees didn’t touch.

“You scared them,” he said quietly, nodding toward the wing. “Maerin. Riven. Half the pack.”

“Good,” she said, too fast. “Maybe they’ll stop staring at me like I’m going to heal them all with a hug and a good cry.”

He huffed out a breath that might have been a laugh. “You scared me,” he added, softer.

That landed like a stone in her ribcage.

“You grabbed me,” she said. “That wasn’t in the contract.”

His jaw flexed. “You were being dragged toward something I couldn’t fight. Touch is what I had.”

“And now we have… this.” She flicked her fingers between them, as if she could pluck the new thread from the air. “Congratulations. You accidentally installed early access bond software.”

His mouth actually curved at that. “You make it sound like a bug.”

“Isn’t it?” she shot back. “Your wolf decided I was a convenient power cable. Mine decided not to let you fry alone.”

“And you think that’s all?” he said. “Reflex?”

“I think,” she said carefully, “that I need to be very sure any bond between us is more than trauma glue.”

His gaze held hers, steady, unflinching. “Good,” he said. “So do I.”

That threw her.

“You—what?”

“I don’t want you bound to me because some enemy tried to use you as a door,” Corren said. “Or because my pack thinks ‘alpha without a luna’ is a problem to solve. I want—” He stopped, exhaled. “If there’s anything between us, it has to be something we can both walk away from. And both choose again. Or it’s just another collar.”

The words hit her like cold water and sunlight at the same time.

“You realize,” Sylvi said slowly, “that’s the least alpha thing you could’ve said.”

He inclined his head. “I’m trying new strategies.”

Silence stretched, not uncomfortable this time, just charged.

“Whoever this is,” he added, voice turning flintier, “they saw you. They saw us. They’ll try again.”

“I know,” she said.

“Next time,” he continued, “we don’t let them pick the battlefield. We learn how this… connection works. On our terms. Not theirs.”

Her fingers tightened around the mug. “You’re not afraid it’ll make us more of a target?”

“I’m more afraid,” Corren said quietly, “of you standing between that thing and my pack alone.”

Heat flushed up under her skin, knocking her breath sideways.

“Fine,” Sylvi said, because anything more would break something open she wasn’t ready for. “We experiment. Carefully. We figure out what this bond can do besides almost kill us.”

“And,” he added, “we tell my people what we know. No more pretending this is just a healer visiting from the city.”

“Announce that your convenient mystery contractor is now your semi-bonded… something?” she said dryly. “That should go over great in the rumor mill.”

“Rumors are already running,” Corren said. “I’d rather they hear it from us.”

A headache bloomed behind her eyes. “I hate politics.”

“I know,” he said. “You like very practical lists. So here’s one: eat. Sleep. Then we face the pack. Together.”

The word together settled over her like a blanket and a weight at once.

She drained the rest of the tea, grimaced at the bitter dregs, and slid off the cot. Her legs wobbled, but held.

“Fine,” she said again. “But if anyone calls me ‘luna’ tonight, I reserve the right to bite.”

A real smile, small and sharp, tugged at his mouth.

“I’ll warn them,” Corren said. “You bite harder than I do.”

She stepped past him toward the infirmary door, their shoulders almost—almost—brushing.

The new thread between them pulsed warm, like a quiet promise.

For the first time since the whiteout, Sylvi let herself lean into that warmth, just a fraction.

If the universe wanted to turn that into a battleground, it would have to go through both of them.