The Alpha Who Tried to Unmate Me

Chapter 10 – Nyra’s Map

The Vaelir house swallowed me whole.

Warm light, polished wood, scents layered thick—wolf, spice, old stone. It was everything the white rooms of the program weren’t. My wolf pressed against my ribs, confused and wanting.

“This way,” Corren said.

The hallways hadn’t changed much. Same framed photos of pack runs, same nick in the banister from when Nyra and I had tried to slide down it as kids and Garron had caught us halfway.

I shoved that memory down hard.

Corren led me to a room on the second floor I’d never been in before. Not the guest wing. Not the old family hallway. The door was new, the lock heavy.

“Really?” I said. “House arrest with a view?”

“It’s temporary.” His tone gave nothing away. “You’ll be safer where my people can reach you quickly. And where humans can’t.”

“Define ‘safer.’”

He opened the door.

It wasn’t a cell. It was… nice. Too nice. A bed big enough for a small pack, a desk, a couch by a wide window that looked over the inner yard. Wardrobes. A private bathroom. All the trappings of a welcome that wasn’t one.

I crossed the threshold slowly. The air smelled faintly of cedar and cleaning solvent. No one had lived here in a while.

“Nice gilding on the cage,” I said.

He ignored that. “There’s a warded line at the threshold. Pack only past the stairs unless we escort. Windows are alarmed, not barred. You can move freely inside the house.”

“And outside?”

“Inner courtyard, with escort,” he said. “Borders are hot right now. Patrols are jumpy.”

Translation: if I stepped one toe outside the safe bubble, someone would be there to drag me back before Volen’s people could.

“You really think I’m going to run?” I asked.

“I think,” he said, “that every human in this city is one more body away from demanding you in a box.”

My throat tightened. I turned away, pretending to study the window. “Maybe they’re right.”

“Don’t.” Steel under the word.

Footsteps thundered down the hall. A heartbeat later, the door burst open wider.

“Is it true?” Nyra demanded. “Is she—”

She skidded to a stop when she saw me, almost crashing into Corren’s back. Hair a dark, wild halo, leggings torn at one knee, oversized sweater falling off one shoulder. Her eyes were bright, ringed with tired shadows.

“Liora,” she breathed.

“Hey, pup,” I said, before I could stop myself.

She launched herself at me.

Instinct made my wolf brace, muscles coiling—but Nyra wrapped her arms around me with careful ferocity, nose burying in my neck like we were still kids sneaking out after curfew.

“You smell like trouble,” she said into my shoulder.

“You always liked that about me,” I managed.

She leaned back, studying my face with unnerving intensity. Her aura rolled over mine, feather‑light and sharp, like a scanner tuned too fine.

“You’re different,” she murmured. “Louder and… quieter, all at once.”

“Nyra,” Corren warned. “Give her space.”

She shot him a look. “She doesn’t want space. Her wolf is wound so tight it’s giving me a headache.”

I blinked. “You can feel that from just a hug?”

Nyra huffed. “I can feel the whole damn house right now. And the street. And the poor beta trying not to freak out in the yard.” She rubbed her temples. “Ever since that botched wedding ritual, everyone’s buzzing.”

Corren’s jaw worked. “Which is why you’re supposed to be resting.”

Nyra ignored him and caught my wrist, flipping my hand palm‑up. Her fingers brushed the red mark where the human band had been.

Then she went very still.

The air in the room shifted, heavy and humming. Nyra’s eyes unfocused for a second, pupils blowing wide.

“Nyra?” I said carefully. “Breathe.”

She did, but it came out shaky. “Your bond,” she whispered. “What’s left of it. It’s… wrong.”

“Professional opinion,” I said. “It was ripped out of me in a lab. ‘Wrong’ is putting it lightly.”

“That’s not what I mean.” She looked up at me, and for a moment she wasn’t the reckless little sister I remembered. She was something older, rawer. “It’s not dead.”

The words landed like a physical blow.

Behind her, Corren went motionless.

I laughed, too sharp. “Sure it is. I was there when they cut it. Remember? Front row, best seats in the house.”

Nyra shook her head slowly. “Dead bonds don’t hum. They don’t ache. Yours is… twisted. Like someone snapped it and then tried to knot the hanging pieces together. There’s still a line running out from you, Li. It just doesn’t know where it’s allowed to go.”

My heart hammered. “And where,” I asked, hating the tremor in my voice, “do you think it’s pointed?”

As if I didn’t already know.

Nyra’s gaze slid, inevitably, to her brother.

For one breath, all three of us stood in the same electric silence—me with my scar, him with his walls, her with her too‑sharp senses.

Then Nyra offered me a crooked, fierce little smile.

“Good news,” she said. “Whatever they tried to do to you? They failed.”

I closed my eyes, just for a moment.

Of course they had. Of course they had.

Because if there was one constant in my life, it was that nothing about my bond with Corren Vaelir ever broke clean.