Fated to the Wrong Alpha

Chapter 10 – Lines in the Sand

The elevator doors finally give way with a shriek of tortured metal.

Light floods in—too bright, too sudden. My wolf flinches. Corren shifts slightly, putting himself between me and the opening without seeming to move at all.

Dael’s face appears first, jaw clenched, eyes scanning like he expects to find bodies.

“About time,” Corren mutters.

Dael exhales something between a curse and a prayer. “We lost power for five minutes. Whole tower went dark. You two pick the best moments to almost die.”

He offers a hand. Corren ignores it, pushing to his feet and then hauling me up with him. My legs wobble, not from the jolt this time, but from the aftershock running through our bond. It feels like someone peeled back skin to check the wiring inside and forgot to close it properly.

Riya’s there, too—Council liaison badge crooked on her blazer, healer bag already open.

“Aeryn.” Her eyes are all medic now, clinical and worried. “Any dizziness? Nausea? Blurred vision?”

“Just the usual existential terror,” I say, voice scratchy. “And…a little chest stabbing.”

She doesn’t smile. She reaches for my wrist. Her fingers pause over the faint heat still pulsing under my skin. “Your mark is reacting.”

“Understatement,” I mutter.

Behind her, Orrik Dae appears, flanked by two of his people, expression composed. His gaze flicks over the scorched floor, the hairline cracks, the lingering scent of burned herbs. Something sharp glints in his eyes and vanishes.

“What happened?” he asks smoothly.

Corren stares at him for a long beat. “Your guess is as good as mine,” he says. “Unless you have a habit of installing ritual bombs in other people’s elevators.”

A muscle jumps in Orrik’s cheek. “I assure you, Alpha Lyall, the Council had nothing to do with this…malfunction.”

“Right,” Lyssa mutters from behind Dael. “Because sabotaging the fake engagement you fought for would make so little sense.”

“Lyssa,” Corren snaps.

She shuts up. Barely.

Riya crouches to study the floor, careful not to touch the blackened sigils. “These lines are old,” she says quietly. “Not something a bored witch threw together in an afternoon. And they’re keyed to bond magic.”

My stomach drops. “So whoever did this knew exactly what they were cutting at.”

“They used a voice masking technique,” I add, looking at Corren. “But…they said it wasn’t meant to be ours. That we should have died with the last attempt.”

Dael’s gaze sharpens. “Last attempt?”

Corren’s jaw locks. “The wedding,” he says, and the whole hallway seems to inhale. “Elira’s.”

A murmur runs through the wolves gathered in the corridor.

Orrik clears his throat, reclaiming his smooth, neutral tone. “This is troubling. An attack on two key representatives under Council protection—”

“Save it,” Corren says coldly. “You and your Council did everything short of painting targets on our backs.”

“Corren,” Riya warns under her breath.

He doesn’t look away from Orrik. “Somebody set a ritual trap to tear at our bond. In my territory. Using techniques that look a hell of a lot like the ones your ‘approved’ ritu­alists used in the past.”

“Accusations will not help us find—”

“Then help,” I cut in, sharper than I intend. My voice echoes down the hall. Heads swivel. “You sit on centuries of knowledge about bond rituals and pretend you’re shocked someone figured out how to weaponize them? Fine. Prove it. Show us what you know. All of it.”

For just a second, the polite mask slips. I see something hunched and calculating behind Orrik’s eyes.

“The Council will, of course, cooperate with any investigation,” he says. “In the meantime, for your safety, I must insist on stricter protocols. Limited movement. No unsupervised—”

“No,” Corren and I say together.

The word hangs between us, heavy.

I take a breath, feel the raw path of our bond hum under my skin. It’s more exposed now, easier to read. I can feel his anger, banked but hot, and under it, a thin, unfamiliar thread leading…away.

Not gone. Just anchored somewhere else.

“We were attacked because of what we are,” I say, quieter but not softer. “Not because we were out getting coffee alone. Locking us up won’t fix that. It just concentrates the target.”

Maelor has arrived somewhere during the argument, my uncle’s scent cutting through the smoke—amber and old paper and faint ozone. He studies the floor, then me, then Corren.

“Aeryn,” he says, voice tight. “Are you hurt?”

I almost laugh. Physically, I’m more or less in one piece. In every other sense…

“I’m standing,” I answer. “That’s the current bar.”

His gaze shifts to Orrik. “Whoever did this just escalated far beyond border skirmishes.”

“Which is why,” Orrik replies, patience fraying at the edges, “we must avoid rash action and present a unified front. If outsiders sense weakness—”

“If outsiders can hijack bond rituals under your noses,” Dael cuts in, “we’re already weak.”

Lyssa steps up beside me, close enough that our shoulders almost touch. “So what’s it going to be?” she asks. “More speeches? Or are we actually going to hunt the bastard who keeps carving his name into my brother’s fate?”

Riya straightens, dust on her knees, eyes dark. “I can track residue from the sigils,” she says. “But not alone. I’ll need someone who understands the original structure.”

Everyone looks at Vaelis’s empty space like a ghost should materialize there.

Corren meets my gaze over the wrecked elevator floor. The line between us hums, raw and undeniable.

“Whoever this is,” he says, low enough that it’s almost just for me, “they’ve already tried to break us twice.”

My wolf bares her teeth. “Then we stop waiting for the next attempt,” I answer. “We find them.”

“And when we do?” Dael asks.

Corren’s eyes are ice and iron. “Then we stop being polite.”

In the distance, alarms quiet. The tower exhales.

Somewhere down that faint, foreign thread in our bond, someone else is pulling too.

They thought we’d snap.

Instead, they’ve tied themselves to two very angry wolves.