The Alpha Who Broke Our Bond

Chapter 17 – Panic and Comfort

By the time we got back to the house, my skin felt two sizes too small.

The thread we’d snapped in the circle still tingled along my nerves, a ghost itch under the bone. Every sound was too sharp—the clatter of boots in the entryway, the low murmur of voices, the creak of the stair.

“You’re done for tonight,” Aren said as we stepped inside.

I snorted. “You keep saying that like it’s your choice.”

“Consider it a professional recommendation,” he said. “From someone who just watched you wrestle invisible strings in a cursed stone ring.”

Gravik peeled off toward the war-room, rubbing his eyes. “I’m telling the patrol captains we burned one of their symbols,” he called back. “They can adjust routes in the morning. Try not to fall over before then, healer.”

“No promises,” I muttered.

The house quieted as night settled. Wolves drifted to bunks and bedrolls; lanterns dimmed one by one. My body recognized the rhythms, fell into them, even while my mind paced.

Upstairs, at my door, my hand hesitated on the latch.

Unclicked. Just like last night.

Across the hall, the wood of Aren’s door whispered as he pushed it open a crack. His voice came soft.

“Lysa.”

“I’m not going to break,” I said, without turning.

“You almost did in that circle,” he said. “Don’t pretend you didn’t feel it.”

I did. I still felt it. The way the cold line had reached for the old wound in me like a tongue for missing teeth.

“I’m fine,” I lied, and went inside.

I didn’t bother with a lamp. Moonlight bled in through the window, painting pale bars across the floor. I stripped off my boots, shrugged out of my jacket, sank onto the edge of the bed.

My heart wouldn’t slow.

The room felt wrong-sized—too big and too small at once. I could still see the children in that vision, lined against the stone, the ritualist’s hand passing over their brows.

We found you again, the magic had purred. We can find you any time.

My breathing hitched.

“No,” I told the empty room. “You can’t.”

My wolf wasn’t convinced. She paced, hackles high.

The first breath went shallow. The second, shallower. My fingers tingled; the edges of the room fuzzed, the way they had just before Mirael was pulled from my grip.

Oh, no.

Not now. Not alone.

The third breath came in a ragged gulp that ended on a sound I didn’t recognize as mine until it bounced off the walls.

“Lysa?”

Aren’s voice. Too far. Across the hall, through the half-open door.

I pressed my hands to my eyes. “I’m fine,” I tried again, but it came out thin and high.

The floor shifted under my feet. Stone, dirt, wood—past and present stacked on top of each other. I smelled ash. Heard children crying.

Make it stop, some younger version of me begged. Make me forget. Please—

“I remember,” I whispered. “I remember, I remember—”

My chest locked. Air wouldn’t come.

Footsteps, fast, then the click of my door nudged wider.

“Lysandra.”

There was command in it this time, undercut with something that sounded a lot like fear.

I couldn’t answer.

The bed dipped. A warm weight settled beside me, then hands—calloused, familiar even after four years—closed around my wrists and gently pulled them away from my eyes.

“Breathe,” Aren said, low and steady. “In. With me.”

I dragged in air like I’d forgotten how. It stuck halfway.

“Good,” he said. “Out.”

We did it again. And again. His voice wrapped around the rhythm, a tether in the dark.

“In. Out. You’re here. Not there.”

I could smell him now—smoke and pine and the faint copper tang of old blood in fabric that had seen too many nights like this. His heartbeat hummed against my senses, a solid drum behind my own frantic stutter.

“Look at me,” he murmured. “Come on, little wolf. Eyes.”

I forced my lids up.

For a moment, the room doubled: him in front of me now, and him in the old circle, younger and blood-streaked, hands just as tight on my arms.

The past tried to swallow the present.

He must have seen it in my face. His thumbs pressed lightly against the inside of my wrists, over my pulse.

“Here,” he said. “Now. Say it.”

“Here,” I rasped. “Now.”

“Again.”

“Here. Now.”

The room snapped back into single vision.

My heart was still racing, but air had found its way into my lungs. His grip eased, just enough that if I wanted to pull away, I could.

I didn’t. Not yet.

“I hate this,” I whispered.

“I know,” he said.

Something in his eyes cracked. The alpha mask slipped, just a fraction, enough for me to see the raw worry beneath.

“I shouldn’t have let you step into that circle,” he said. “Not alone.”

“You followed,” I said, voice rough. “You pushed with me. That’s… new.”

His mouth twisted. “Learning from past mistakes,” he said. “Very slowly, apparently.”

A laugh hiccuped out of me, brittle and real. His shoulders loosened.

“Better?” he asked.

I nodded. “For now.”

We stayed like that for a long moment—his hands warm around my wrists, my knees almost touching his on the mattress, the space between us humming with too much history and not enough distance.

“This is why I wanted the doors unlatched,” he said quietly. “Not to… fix anything overnight. Just to be able to walk in before you drown.”

His honesty pinched something tender in my chest.

“I don’t like needing you for this,” I admitted.

“I don’t like that you need anyone for it,” he said. “Least of all because of choices we made together.”

He released my wrists slowly, palms skimming up to rest light on my forearms. Not restraining. Just there.

“You can sleep,” he said. “I’ll stay until you do.”

“You have a pack to run,” I said, but it lacked bite.

“Gravik can shout at them for one night,” he said. “He enjoys it.”

My wolf huffed, tired. We could use the warmth, she muttered.

I scowled at her. “Traitor.”

Still, when I lay back, I didn’t protest when Aren shifted to sit with his back against the headboard, one leg stretched out along the bed, the other braced on the floor. I turned on my side, facing the window, the blanket pulled up to my chin.

His presence radiated heat along my spine, not touching me, but close enough that if I flinched or gasped, his hand would reach me in a second.

“Sleep, Lysa,” he murmured.

I closed my eyes.

The dark came, but it wasn’t empty this time. Threads moved through it—cold ones reaching, warm ones coiling protectively around my ribs. Somewhere far away, a girl in a cave might still be staring at the stones, but for the first time since she’d been taken, I didn’t see her face when I fell.

I saw an old stone ring, yes. And blood. And choices.

But overlaid on top of it, stubborn and new, was another image: our hands together, crushing an enemy thread into ash.

When sleep finally dragged me under, my last thought was not forget.

It was next time, we pull first.