CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: UNBROKEN
1153 Words
Sienna's POV
Duke didn't move toward the door. The guard's footsteps faded down the corridor. He stayed where he was, arms at his sides, watching me in silence.
A bruise had started on his jaw, dark and spreading just above the bone where the shield had thrown him. I looked at it for a moment, felt the warmth still lingering in my fingers, and looked elsewhere.
My pulse was loud in my own ears. He shook his head once, cutting off whatever I'd been about to say.
Then metal groaned against wood somewhere at the far end of the hall.
Duke's eyes found mine.
"Hide," he said.
I was already moving. A narrow gap sat between the heavy oak shelf and the foundation of the stone wall. I turned sideways to fit into it, one shoulder pressing into cold stone, the other into wood that smelled of rot and damp earth. My heartbeat filled my ears.
My knees bent at an angle that ground bone against bone. I held still and clamped my jaw shut against the dust gathering at the back of my throat. Silver hair rested warm against the side of my neck.
Two sets of footsteps entered through the main door. One quick and agitated, the other measured and unhurried. They stopped just inside.
"Duke." The voice was almost conversational, with an edge underneath. "You look rough."
"Is the rot getting to your wolf?" Duke's voice came from near the bar. A bottle clinked against glass. "Or is that just your face today?"
Silence stretched. My lungs burned, but I kept the air in and held every muscle still.
"Sit down, Kael," Duke said.
Chairs moved. Something heavy landed on the table hard enough that the vibration carried through the floor into my feet. Footsteps came back toward me. I stopped breathing.
They passed the table. One step, then another. Kael reached the edge of the shelf, close enough that I heard the friction of his coat as he turned. Close enough to hear the slow draw of breath through his nose. I fixed my eyes on a single point in the dark stone and kept them there. If he turned his head, I was finished.
A boot scraped the floor. One step back, then two. Footsteps moved toward the bar. A chair creaked under his weight. I let a thin line of air out through my nose, my ribs aching.
"Where's Sienna?"
"The warehouse." Liquid poured in a slow, steady stream. "She needed space after the forest."
"The full moon is thirty days out." Kael's voice stayed easy while everything underneath ran tight. "I'm cracking that shield, Duke, with or without your help."
Pouring stopped. "You c***k it now, you get a corpse. Nothing more."
"You've had weeks."
"You've had centuries." Glass met bar, sharp enough to snap. "What's four more days?"
"My wolf's rotting from the inside." Kael's chair scraped back. "You smell it. If I fall, these walls come down. Damien's been moving too. Three noble packs came in last week. They're smelling blood in the water."
Kael set his glass down. "Keep your eye on him. He's a cornered animal, and those bite the deepest."
Footsteps left. A door opened and shut behind them.
I counted my own pulse until my heart stopped hammering. When I stepped out from the gap, every joint ached. My knees throbbed, my shoulder had gone numb, my back had locked up entirely.
I braced a hand against the shelf and waited for the worst of it to pass.
Silver hair fell across my face. I tucked it behind my ear. The bar stool where Kael had been sitting was still angled slightly toward the shelf.
He'd been looking directly at my hiding spot the entire time. He'd said nothing to Kael.
My hands wouldn't stop shaking, even after I pressed them flat against my thighs.
The thread in my chest pulled hard toward the northwest. Sudden and insistent. Stronger than it had been since the forest.
I turned toward it.
~~~~
~~Damien's POV~~
Two days. Border reports sat in a crooked pile on the desk. I hadn't read a single line. I only moved the papers when I needed something to do with my hands. Something to keep the claws from tearing the wood apart.
I sat with my palms flat on the oak and stared at the gray stone wall opposite me. Waiting for something I couldn't name.
The door opened without a knock.
"Alpha." The servant bowed low. "Clara hasn't eaten. Two days now."
I pulled my hands back and saw indentations in the oak. "How long?"
"Twenty days, maybe less, before the soul-rot takes her." Her voice was flat. "Her family is already asking for the transition rites."
I didn't answer. The servant bowed again and retreated. The door closed soft behind her. I still hadn't moved from the chair.
When I finally stood, the pain hit before I was fully upright.
It came from my chest. Not the familiar dull ache but something tearing. Outward and immediate. My wolf surged and thrashed hard against my ribs. I went down to one knee. My hand caught the edge of the desk. The wood groaned and split under my grip.
Breath came through my nose in shallow pulls. The pressure didn't ease. It built until my vision went white.
Then it stopped.
Not faded. Stopped. The thrashing cut off mid pull. My wolf went still. The spot behind my ribs where the bond had lived went empty and cold. Too quiet. For one breath I thought that was it. That it had finally given out.
Then the voice arrived. No distance. No buildup. It came from inside my own chest.
"Your power is restored."
Heat moved through my veins. Low and steady. Working up from my chest into my shoulders. The ache that had lived there for weeks drained out. My hands stopped shaking. I stayed still and let it happen until it reached my fingertips.
I looked down at my hand. Blood from my split knuckle tracked a thin red line across the plaster. While I watched, the skin pulled closed. The bleeding stopped. Only a faint pink line remained.
Something else registered next. Faint at first. At the far edge of what I could reach. I held my breath and kept my body still. Part of me wanted it to be nothing. The rest already knew better.
A thread ran outward from behind my ribs. Alive. Pulsing with a heartbeat that wasn't mine. I hadn't felt it in weeks. I had almost convinced myself it was gone.
I pressed my palm flat against the stone and closed my eyes. It held. I let the breath out slow and watched it cloud in the cold air.
It didn't break.
I pushed off the wall and turned toward the northwest before my head could tell me not to.
- Writer
