Relief rushes through my body so fast I feel dizzy. Caelan’s hold on my hand tightens, and I hear her exhale beside me.
“But,” Ash continues, and the single word makes my stomach drop, “I can’t speak to whether he’ll remain loyal when tested. The bond with Caelan is genuine, but as we all know, bonds can be broken under enough pressure. If Thornridge finds a way to leverage his brother against him, or if the situation becomes desperate enough…” She shakes her head slowly. “I canonly tell you what’s in his heart right now, in this moment. I can’t predict what he’ll do when everything he loves is on the line.”
Chapter 17 - Caelan
My aunt is going to kill me.
I’ve been dreading this conversation since Patrick and I left the council meeting room three hours ago. We’re holed up in a small sitting room in Oren’s packhouse now, tucked away from the chaos of wolves coming and going through the main halls. Someone brought us tea that neither of us has touched. The cups sit abandoned on the table, and whatever warmth they once held has long since faded.
Patrick occupies the chair across from me with his elbows braced on his knees and his head bowed. He hasn’t said much since Ash delivered her verdict. Neither have I. I suspect her words are weighing on us both, filling the space between us with things we don’t know how to say.
I can’t predict what he’ll do when everything he loves is on the line.
The phrase keeps circling through my mind like a vulture waiting for something to die. Ash confirmed that Patrick’s desire to protect me is real. She confirmed that his guilt runs deep and has for years. Those things should comfort me, and they do in a way. But then comes the rest of it, the caveat that changes everything.
Bonds can be broken under enough pressure.
I think about Jonas, the younger brother Patrick mentioned during his confession to the council. The boy who was only eight years old when Thornridge absorbed their pack and killed their father right in front of them who grew into a young man who believes in everything Thornridge stands for because he doesn’t remember anything else.
Patrick spent sixteen years protecting that boy, shielding him, and staying in a pack he hated just to make sure Jonas survived. If Bastian finds a way to use Jonas against Patrick, what happens then? What choice does Patrick make when the brother he’s dedicated his life to protecting is dangled in front of him like bait on a hook?
I don’t know the answer. Neither does Ash. And that uncertainty scares the hell out of me.
I can feel Patrick’s exhaustion bleeding through the mate bond. His frustration, his fear, and his desperate need to be something other than what Thornridge made him. All of it twists around my mind and my heart until I can barely separate his emotions from my own.
“You’re thinking too loud,” Patrick complains without lifting his head.
“Sorry. Didn’t realize the mate bond came with a volume setting.”
He huffs out a laugh and shakes his head. “It doesn’t. But I can feel you spiraling from here.”
“I’m not spiraling.”
He cocks his head to the side and smirks.
“Fine. Maybe I’m spiraling a little.” I pull my feet up onto the couch and wrap my arms around my knees like I’m trying to hold myself together. “Ash basically told the entire council that you might betray us if things get bad enough. That’s not exactly the ringing endorsement we were hoping for.”
“She told them the truth,” he replies with a shrug. “I don’t know what I’d do if Bastian got his hands on Jonas. I’d like to think I’d stay loyal to you, to the alliance and to everything I’vepromised. But I’ve never been tested like that. None of us know who we really are until we’re pushed to the breaking point.”
“That’s not comforting.”
“It’s not meant to be comforting. All I can do is tell you the truth. I won’t make you promises I’m not certain I can keep. What I will tell you is that right now, in this moment, there’s nothing I wouldn’t do to keep you safe. If that ever changes, you’ll be the first to know.”
Everything in me wants to argue with him, to demand guarantees and certainties and all the things that would make this situation feel less like standing on the edge of a cliff. But I’ve spent nineteen years living under a curse that stripped away my ability to feel anything real, and I know better than most that life doesn’t come with guarantees. Sometimes you just have to trust and hope and pray that the person standing beside you won’t let you fall.
“Okay,” I reply. “I can work with honest.”
The tightness around his eyes smooths a fraction, and he reaches across the space between us to take my hand. His fingers are calloused from years of training and fighting and surviving in ways I’m only beginning to understand. I squeeze back, using the gesture as an anchor to this moment, to the fragile thing we’re building together out of chaos and desperation and something that might eventually become love.
“We’ll figure it out,” he promises.
I open my mouth to respond, but the door to the sitting room swings open before I can get the words out. No knock. No warning. Just the crack of wood against stone as it hits the wall.
Matriarch Lydia Thornwick looms in the doorway with fury carved into every line of her face.
The temperature in the room trickles to freezing the moment she sets eyes on Patrick. She doesn’t acknowledge him. Doesn’t spare him so much as a glance after that first frozen moment of recognition. Instead, she turns the full force of her attention on me, and the rage blazing in her blue eyes makes my stomach drop to my feet.
“Leave us,” she commands, and there’s no question who she’s talking to.
