The words hung between them, heavy with meaning neither of them was quite ready to acknowledge. Around them, the fortress was still in chaos—the aftermath of Vask’s coup attempt, the political fallout yet to come, and everything else he’d have to address at dawn.
But in this moment, none of it mattered.
“Take me somewhere,” she said, her voice steadier than she felt. “Somewhere that isn’t here.”
His grip tightened. “Where?”
“Anywhere you want.” She pressed her palm flat against his chest, feeling his heart pound beneath the fur and muscle. “Anywhere we can be something other than what they expect us to be.”
For a long moment, he just looked at her. Something shifted in his expression—surprise, maybe, or recognition—before hardening once more.
Then the blue gem on his wristband flared, and the world dissolved into light.
30
Sylas
The fortress churned with controlled chaos—guards running damage reports, healers triaging the wounded, council members demanding explanations that Sylas had neither the time nor the patience to provide. Smoke still curled from the eastern wing where the manufactured breach had torn through the perimeter grid. Somewhere in the distance, the howling of contained Fallen echoed off stone walls—a reminder of how close they’d come to true disaster.
Sylas moved through it like a blade through water, Elsa tucked against his side, her weight barely registering against the adrenaline still screaming through his veins.
She was hurt. The bond told him that in vivid detail—the throb of her split lip, the hot ache spreading across both her cheekbones where those vileanimalshad struck her. Every pulse of her pain echoed through him like a second heartbeat, wrongness layered over fury layered over something darker. Something that wanted to go back down into those tunnels and kill them all over again.
But they were dead. The satisfying crunch of bone still resonated in Sylas’s memory, the way the priest’s eyes had gone dim and empty. Both threats were eliminated.
About a dozen more remained. At the very least. He wouldn’t stop until his fortress was purged of those vile animals. Until even the fortresses walls remembered who the Alpha King was, and what would happen if dared to challenge him or harm what washis.
Ryxin met them at the infirmary doors, Ari pressed close against his side. His brother’s black fur was matted with blood—not all of it his own—and his cyan eyes held the same cold calculation that Sylas felt coiling in his own chest.
“The grid’s stabilized,” Ryxin reported. “Vor’s team contained the Fallen breach—manufactured, as we suspected. Three of Vask’s males were caught opening the perimeter gates.”
“Alive?”
“For now.” Ryxin’s lips curled back from his teeth. “They’re...cooperative. Gave us names before I even had to ask.”
Sylas felt the list settling into his mind like stones dropping into water. Council members. Knights. Servants who had fed information to the priest’s network for months. The rot went deeper than he’d allowed himself to believe—spreading through his walls while he’d been distracted.
Distracted by her.
He should regret it. Should see Elsa as the weakness his enemies had named her, the vulnerability they’d exploited to tear his kingdom apart from the inside.
Instead, he tightened his grip on her waist and felt the bond pulse warm between them.
“How many names?” he asked.
“Fourteen confirmed. Possibly more.” Ryxin’s gaze flicked to Elsa, then back to Sylas. Something shifted in his expression—not quite approval, but close. “She fought well. Attacked with nothing but a chain and her own stupidity.”
“Courage,” Sylas corrected, the word coming out rougher than intended. “Not stupidity.”
Elsa made a sound that might have been a laugh if her lip hadn’t been split. “Pretty sure it was both.”
The infirmary doors swung open, and Yarx appeared—amber eyes sharp, already cataloging injuries with the efficiency of a male who had seen too many battlefield wounds. He took one look at Elsa’s face and his ears flattened.
“Bring her in,” he ordered, stepping aside. “The others too. I’ve cleared the main ward.”
Sylas carried Elsa through the doors himself, ignoring her protest that she could walk. The bond thrummed between them with every step—her exhaustion bleeding into him, his barely leashed violence bleeding into her. He felt her flinch at the edge of it, the part of him that wanted to hunt and kill and tear until nothing remained that could threaten her.
She didn’t pull away.