Chapter Four

|| Mira ||

Hours passed. Or maybe just one.

I had no way of knowing.

The only clock I had was a thin strip of moonlight leaking through the gap I found between the boards on the window. It crept across the floor so slowly I had to stare to catch it moving at all.

I watched it anyway. Counted my breaths. Tried not to think too hard about how quiet the house was.

The energy bar sat untouched beside me.

Every time I looked at it, something in me said no. Eating felt like giving in. Like saying fine, I'll stay and accepting that this was real.

I knew how stupid that was. I knew my body needed fuel but I wasn't ready to accept my new reality.

I reached for it eventually. Tore it open and ate every bite even though it tasted like chalk and sat wrongly in my stomach, threatening to come back up with every swallow.

Zane had spent years teaching me how to survive. Skipping food when you're already compromised was the first mistake people made.

Food meant strength. Strength meant options. And right now, options were all I had.

By the time I finished, the dizziness had dropped from a full storm to a dull throb. My limbs still felt dense, sluggish and slightly numb, like they belonged to someone waking up from anesthesia. But they listened when I moved so that was enough.

At some point after Kael left, I'd heard the lock turn on the other side of the door.

The click of the lock settled over me like a second layer of confinement and the silence after it was the worst part.

Back home there was always something going on in the pack house; Zane's voice carrying through the halls, pack members crossing the grounds, training sounds bleeding in from the yard every morning. Even at Moonstone, there had been life. Lisandra's music through the wall, footsteps in the corridor, the building just breathing around me.

Here there was nothing.

And inside that nothingness, I reached for Anya again, pleading and hoping for even the faintest hint that she was alive somewhere within me.

Only emptiness answered back.

I pressed the back of my hand to my mouth and held it there until the ache in my chest lessened.

Get up, Mira. I screamed to myself subconsciously.

Lying here wasn't an option. Every minute I stayed still was another minute my family spent not knowing where I was and if I was alive.

I could picture them too easily; Zane pacing. His jaw tight and that vein in his temple showing; the one that only appeared when he was working hard at not losing it.

Zander already moving, calling every contact he had, already building a plan in that quiet, methodical way of his that never looked like panic but always was.

And my mother. Hands folded too tightly in her lap. Holding herself together on sheer will while my dad console her.

That was what Kael wanted.

Not just me, but what taking me would do to them. The fear. The helplessness. The specific kind of damage that strength and power and every resource we had couldn't fix, because the thing they loved most was already gone.

He had chosen the one weapon guaranteed to cut deep enough.

I refused to be that weapon. I was more than that.

Determination bloomed in my chest and I pushed myself upright.

The chains snapped immediately. The silver bit into my skin and my strength dropped, like something essential was being bled out of me one slow drip at a time.

I studied the cuffs. They looked new, as if I was the first person they had been put on. They fit closely, with almost no room to work with.

I tried anyway.

Flattening my hand, I twisted my wrist testing every angle to see if I could force the bones just right and push through the burn long enough, maybe I could slip free.

Wait.

The word rose from somewhere deep within me, not Anya, just the part of me that had listened to Zane long enough to know the difference between smart pain and stupid pain.

Wait for your Lycan strength to return. My inner logic murmured and I ignored it.

Because every minute I sat still was another minute Kael stayed ahead.

Zane would have already found three ways out of this room. Zander would have mapped the whole building. I was their sister. I could do this.

I pulled harder.

The silver and wolfsbane met my blood and pain shot straight up my arm. It was white-hot, sudden, violent enough to flash my vision blank.

I bit inside my cheek and swallowed the cry before it got out.

Blood splashed onto the sheets and I paused, staring at it as my pulse pounded loudly into my ears.

The questions that had been circling all night came back louder now.

Who are you Kael? What happened between your family and mine?

Because my brothers weren't cruel. Ruthless— yes, only when they had to be. Capable of violence — yes. But not pointless violence. If they had killed his father and brother, there had been a reason.

That didn't mean Kael had to see it that way.

Grief had a way of rewriting everything until pain became the only version of the truth left standing.

But I wasn’t going to be an instrument for his revenge.

I yanked the chain one last time. Hard.

Something in my wrist screamed. I gasped as more blood spilled, faster now.

Then, I heard footsteps outside the door, freezing me into place.

The key turned, and the door swung open.

Kael stepped in, the hallway light at his back throwing his face into shadow and his eyes dropped to my wrist immediately.

"What the hell are you doing?"

He crossed the room fast, crouching beside the bed, reaching for my arm.

"Don't—" I pulled back. “Touch me.”

He ignored me. Took my wrist and lifted it toward the dim light.

The second his skin touched mine, the world went silent.

A jolt of electric heat shot straight up my arm, flooding my chest so fast it knocked the air right out of my lungs.

The burn of the silver vanished. The terror evaporated. For one suspended, airless second there was nothing except the warmth of his hand around my wrist and the strange, terrifying feeling that some part of me recognized him.

Then, Anya came roaring back.

She came back with full force hauling me forward, like a door thrown open in a storm, violent and overwhelming.

Her voice filled every inch of my mind all at once and I wanted to weep with gratitude.

But I couldn't breathe.

I couldn't think.

All I could do was feel her. She was finally there, while I tried to understand what had just happened. What had brought about her sudden return.

I glanced down at his hand gripping my bloodied arm, then slowly raised my eyes to meet his.

Neither of us moved.

Because for the first time since I’d woken up in this room, I knew exactly why Anya had come back.

And judging by the look in Kael’s eyes, he knew too.