Chapter 225: The bond breaks II
Charis
Slater nodded and turned to Tom.
"Tom," Slater said. "Ask Rhett for coordinates on Kael. We need to know how to get to him."
Tom pulled out his radio. "Rhett, we need Kael’s location. Now."
There was a pause. Then Rhett’s voice filled the corridor with alarm. "What? Why? What happened?"
"Charis had a vision that Kael’s in trouble. We’re going back for him."
Another pause. Longer this time. When Rhett spoke again, his voice was strained. "Kael’s not responding to comms. Last location was... corridor 7-B, east wing. From your position, you need to backtrack. Take the corridor you just came from, then first right. Follow it to the end. There’ll be stairs going down. Take them. At the bottom, go left. Then straight for about two hundred feet. You’ll hit another junction. Go right. That should take you to 7-B."
"Got it," Tom said. He looked at me. "You ready?"
I nodded, wiping my face. My hands were still shaking, but I could breathe again. We were going to Kael. That’s all that mattered.
We moved fast. Slater was leaning on Tom for support, but he pushed himself to keep pace. I led the way, following Rhett’s directions, the bond pulling me like a compass.
"First right coming up," Rhett said through Tom’s radio. "Should be about thirty feet ahead."
I spotted it, and we turned. This corridor was longer, darker, with emergency lights casting everything in a red glow.
"End of the hallway," Rhett continued. "You’ll see the stairs on your left."
We reached them and started descending. My footsteps echoed off the concrete. It was too loud, but I couldn’t make myself slow down.
"At the bottom, go left," Rhett reminded us.
Left. The corridor here was wider. I could see scuff marks on the floor. They were drag marks painted with blood. The problem was whose blood was it?
My stomach clenched, and bile rose to the back of my throat, but I pushed it down. This was not the time to be weak.
"Straight ahead," Rhett said. "About two hundred feet."
We ran, or as close to running as we could manage with Slater’s condition. My breath came in short gasps. The bond was pulling so hard now it physically hurt.
"Junction ahead," Rhett warned. "Go right. And... Charis?" His voice changed and got quieter. "Be careful. I’m seeing movement on the cameras. A lot of movement."
"How many?" Tom asked.
"I can’t... the angle isn’t good. But more than five. I’m speculating fifteen to twenty people."
My heart sank as the vision flitted into my mind again. Kael had said there were only five people; why was Rhett seeing more than fifteen?
"Rhett," I called out suddenly, pulling the microphone from Tom’s body towards my mouth.
"Yes, Charis. What is it?" he asked.
"Tell me the truth," I said quietly, trying not to panic. "The trained assassins that Kael talked about, how many were they truly? He’d told us they were only five, but they’re more, right? You must have spotted them when they arrived?"
There was silence on the other end for a long time that I thought Rhett had gone off, only for his voice to fill the room again. He sounded tired.
"I tried to convince him to leave, but you know, Kael, he wouldn’t listen," Rhett said at last.
"So, there are more than five?" A sob caught at the back of my throat.
"Yes," Rhett said.
"Like how many? twenty? Twenty-five?"
"I counted fifty of them," he said quietly.
"Fifty?" My eyes widened. "Rhett, how could you let him face fifty trained assassins himself? You were sending him to his death."
"I tried to talk him out of it, but he wouldn’t listen," Rhett said with a slightly irritated tone. "What was I supposed to do? Jump in and save him?"
"You should have known better than encouraging him to take on that suicide mission, Rhett. I know..."
"That’s enough, Charis," Slater said quietly, reaching for the microphone and taking it away from me. "Now is not the time to fight and argue. We all know who Kael is; hopefully, we can be of help to him."
I blinked several times to stop the tears in my eyes from falling. I had to be strong, for Kael’s sake.
"Rhett," Slater called out. "Do you at least have visuals on him?"
"I lost that a couple of minutes ago," Rhett said quietly, "But he’s still at the location; his tracker says so."
"Okay," Slater nodded. "We’ll look for him." Then he handed the microphone back to Tom and reached for my hand, squeezing it comfortingly. "Kael will be fine. Let’s go look for him."
We continued towards the end of the corridor and then turned right. That was when we saw them.
A crowd of figures in black tactical gear and masks. They were at least twenty-five, maybe thirty or even more. They filled the corridor ahead like a wall of darkness.
And in the centre of them all—
I gasped, hand flying to my mouth.
Bodies. So many bodies lying on the ground. Some moving weakly. Some not moving at all.
And standing in the middle of it all, swaying, bleeding from what looked like a dozen wounds was —
Kael.
He was still on his feet but was barely alive. His clothes were soaked with blood. His face was a mess of bruises and cuts. He moved like every breath hurt.
But he was still fighting and still standing between those monsters and freedom.
"Oh god," I whispered. "Kael."
We were too far away—at least fifty feet. And there were too many of them between him and us.
"We can’t get through that," Tom said quietly. "There are too many."
"I don’t care," I said. "I’m not leaving him."
Slater’s hand found mine and squeezed. "I know you want to walk in there and save him, but let’s make a plan at least. We’re outnumbered and—"
A shot rang out, echoing off the walls, bouncing around my skull and making my ears ring. In that same instant, I felt pain.
Hot, searing, terrible pain exploded in my chest below my left collarbone as if someone had driven a burning spike straight through me.
I screamed...I couldn’t help it. My hand flew to my chest, feeling for blood or for a wound, but there was nothing. There was no hole and no blood.
The pain wasn’t mine.
It was Kael’s and I’d felt his pain through our bond.
My head snapped up.
Fifty feet away, I saw Kael jerk, stumble, fall, and lie on the ground. For a minute, I stared at him, hoping he would move or rise to his feet or something, but he lay still, and then blood began to spread beneath him.
The masked figures around him stepped back. One of them spoke—I couldn’t hear the words, but I saw his mask turn toward the others, and they nodded in response before one of them spoke to a chip attached to his shoulder.
"Target neutralised."
They thought he was dead, and maybe he was. Only the bond was still there. But it was fading, growing weaker like a candle burning down to nothing.
"No," I breathed. "No, no, no."
I didn’t make a conscious decision to move. I didn’t think about it, nor did I weigh the options and calculate the odds as Slater had suggested we do.
I just knew that Kael was dying and that the bond was breaking. If I didn’t do something right now, I would lose him forever.
I felt something inside me loosen, and Rhyme, my wolf, surged forward, taking control.
I felt my body changing before I could stop it. Bones shifting. Muscles stretching. Skin rippling.
"Charis, wait!" Slater called out. "Don’t—"
But it was too late.
The shift took me faster than I’d ever shifted before, and surprisingly it wasn’t painful like how it used to be. One moment, I was standing on two legs, the next I was on four.
My clothes tore away. My senses exploded—smells, sounds, everything amplified a thousand times. I could smell Kael’s blood and could hear his heartbeat from fifty feet away.
It was beating faintly.
The last human thought I had before Rhyme took over completely was: I’m coming. Hold on. I’m coming.
Then there was nothing but instinct, rage, and the overwhelming need to protect my mate.
I threw back my head and howled.
The sound echoed through the corridor like thunder. Every head turned toward me. The masked figures. Slater. Tom. All of them.
They saw me.
And I knew what they saw. Not the small, scared girl who’d been running away moments ago.
They saw Rhyme. My wolf. Fully manifested for the first time.
She was massive. Bigger than any normal wolf had a right to be. Her fur was silver-white, almost glowing in the dim light. Her eyes burned with golden fire. Power radiated from her like heat from a furnace.
She was a Direwolf.
This was what I really was, what I’d been hiding, what I’d been too scared to let out.
But I wasn’t scared anymore.
I was furious.
These things had hurt my mate. They had shot him, left him bleeding and dying on the cold ground.
And they were going to pay for it.
