Chapter 79: Lead The Way
Jade’s POV
The stone walls of the Blackwood packhouse felt less like a sanctuary and more like a tomb.
I paced the length of the grand study, my boots clicking sharply against the dark hardwood floors. Every few seconds, my hand would instinctively fly to my waist, searching for the reassuring weight of my daggers, only to find empty air. They had let me out of the dungeons, yes. They allowed me to roam the upper levels, sure. But I was still a hunter in a fortress of wolves, and right now, my blood was boiling.
"If you keep pacing like that, you’re going to wear a hole straight through the rug, sweetheart."
I snapped my head toward the sound of that smooth, low drawl. Rhys sat on the edge of the massive mahogany desk, his long legs crossed at the ankles. He looked completely relaxed, a faint, infuriating smirk playing on his lips, but I knew him better now. I could see the tightness in his jaw, the way his fingers subtly twitched against his thigh.
"Don’t call me sweetheart, Rhys," I snapped, stopping my pacing just a few feet from him, glaring up into his hazel eyes. "My sister is out there in that forest. Zain went after her, looking like he was ready to tear the world apart, and you’re just sitting here."
"I am doing my job," Rhys replied, his voice dropping an octave, losing its playful edge. He stood up, towering over me, the sheer heat radiating from his body making my breath hitch. "My job is to keep this pack from rioting while our Alpha is missing. Cian is downstairs trying to calm the warriors. If I run out into those woods after Zain, the remaining pack structure collapses."
"I don’t care about your pack structure!" I yelled, stepping right into his space, pressing a finger against his solid chest. "Violet is my sister. The only reason she ran to that rogue camp was to get away from him and find herself, without this stupid bond pinning her down. And if Zain hurts her—"
"Zain would rip his own heart out before he let a hair on Violet’s head be harmed, and you know it," Rhys interrupted. His hand shot out, wrapping gently but unyieldingly around my wrist, pulling my hand away from his chest.
The moment his skin touched mine, that terrifying, intoxicating spark of the mate bond flared. A wave of unwanted warmth rushed down my spine, making my knees weaken for a split second. I hated it. I hated how much power he had over my body, how my instincts screamed at me to lean into him even while my mind screamed that he was the enemy.
I yanked my wrist out of his grip, stepping back, my breathing ragged. "Don’t touch me."
Rhys’s eyes darkened, a flash of genuine hurt crossing his features before he masked it behind a cold, professional wall. "You’re panicking, Jade. It’s clouding your judgment."
"My judgment is perfectly fine," I hissed. "You wolves think the bond fixes everything. You think just because Violet is Zain’s mate, she’s safe. But she’s a Hawthorne. My father has elite squads tracking her. April is probably out there right now, and believe me, April doesn’t cry and nudge legs under the dinner table anymore. If she finds Violet with an Alpha, and not just any alpha, the very one she was sent to kill..."
Before Rhys could answer, the heavy oak doors of the study flew open, slamming against the wall.
Cian, Zain’s Beta, strode into the room. His face was stark white, his clothes disheveled, and the air around him practically vibrated with a suffocating, frantic energy.
"Rhys," Cian barked, completely ignoring my presence. "We have a problem. A massive one."
Rhys snapped to attention, all traces of the mocking warrior vanishing. "What is it? Did the border patrol spot something?"
"Worse," Cian said, his voice tight, his fists clenching so hard his knuckles were white. "The mind-link with Zain just went entirely dead. It didn’t just fade, Rhys. It snapped. I felt it; even the guards are freaking out downstairs. They can’t feel his dominance. Nobody can"
My heart stopped. The room seemed to tilt on its axis. The link snapped?
"That’s impossible," Rhys said, his voice suddenly stripped of all warmth. He walked past me, grabbing Cian by the shoulder. "Zain is a Demon Alpha. Nothing short of a silver blade through the throat can break his link entirely."
"It’s eclipse-root," I whispered, the words slipping out of my mouth before I could stop them.
Both wolves whipped their heads around to look at me.
"What did you say?" Cian demanded, stepping toward me, his Beta aura flaring, trying to crush me into submission.
I didn’t flinch. I was a Hawthorne; I had been trained by the worst monster of them all. I looked Cian dead in the eyes, though my insides were turning to ice.
"My father developed a concentrated variant of eclipse-root fluid months ago," I said, my voice shaking but clear. "It doesn’t just dull the bond like the raw herb. It paralyzes an Alpha’s magic. It shuts down their nervous system. If April found them... if she used it on Zain..."
Rhys didn’t even let me finish. He whirled around, grabbing his heavy leather coat from the back of the chair. The laid-back, smirking wolf was entirely gone. In his place stood the third-in-command of the most brutal pack in the north, his eyes glowing a dangerous, lethal gold.
"Cian, lock down the packhouse," Rhys ordered, his voice echoing with an absolute authority that made the windows rattle. "Assemble the guards, warriors, and any fighters on the grounds. We’re going into the forest."
"I’m coming with you," I said, stepping forward, my heart hammering against my ribs.
Rhys stopped at the door, turning to look at me. The tension between us was thick enough to cut with a knife. For a second, I thought he was going to order Cian to throw me back into the dungeons. I braced myself to fight, ready to use my bare hands if I had to.
Instead, Rhys walked back over to me, stopping mere inches away. He reached down to his boot, pulled out a long, sleek silver dagger with a leather-wrapped hilt, and pressed it into my hand. His fingers linger against mine, hot and desperate.
"If your family is out there, Jade, they are going to try to kill us," Rhys whispered, his blue eyes locking onto mine with an intensity that burned. "And if we try to take Violet, they will kill her too. Can you handle driving this into a hunter’s chest?"
I gripped the hilt of the silver dagger, feeling the cold weight of it. I thought of Violet. I thought of my father’s suffocating dinner table and house, and I thought of April’s cold, perfect execution of our family’s legacy.
"The hunter’s chest is my home. Just lead the way," I said.
