His new stepsister His biggest threat (Claire and Elijah) novel Chapter 227

Chapter 227

Claire’s POV

The tires of the lead SUV screamed as Elijah took the hairpin turn toward the northern ridge at a speed that should have sent us off the cliffside.

I gripped the door handle, my knuckles white, but my gaze was fixed on the silhouette of the old distillery

It sat on the edge of the plateau like a tomb, its rusted metal chimneys reaching into the bruised sky like skeletal fingers.

There were no lights in the windows, no signs of life, but the bond was screaming.

Elijah’s scent had shifted from the warm cedar of home to the sharp, electric tang of a wolf ready to kill.

“Secondary unit, drop at the perimeter line!” Elijah’s voice crackled over the tactical radio, cold and absolute. Felix, you take the rear loading docks. No one gets out. If they move, they drop.”

“Copy that, Alpha,” Felix’s voice came back, devoid of its usual humor.

The vehicle slammed to a halt fifty yards from the main entrance. Before the engine had even died. Elijah was out the door.

He didn’t wait for the sentinels. He didn’t wait for a tactical breach. He moved with a predatory grace that was almost too fast for my eyes to follow, his body already beginning to ripple with the violent onset of a mid–run shift.

“Elijah, wait!” I scrambled out of the car, the freezing mountain air hitting my lungs.

He stopped at the edge of the shadows, turning back to me for a fraction of a second.

His eyes were no longer human; they were two burning pits of molten gold that seemed to illuminate the darkness around him.

He didn’t speak, but I felt the command through the bond–a desperate, possessive urge for me to stay behind the armored

line.

“I’m not staying in the car, El,” I whispered, my voice caught in the wind.

He let out a low, guttural growl, then turned and vanished into the darkness of the distillery’s entrance.

The breach was silent at first—a terrifying, heavy quiet that hung over the ridge. Then, the night exploded.

A volley of silver–tipped bolts hissed through the air from the distillery’s upper windows, thudding into the armored plating

of our SUVs.

The scent of burnt ozone and sulfur filled the air as the Hale warriors returned fire, the sound of glass shattering and metal tearing echoing across the valley.

“Advance!” Felix roared from the left flank.

I moved with the secondary line, my heart pounding a steady, rhythmic cadence against my ribs. 85 bpm.

I felt the surge of Elijah’s adrenaline through our connection–a frantic, jagged heat as he tore through the first line of Reed

sentinels inside.

I could smell the copper tang of blood rising from the building, mixing with the scent of old grain and decay.

We entered through a side door, the air inside thick with dust and the lingering chemical sting of wolfsbane.

12:12 Sun, Jan 11

Chapter 227

My vision seemed fo sharpen, the shadows retreating as my wolf pushed to the surface. I saw a Reed guard lunging from behind a stack of rusted barrels, a silver blade gleaming in his hand.

I didn’t think. I didn’t hesitate.

I dropped low, my boots skidding on the grit–covered floor, and used the guard’s own momentum to send him crashing into the concrete wall.

Before he could recover, Jax was there, neutralizing him with a swift, clinical strike.

“Nice move, Claire.” Jax muttered, his eyes scanning the rafters. “Stay behind the shield.”

We pushed deeper into the heart of the facility, toward the central fermentation floor.

The sounds of the fight were deafening now–the snarls of shifting wolves, the crash of heavy machinery being overturned, and the unmistakable, bone–deep roar of Elijah Hale.

We rounded the corner and the world seemed to stop.

Thomas Reed stood on a raised catwalk overlooking the massive steel vats. He looked like a man who had already accepted his own ghost, his face a pale mask of desperate fury.

Below him, in the center of the floor, Elijah–now in his charcoal wolf form–was pinned under a heavy iron grate that had been dropped from the ceiling.

Five Reed hunters stood in a circle around him, their crossbows leveled at his chest.

The tips of the bolts were coated in a dark, viscous liquid that I knew instantly was the same refined wolfsbane Mason had used.

“Stop!” Thomas screamed, his voice echoing off the vaulted ceiling. “One more step and the heir of the Red Pine dies in the dirt like a mangy stray!”

The Hale warriors froze. The silence that followed was agonizing, broken only by the low, pained growl coming from Elijah as he struggled against the weight of the grate.

I could feel his agony through the bond–the silver from the grate was burning through his fur, searing his skin.

“You’ve already lost, Thomas,” Ethan’s voice rang out from the shadows of the far entrance. The Alpha stepped into the light, his expression one of cold, detached judgment. “The Council has seen the evidence. Your son is in our cells. Your assets are frozen. There is nowhere left to run.”

I’m not running!” Thomas shrieked, his grip tightening on the catwalk railing. “If the Reeds fall, we take the heart of this pack with us! Kill the wolf! Now!”

The hunters‘ fingers tightened on their triggers.

In that heartbeat, the bond didn’t just thrum; it screamed. I felt a surge of power that wasn’t mine–a raw, ancient strength that seemed to flow from the very floorboards of the Red Pine territory into my veins.

My heart skipped a beat, then slammed back into a rhythm that felt like thunder.

I didn’t scream. I didn’t lunge. I reached out through the tether, pushing every ounce of my will, my life, and my strength into Elijah.

Break it, I commanded through the link. Break it and come back to me.

The charcoal wolf let out a sound that wasn’t a howl–it was a tectonic shift.

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