His new stepsister His biggest threat (Claire and Elijah) novel Chapter 229

Chapter 229

Chapter 229

Claire’s POV

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The sound was like a gunshot in a small room, leaving my ears ringing with a sharp, high–pitched whine.

“Package is secure! Miller, get her out of the line of fire!” The comms channel was a disaster of static, heavy breathing, and the wet, rhythmic sound of teeth meeting flesh.

“I’m trying!” Miller yelled back, his white–knuckled grip on the steering wheel making the heavy truck fishtail across the frozen gravel.

I didn’t wait for his permission. I didn’t even wait for the truck to stop.

My hand was already on the heavy latch. The bond wasn’t just humming anymore; it was a physical agony, a jagged, white–hot needle stitching itself through my chest.

Elijah was dying. I could taste the metallic, bitter tang of the wolfsbane on my own tongue, a ghostly chemical burn that made my throat constrict.

“Claire, don’t you dare-” Miller started, reaching for

my

shoulder.

I wrenched the door open and hit the ground running before he could finish.

The air outside was a freezing slap to the face, smelling of pine needles, burnt rubber, and the sharp, acrid stench of high–grade silver.

“Elijah!” I screamed, but the sound was swallowed by the roar of the distillery’s industrial fans.

I sprinted toward the breach. Every breath felt like inhaling ground glass.

I wasn’t a fully recovered wolf–I didn’t have the luxury of a shift to dull the pain–but my heart, that “mechanical” miracle, was pumping with a ferocity that made my vision sharpen into a tunnel of high- contrast shadows.

I vaulted over a discarded crate, my boots skidding through a pool of something dark and viscous, and dove through the jagged hole in the stone wall.

Inside, the world was a nightmare of shimmering, iridescent fog. The silver–wolfsbane mist hung in the air like a poisonous ghost, clinging to the rafters.

I found them near the massive copper stills. Elijah was down, his charcoal–gray hoodie shredded to ribbons, his skin glistening with a sickly, silver sweat.

He looked smaller, somehow–vulnerable in a way that made my blood run cold. He was hacking, a wet, rattling sound, as he tried to claw his way toward the platform where Thomas Reed stood.

Thomas looked like a man who had finally lost his mind. His hair was wild, his eyes bloodshot, and his thumb was trembling as it hovered over a small, black detonator.

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Chapter 229

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“Look at the great Hale heir,” Thomas mocked, his voice echoing off the vaulted ceiling like a death knell. “The boy who would be King, choking on the very air of his kingdom. It’s almost a shame. I wanted to see you shift. one last time before I turned this ridge into a crater.”

“Elijah,” I breathed, stumbling toward him.

“Stay… back…” Elijah rasped, his eyes flickering between gold and a dull, painful gray. “Claire… get out…”

“How touching,” Thomas sneered, his gaze locking onto me. “The miracle girl. Tell me, Claire, does your heart have a ‘boom‘ setting? Because mine does.”

“You’re a coward, Thomas,” I said, my voice vibrating with a cold, jagged fury I didn’t know I possessed. “You couldn’t beat him in the circle, so you tried to poison the air he breathes. You think this makes you an Alpha? It makes you a scavenger.”

Thomas’s face contorted. “I am a survivor! And I am ending this legacy tonight!”

His thumb moved.

Take it, I screamed internally, leaning into the bond with everything I had. I didn’t just send him strength; I threw the entire weight of my existence at him.

I surrendered the rhythm of my heart, the breath in my lungs, and the very heat in my skin. Elijah, TAKE IT!

The connection snapped tight. For a second, our pulses synced–one singular, thundering heartbeat that shook the room.

Elijah’s head snapped back. The dull gray in his eyes evaporated, replaced by a blinding, incandescent white- gold that seemed to push the mist back by sheer force of will.

He didn’t just stand up; he exploded upward.

Thomas pressed the button.

Click.

Nothing.

“What?” Thomas fumbled with the remote, his face turning a sickly shade of gray. “No! No, no, no!”

“You really should update your firmware, Reed!” Felix’s voice drifted down from the shadows of the high catwalks.

He was perched precariously on a crossbeam, swinging a pair of heavy–duty wire cutters around his finger like a gunslinger.

“The blue wire was a decoy. The red one was the real trigger. I cut both, just to be safe. You’re welcome, by the way.”

Thomas didn’t have time to process the sarcasm.

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Chapter 229

Elijah was a blur of charcoal and teeth. He hit the platform with the force of a falling plane, the metal screeching and buckling under his weight.

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He didn’t use a weapon. He didn’t need one. He grabbed Thomas by the front of his tactical vest and slammed him into the brick wall with a sound that made my own ribs ache.

“My turn,” Elijah growled, his voice a sub–sonic vibration that made the glass in the nearby bottling line shatter.

He pulled his fist back, his knuckles raw and bloody, his eyes locked on Thomas’s throat. The kill–lust was thick enough to taste–a dark, heavy cloud that threatened to swallow him whole.

“Elijah, stop!”

I was at the base of the platform, my lungs burning, my legs shaking.

He froze, his fist inches from Thomas’s shattered jaw. He turned his head, and for a second, I didn’t recognize him.

He looked like a god of the old world, a creature of pure, unadulterated vengeance.

“He tried to kill you,” Elijah hissed, his voice cracking. “He came for you. In our house.”

“I know,” I said, stepping closer, ignoring the way Thomas was whimpering. “But look at me, Elijah. I’m standing right here.”

My heart is beating. Don’t let him take that away from us by turning you into him. Let the Council handle the trash.”

Elijah’s chest heaved. The white–gold in his eyes flickered, then softened into a deep, bruised amber.

He looked at Thomas–truly looked at the broken, pathetic man in his grip–and let out a sound of pure disgust.

He dropped him. Thomas hit the floor like a sack of wet laundry.

Elijah jumped down from the platform, his legs giving out the moment his feet hit the concrete. I caught him, the sheer weight of him sending us both to our knees in the grit and the broken glass.

He buried his face in my neck, his skin still radiating an unnatural heat.

“You’re a… terrible… listener,” he wheezed, his arms locking around my waist as if he were afraid I’d evaporate if he let go.

“And you’re a terrible liar,” I whispered, my eyes stinging. “You said you had this handled.”

“I did,” he muttered, a faint, exhausted smirk touching his lips. “I just… needed a jump–start.”

Felix swung down from a rope, landing a few feet away with a flourish that was entirely unnecessary. He looked at the unconscious Thomas, then at the two of us huddled on the floor.

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Chapter 229

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“Well,” Felix said, wiping a smudge of grease off his forehead. “That was traumatic. Who’s buying the post–war pizza? Because I feel like I earned at least three large peps.”

Elijah let out a dry, ragged laugh, pulling me closer until I could feel his heart–now beating in perfect, thundering sync with mine.