His new stepsister His biggest threat (Claire and Elijah) novel Chapter 277

Chapter 277

Elijah’s POV

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I fell forward, not into the abyss, but into the dark, silent warmth of the Veins.

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The transition was a sensory blackout. The noise of the world-the wind, the pack, the Regency-simply ceased to exist.

I lay on the smooth tunnel floor, gasping for breath, my head throbbing in the new, heavy silence. I was alone. I was lost. I was terrified. But as I reached out with my mind, I felt it.

The gold thread.

It was stronger here. It was a bright, pulsing line of sapphire and honey, cutting through the violet dark of the tunnels. It was tugging on my heart, pulling me deeper into the stone.

I didn’t stand up yet. I just stayed there for a moment, my forehead against the cool stone, letting the silence wash over the static.

The separation still hurt-it was a dull, throbbing ache now-but at least I was on the right side of the door.

“I’m here, Claire,” I whispered to the empty tunnel. “I’m coming.

I gasped, but the air felt like velvet-thick, heavy, and devoid of the oxygen my burning lungs craved.

I crashed onto the smooth, violet-lit stone of the tunnel floor, my hands clawing at the rock. I expected to feel the grit of the mountain, the jagged edges of obsidian, but the stone was too smooth.

It felt like glass. It felt like the skin of a titan.

“Claire?” I choked out.

The name didn’t echo. The walls swallowed it whole, absorbing the sound before it could travel even a foot. I scrambled to my feet, but my balance was gone.

Being away from her was like trying to walk with my inner ear shattered; without her presence to orient me, the world was a tilt-a-whirl of vertigo.

My brain was firing off false signals, screaming that she was to the left, then to the right, then directly behind me. The golden thread-the only thing that had been keeping me sane-was fraying under the pressure of the Coven’s wards.

In the “static” of my mind, the memories began to distort. The trauma of the last few hours began to loop, but the images

were wrong.

I saw her in the glass cylinder back at the Citadel, but this time, the glass didn’t break. I saw her eyes rolling back as the sapphire light drained away, turning her into a hollow shell.

Then the image shifted, and I saw her at the Manor, laughing as she stole a fry from my plate, but as she looked at me, face dissolved into black dust.

“Stop it!” I yelled, clutching my head. My nails bit into my scalp, drawing blood, but the pain was a dull, distant thing compared to the agony in my chest. “Get out of my head!”

I started to run. It was the worst thing I could have done.

The tunnel began to twist. Or maybe I was the one twisting.

her

The violet light started to pulse in time with my frantic heartbea, faster and faster until the walls seemed to breathe. Every

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11:18 Mon, Feb 9 D

Chapter 277

shadow looked like a hand reaching for me. Every flicker of light looked like the glow of her skin.

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The separation was making me hallucinate, my brain trying to fill the void of her absence with ghosts.

I turned a corner and found myself in a massive, circular chamber. The walls weren’t stone here; they were made of a d polished obsidian that acted like a thousand distorted mirrors.

I saw a thousand versions of myself. Some were wolves, their fur matted with gore, their eyes glowing a sickly, dying amb as they howled at a moon that didn’t exist.

Others were human, looking broken and aged, their hands covered in the sapphire dust of a destroyed Anchor.

You failed her, the mirrors whispered. It wasn’t a voice; it was a thought that wasn’t mine, blooming in the center of my brain like a poisonous flower.

You let her go.

You were the Alpha, and you weren’t enough.

You are a creature of the sun, wolf.

You don’t belong in the deep.

“I’m finding her,” I growled, but my voice sounded weak, even to me. My throat was so dry it felt like I was swallowing needles.

I lunged at one of the mirrors, my fist shattering the obsidian. The shards didn’t fall to the ground; they floated in the air, suspended by the thick, magical atmosphere.

Each fragment reflected a different moment of our separation. I saw her being dragged into the transport, her fingers reaching for a window she couldn’t break.

I saw the black-gloved hand of the Proctor. I saw the look of pure, unadulterated terror on Claire’s face when she realized I wasn’t coming.

The strain finally snapped something deep inside. The link between my human mind and my wolf heart, already frayed, simply gave way.

I fell to my knees, the “static” finally winning. I couldn’t remember which way was up. I couldn’t remember the scent of the North or the sound of the pack.

All I could feel was the crushing, agonizing weight of the mountain and the hollow, echoing void where my soul used to be.

I was lost. Not just in the physical tunnels of the Coven, but in the dark corridors of my own grief.

The wolf inside me curled into a ball and stopped fighting. It was too tired. It was too empty. Without its mate, the beast was losing its will to live.

“Claire…” I whispered, my forehead hitting the cold stone. “I’m sorry. I can’t find the way.”

I closed my eyes, letting the violet darkness pull me under. I felt the mountain starting to claim me, the stone rising up like a cold blanket to cover the wolf who couldn’t protect his heart.

My breathing slowed. My heart rate began to drop dangerously

The Coven wards were doing their job. They were siphoning off my “loud” energy, trying to turn me into just another layer of sediment in the rock.

I felt a strange peace begin to settle over me-the peace of giving up.

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11:18 Mon, Feb 9

Chapter 277

If she was gone, if she was part of the mountain now, then maybe I should be, too.

But then, in the absolute center of that silence, I felt a tug.

It wasn’t a thought. It wasn’t a memory of a fry or a laugh.

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It was a physical pull on the golden thread, right where it was stiched into the meat of my chest. It was faint-a tiny, rhythmic twitch that was out of sync with my own failing heart.

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