His new stepsister His biggest threat (Claire and Elijah) novel Chapter 278

Chapter 278

Elijah’s POV

The silence it attacked me.

The second I crossed the threshold into the Veins, the world was cut away with the precision of a guillotine.

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The screaming wind, the smell of the pack, the distant roar of Regency engines-gone. It was replaced by a stillness so absolute that it felt like a physical pressure against my eardrums. I stumbled forward, my boots hitting the violet-lit stone with a sound that felt like a gunshot in the vacuum.

My heart was a frantic, terrified animal trapped in a metal box. I gasped for air, but the atmosphere here was thick and heavy, tasting of jasmine and ancient dust. It didn’t satisfy the burning in my lungs. I hit the floor on my hands and knees, my claws instinctively extending to find purchase on a surface that was as smooth as polished bone.

“Claire?” I choked out.

The name didn’t travel. It didn’t echo. It just dropped into the dark, swallowed by the stone walls before it could even reach

my own ears.

Being away from her was already messing with my head, but the isolation of the tunnels turned that ache into a full-blown psychosis. Without her presence to orient me, my internal compass was spinning wildly. The golden thread-the tether I’d been following-started to flicker. One second it was leading me deeper into the spiral; the next, it felt like it was pulling me back toward the cliffside.

Stay steady, I told myself, but the voice in my head didn’t sound like mine. It sounded like the static on a dead radio.

I scrambled to my feet, but the world tilted. Vertigo slammed into me, a side effect of the Coven’s wards working to suppress my wolf. I felt like I was walking on the ceiling. I felt like the floor was a liquid that might swallow me at any moment. I reached out to touch the wall for balance, and the stone felt like it was vibrating-not with machinery, but with a low, humming laughter.

You’re losing her, Elijah.

The thought wasn’t mine. It was a cold, oily thing that slid into my mind. I shook my head violently, trying to clear the fog, but the more I fought, the more the labyrinth seemed to change. The violet light grew brighter, then dimmed to a sickly bruise-color. The tunnel stretched out for miles, then constricted until the ceiling was inches from my head.

“I’m finding her,” I growled, my voice sounding like gravel.

I started to run, but the faster I moved, the more lost I became. My heightened senses, usually my greatest gift, were being turned into weapons against me. The scent of jasmine became a nauseating perfume that made my eyes water. The violet light began to form shapes-ghosts of Claire standing at the end of every corridor, her back turned to me.

“Claire! Stop!” I shouted, lunging toward a flickering image of he

My fingers passed through nothing but cold vapor. The image dissolved into a swarm of black dust, and I hit the wall hard. The impact jarred my teeth, but even the pain felt distant, like it was happening to someone else’s body. I was becoming a ghost in my own skin.

I slid down the wall, clutching my head. 170 bpm. My heart rate as high enough to be lethal for a human, and even for a wolf, it was pushing the limit. The separation was a physical poison. It made my skin feel like it was being peeled back, exposing the raw nerves to the freezing air of the mountain.

I closed my eyes, trying to find the gold thread again. I needed to see her. I needed to know she was still breathing.

But when I reached for the bond, I didn’t see Claire. I saw the mirrors.

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Chapter 278

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The walls of the tunnel seemed to smooth out, turning into dark obsidian glass. In the reflections, I didn’t see the tunnel. I saw the sunroom at the Manor. I saw the kitchen. I saw every moment I’d spent with her, but they were all wrong.

In the mirror, I was the one who handed her over to the Regency In the mirror, I was the one who locked the collar around her neck. I saw myself standing over her, my eyes glowing a terrifying, soulless red, while she begged me to help her.

“No,” I whispered, my nails digging into my scalp. “That’s not real. None of this is real.”

Isn’t it? the shadows whispered. You’re a wolf. You’re a predator. ou were always going to destroy her. The mountain is just saving her from you.

The pressure in my head reached a breaking point. I felt a sob break from my chest, a raw, jagged sound that finally managed to echo in the silence. I was the Alpha of the North Ridge, and I was curled in a ball on the floor of a cave, losing a fight against my own imagination. I couldn’t remember the color of her eyes. I couldn’t remember the sound of her laugh. All I could remember was the cold, suffocating weight of the stone.

I lay there for what felt like hours. Time didn’t exist in the Veins. It could have been minutes, or it could have been days. The “static” in my blood was a constant, rhythmic thrumming, a hum that told me to just stop fighting. To just let the violet light take me. To let the mountain turn me into another fossil.

It’s easier this way, the dark whispered. No more pain. No more unger. Just silence.

My eyes started to drift shut. The gold thread was almost invisible now, a thin, grey wire that looked like it was about to snap. I felt the wolf inside me go quiet, its ears pinned back, waiting for the end.

But then, a smell hit me.

It wasn’t jasmine. It wasn’t dust.

It was the faint, impossible scent of cedar and old books. It was the smell of the girl who used to study in the library while I watched her from the window. It was so faint I thought I’d made it up, but it was enough.

My eyes snapped open. The obsidian mirrors were gone. The tunnel was just a tunnel again.

I looked down at the golden thread. It was pulsing. It wasn’t a steady light; it was a frantic, irregular beat.

Thump-thump.

Her heartbeat. She was scared. She was in trouble.

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