His new stepsister His biggest threat (Claire and Elijah) novel Chapter 280

Chapter 280

Claire’s POV

The violet light in the holding cell never truly dimmed; it simply pulsed like a slow heartbeat, keeping time with my own. I had lost count of how many cycles it had completed since the Sentinels dragged me from Thorne’s private chambers.

Time didn’t function the same way here. Minutes stretched into hours, hours collapsed into minutes, and the only constant was the low, mechanical hum that vibrated through the floor and into my bones. It was a sound that never stopped, never changed pitch, never gave me a moment of true silence to think.

I sat with my back pressed against the cold wall, knees drawn tightly to my chest, arms wrapped around them as if I could hold myself together that way. The cell was small-barely eight feet by eight feet-with a single bench bolted to the floor, a waste receptacle in the corner that smelled faintly of chemicals, and a narrow slit at eye level that showed nothing but more violet-lit corridor stretching endlessly in both directions.

No window. No clock. No sound except the hum and the occasional soft click of distant machinery moving somewhere far above or below me.

My body hurt in ways I couldn’t quite map or explain to myself. There was the expected soreness from the restraints-the raw, chafed skin around my wrists and ankles where the magnetic cuffs had bitten in during transport, the dull ache in my shoulders from being dragged, the sharp twinge in my lower back every time I tried to shift position. But beneath those surface pains was something deeper, more intimate, more violating.

A pervasive tenderness that radiated outward from my core, settling heaviest between my legs and in my hips. My thighs felt raw when they brushed together. My lower abdomen ached with every breath. When I moved, even slightly, a deep muscle soreness flared-sharpest when I shifted my weight or tried to stand. My underwear felt wrong-twisted, damp in places that made my stomach turn over every time I noticed.

I didn’t remember.

I tried. I tried so hard the effort made my head pound and my vision swim. I remembered the atrium with its genetically perfected lilies, their scent thick and cloying like funeral flowers. I remembered Thorne’s slate- grey eyes and the peppermint-cold steel smell of his breath when he grabbed my chin.

I remembered the satisfying crunch of his nose against my forehead, the taste of my own blood when I bit my lip hard enough to break skin. I remembered the needles at my temples, the rising hum of the black-glass terminal, the way the violet light had grown brighter and brighter until it swallowed everything.

Then… nothing.

A blank space.

A gap.

When I woke here on the cell floor, my clothes were the same-creased, dirty from the tunnels, but intact. My collar was still locked around my throat, serum still circulating in slow, cold pulses. But my bra straps dug into my shoulders at an odd angle, as though someone had pulled them down and up again in a hurry.

My underwear was twisted to one side, damp in places that made bile rise in my throat. There was a faint stickiness between my thighs that hadn’t been there before the blackout.

I pressed my thighs together and winced. The soreness sharpened into something raw and unmistakable-a deep muscle ache that had nothing to do with fighting or falling. My wolf snarled inside me, pacing furiously, claws scraping against the dampening field that kept her locked down. She knew. She remembered what my human mind refused to let surface. She raged silently, helplessly, her fury a low, constant burn in my chest.

I didn’t cry.

I couldn’t.

The tears wouldn’t come. They stayed locked somewhere behind my ribs, heavy and burning, but unreachable. My eyes stayed dry. My throat stayed tight. I rocked slowly back and forth, forehead pressed to my knees, breathing shallowly through my mouth so I wouldn’t smell the faint, lingering trace of peppermint that clung to my collar like a ghost.

58 bpm.

I counted the beats.

It was slow but steady while I waited

The bond was still there-faint, muffled by the serum and whatever Thorne had done in that room, but still there. A thin silver thread stretching across miles, across mountains, across whatever distance separated me from Elijah. I reached for it the way a drowning person reaches for air.

I felt the echo of him: pine needles underfoot, snow on fur, the low rumble of his growl when he was angry, the softer one when he held me close and whispered my name like a prayer. I clung to it like a lifeline in the dark.

He was alive.

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