His new stepsister His biggest threat (Claire and Elijah) novel Chapter 281

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Chapter 281

Claire’s POV

The air inside the High Spire felt like it was being filtered through a thousand layers of silk and charcoal- clean, sterile, and entirely devoid of life.

As I sat in the corner of my cell, the cold from the obsidian floor seeped through my clothes, but it couldn’t touch the white-hot fury simmering beneath the surface of the serum.

The medical officer had called it “dissociation,” but to me, it felt like being trapped behind a thick sheet of frosted glass.

I could see the world, I could hear the hum of the Spire, but I was disconnected from the girl who had walked into this place.

Every time my mind drifted toward that blank space in my memory-the peppermint scent, the crushing weight of the terminal-the “block” would kick in, a sharp spike of artificial calm that forced my thoughts back to the violet pulsing of the light.

But they had forgotten one thing. They could medicate my

mind, but they couldn’t medicate the mountain.

Deep in my marrow, the sapphire light began to pulse in a rhythm that didn’t match the Spire’s hum. It was jagged. It was angry. It was the sound of a landslide starting a mile above a sleeping village.

I closed my eyes and reached for the bond. The silver thread was no longer just a lifeline; it was a conductor. I poured everything

I couldn’t express-the violation, the cold, the sight of Thorne’s blood on my knuckles-into that link.

Elijah, I thought, the name a silent roar. Break this place down.

Elijah’s POV

The exterior of the High Spire was a vertical desert of black glass and reinforced steel.

The wind up here was a physical hand trying to shove me into the abyss, screaming with a ferocity that drowned out everything but the sound of my own heartbeat.

My claws were cracked, the quicks bleeding into the grooves of the metal siding as I hauled myself upward. I wasn’t a wolf anymore; I was a creature of pure, desperate intent.

Every muscle in my body was screaming, my lungs burning in the thin, high-altitude air, but the static in my head had finally cleared. It had been replaced by a singular, piercing signal coming from the gold thread.

It was a broadcast of pain.

I didn’t need to see what they had done to her. I could feel the coldness in her soul, the way her light was being compressed into a tiny, shivering point.

I could feel the “block” they’d put on her, the artificial silence trying to drown out her scream.

I’m coming, Claire, I thought, my teeth bared in a permanent snarl. I’m almost there.

I reached a wide ledge-a maintenance platform jutting out from the 200th floor. Two security drones detatched from the wall, their red sensors locking onto my heat signature.

They didn’t even get a chance to fire. I lunged, my weight slamming the first one into the glass, shattering the frame. I tore the wing off the second one with my teeth, the taste of oil and electricity sparking against my tongue.

I didn’t use the door. I threw myself through the shattered glass of the observation deck.

The transition from the freezing gale to the pressurized heat of the interior was jarring. I skidded across the marble floor, my claws leaving deep gouges in the white stone.

“Intruder! Level 200!” the comms units on the walls shrieked.

I didn’t hide. I didn’t sneak. I followed the thread. It led down, through a series of gold-trimmed corridors that smelled of expensive flowers and death.