His new stepsister His biggest threat (Claire and Elijah) novel Chapter 288

Chapter 288

Claire’s POV

The silence that followed the first resonance discharge was not the peaceful quiet of the forest; it was the ringing, metallic silence of an empty shell.

As the Regency pylon hissed and retreated into the scorched earth of the Neutral Zone, the sudden absence of the mountain’s hum in my body felt like a physical weight. 52 bpm.

I was leaning heavily against Elijah, my legs feeling less like bone and muscle and more like water.

The sapphire glow had retracted entirely, leaving me pale and cold in the biting mountain air.

I could feel the bond-usually a vibrant, humming cable of warth-flickering like a candle in a draft.

I’ve got you. Elijah whispered, his voice low and vibrating against my temple. He shifted his grip, sliding an arm under my knees to lift me as if I weighed nothing.

To him, I probably didn’t. To him, I was a girl he had snatched from the sky, but to me, I felt like a stranger in my own skin.

“I feel… empty,” I rasped, my eyes following the retreating dust cloud of the Regency’s transport.

“It’s the shift, Claire,” he murmured, his pace steady as he carried me back toward the line of trees where the pack waited. “You’ve been holding a storm for weeks. Now that the clouds have cleared, your body doesn’t know how to handle the sun.”

But it was more than that. As we crossed back into the shadow of the Red Pine forest, I saw the faces of the pack.

They weren’t cheering.

Silas stood at the front, his arms crossed over his massive chest, is expression unreadable. Behind him, the younger wolves -the ones who had lost brothers and sisters to the Regency’s raids-looked at me with a mixture of awe and something th tasted like ash.

They didn’t see a savior; they saw a girl who had just handed the keys to their most sacred power to the enemy on a silver platter.

The Manor felt cold that night.

Despite the fires roaring in every hearth and the new medical supplies being distributed to the wounded in the infirmary, a shroud had settled over the halls.

The crates marked with the Regency’s slate-grey seal sat in the courtyard, a constant reminder of the bargain we had struck.

I sat in the library, wrapped in three layers of blankets, staring at the embers in the fireplace. Elijah was in the Great Hall, dealing with the fallout. I could hear the muffled roars of the elders, their voices vibrating through the floorboards.

“She’s a Hale Anchor, not a Regency slave!” one voice boomed-ane, a wolf whose lineage went back to the founding of the Ridge. “We don’t sell our blood for bandages and sensors!”

“We didn’t sell her blood, Kane! We bought her time!” Elijah’s voice was a jagged blade, cutting through the dissent. “Would you rather she burn out? Would you rather the mountain tear itself apart while we watch?”

I closed my eyes, the argument swirling in my head. I reached for the bond, seeking the comfort of Elijah’s mind, but I found a wall of static. He was shielding me.

He was taking the brunt of the pack’s anger so I wouldn’t have to

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