Housebound with the Blackridge Heirs novel Chapter 122

Chapter 122

Chapter 122

Tylon

The air in the house still tasted like her.

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It was a cruel, lingering ghost of vanilla, and the sharp, electric tang of a first heat–a scent that should have been a victory, a marking of what was ours.

Instead, it was a taunt. Every breath I took felt like inhaling ground glass, tearing at my lungs, reminding me that the space beside me was cold.

Maya was gone.

I stood in the center of the living room, my hands shoved deep into my pockets to hide the way the skin over my knuckles was white, bloodless. I wasn’t pacing. Pacing was for the panicked Pacing was for the weak. I was a statue of ice, but inside, my wolf was a caged supernova, screaming to be let loose so it could burn the entire First Packland to ash.

“Nothing.”

Caden’s voice cracked the silence like a gunshot. He slammed his fist into the doorframe, the wood splintering under his Alpha strength. He looked like a man coming apart at the seams. His hair was a wild mess, his eyes bloodshot and glowing a frantic, unstable gold.

“The scent just stops, Ty,” he snarled, spinning around to face me his chest heaving. “Right at the edge of the property line. One second she’s there, and the next, it’s like she never existed. Like she was plucked right off the face of the earth.”

“She didn’t vanish,” I said, my voice coming out in a low, terrifyingly level vibration. “She was taken.”

“Then why are we standing here?” Caden roared, stepping into my space. He smelled of sweat and desperation. “We know it was Rohan. We know that bastard has been circling her like a vulture since the grove. I’m going to his territory. I’m going to tear the throat out of every rogue he has until he tells me where he’s hiding her.”

He turned to bolt for the door, but I was faster. I moved with a blur of predatory speed, my hand catching his shoulder and slamming him back against the wall.

“You aren’t going anywhere,” I hissed.

“Get your hands off me!” Caden barked, his fangs lengthening, his wolf pushing through the surface. “He has our mate, Tylon! While you’re standing here playing the composed heir, he’s got his hands on her. He’s-”

“He’s waiting for exactly what you’re about to do!” I shoved him harder, my own eyes flashing. “Think, Caden! We have no proof. No witness. If you launch a scorched–earth attack on Rohan’s pack lands now, what do you think the Council does? They’ve been looking for a reason to flag Maya as a liability since the moment she got her wolf m. If we start a war, they’ll claim she went rogue, that she fled with a rival and lost control of her wolf. They won’t help us find her. They’ll send an executioner to finish her before the news hits the other Packlands.”

Caden’s face contorted in a mask of pure agony. He stopped figling me, his shoulders sagging as the weight of my words hit him.

He wasn’t there that day at the Council building. And I couldn’t ll him much. But this I know, and I was grateful that he didn’t protest or ask how I knew this. the blood oath still prevented me from telling him.

“So we just… wait? We let her sit there? You felt her during the het, Ty. You felt how loud she was. Now it’s just… silence. I can’t hear her. Why can’t I hear her?”

I let go of him, my fingers trembling. I couldn’t tell him that the silence in my own head was driving me insane. Being a Triple Bond meant the mental noise should have been deafening, a constant hum of three Alphas and one rare wolf. Now, it was a void. A hollow, aching nothingness that felt like a limb had been lopped off without anesthesia.

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09:24 Sat, Jan 3 G

Chapter 122

“She’s suppressed,” a quiet voice said from the hallway.

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Leo stepped into the light. He looked worse than any of us. He was pale, his movements stiff, his usual calm replaced by a haunting, hollowed–out expression. He wasn’t looking at us; his eyes were fixed on his palm.

“What is that?” I asked, my internal alarm bells screaming.

Leo walked over to the table and carefully set a small object down. It was the silver bracelet Maya always wore–the one she’d kept through years of foster care.

But it was different. The silver was tarnished, a sickly, bruised purple color spreading across the metal.

“I found it at the edge of the woods,” Leo whispered. “Where the scent ended.”

Caden reached for it, but Leo caught his wrist. “Don’t. It’s tainted”

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