Housebound with the Blackridge Heirs novel Chapter 43

**Change Begins With You — Jayden Collins**

**Chapter 43**

**Caden**

Someone is about to die for this.

That singular thought reverberated through my mind like a relentless drumbeat as I paced back and forth in the dimly lit room. My hands trembled, still quaking from the adrenaline that had yet to dissipate since that harrowing night when they took her from me.

Days had dragged on, each one blending into the next. Days filled with deafening silence, interminable waiting, and a smoldering rage that threatened to consume me whole. I fought against the urge to unleash chaos upon the world with my bare hands.

The memory of that night remained vivid, sharp enough to slice through my very soul.

When I finally regained consciousness, my throat felt like it had been set ablaze, raw and searing. My lungs were filled with acrid smoke and toxic fumes, and each nerve ending in my body screamed in protest.

It was wolfsbane—no ordinary kind, either. They had combined it with something synthetic, a concoction designed to incapacitate even an Alpha in mere moments.

Only the Council had access to such a vile chemical, which provided a sliver of comfort, knowing that even rogue Alphas would hesitate to misuse it.

But that comfort was fleeting, quickly overshadowed by my mounting frustration.

The first image that assaulted my senses when I pried my eyes open was the unmistakable imprint of her heels, dragged across the ground like a sinister mark left behind.

She was gone.

And all that remained was a cruel reminder—her blood, smeared across the dirt like a malicious signature, a testament to a horrific crime.

I couldn’t even recall how I managed to stand. One moment, I was crumpled on the ground, and the next, I was racing across the territory, storming into the Council’s headquarters with the fury of a man possessed.

Tylon and Leo had hurried after me, their footsteps barely keeping pace, but their presence was insignificant to me. My voice was a raw rasp from the sheer force of my shouts by the time I reached the imposing marble doors. The guards didn’t even attempt to impede my progress. Perhaps they sensed the storm brewing in my eyes, or maybe they caught the scent of my fury radiating off me.

With a force that surprised even me, I slammed the doors open, the sound echoing like thunder as they cracked against the stone walls.

Every member of the Council sat around the long, gleaming obsidian table, their robes adorned with the prestigious insignia of the First Packland.

I didn’t bow. I didn’t offer them the respect they thought they deserved.

Instead, I roared, my voice reverberating off the walls.

“Where is she?”

Silence enveloped the room, thick and suffocating.

“Don’t even think about playing dumb with me. You believe I don’t know who sanctioned the extraction order?” My voice sliced through the tension, raw and unyielding. “She is under my protection. You will return her to me.”

The oldest among them, a man named Silas Crane, leaned forward, a look of disdain etched on his face that made my wolf snarl in response. “Mind your tone, boy. You seem to forget your place.”

I slammed my palm onto the table, my claws barely contained, a primal urge clawing to be released. “I know precisely where I stand. Right in front of a bunch of cowards who hide behind laws they lack the courage to enforce.”

Gasps and murmurs erupted around the table, but none of it penetrated the haze of fury clouding my mind.

All I could see was her face—the last moment I held her, the warmth of her presence now a distant memory.

If it weren’t for Tylon’s iron grip on my arm, I might have torn the place apart. His voice was sharp, cutting through my rage like a knife. “Think, Caden. Killing them won’t bring her back.”

I turned on him, fury igniting within me. “And you think reasoning with them will yield results?”

He stood his ground, unwavering. “It will buy us time. You kill one of them, and we lose everything.”

Before the situation escalated further, Leo stepped between us, his presence a calming force.

“He’s right,” he said firmly. “You’ll get her back, but not by turning the Council into a bloodbath.”

I loathed that they were correct. I despised even more that I was powerless to do anything but stand there and watch them slip away.

Deep down, I understood that this was not solely the Council’s doing.

“How convenient,” I muttered under my breath that night, “that just after she evades my father’s death sentence, the Council comes for her?”

Silas may have signed the order, but the timing reeked of my father’s influence. Philip Nightshade never accepted defeat lightly. The humiliation of being defied by his own son, of being challenged in front of his own men, was not something he would let go of easily.

No, this had his fingerprints all over it.

He couldn’t kill her himself, so he had orchestrated someone else to do his dirty work.

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