Housebound with the Blackridge Heirs novel Chapter 81

Chapter 81

Caden

Leo hit the ground with a sound I will never forget.

Not in this life, and definitely not in the next.

Not Leo.

My mind just couldn’t make sense of it.

Not him.

Not the calm one, the steady one, the brother who stood between me and Tylon whenever our tempers and egos collided. Leo, who noticed who was there for Maya when we weren’t, although I hated to admit it. Leo, who hid his own pain so the rest of us could breathe easier.

He was not supposed to fall.

Something inside my chest tore open so violently I almost forgot how to breathe. The bond between us wasn’t like the one I had with Maya, but it was still a bond, forged in blood and brotherhood and years of surviving each other’s madness.

Seeing him lying there like that felt wrong in a way my mind refused to process.

My vision blurred with a burn I had never let myself feel before, not even as a child.

It felt like losing a limb.

It felt like losing air.

It felt like failing him in the worst way a brother could fail another.

The rogue that killed him still stood over him, teeth dripping red, chest heaving with the thrill of the kill. My vision narrowed to a single violent point and my wolf launched forward before I could think, finishing the rest of the journey.

But the sound that followed was not mine.

Maya’s scream ripped through the bond with a force that nearly put me on my knees. Her grief tore through my skull like a wildfire. It swallowed every thought. It swallowed the ground under me. It swallowed the air.

Her pain did not feel like a friend dying.

It felt like a mate dying.

The realization shook me so hard I stumbled.

Tylon was already at Leo’s side, tearing the rogue off him so brutally the bones snapped. He threw the body

aside, then shifted and dropped to his knees, hands trembling as he touched Leo’s fur. I tried to reach him through the link we established though we weren’t from the same pack, but Tylon’s mind had closed like a steel door. All I felt was a storm raging behind it.

So I ran to her.

I shifted mid-stride, fur peeling away as my human form hit the ground running. I did not care about my injuries or the blood soaking my arms. I didn’t care that rogues still surged through the clearing or that Rohan’s dark wolf watched from the shadows like a satisfied spectator.

I had to get to Maya.

She was on her knees in the dirt, hands covering her face, sobs wracking through her entire body until she folded in on herself. Her screams shook the trees.

“Maya,” I said, dropping beside her and pulling her into my arms.

She didn’t seem to hear me. She didn’t seem to hear anything.

Her grief poured into me through the bond, jagged and scorching, that I coudl barely combed through hers

and mine.

It felt like someone was carving inside my chest from the inside out.

I held her tighter, trying to steady her, trying to bring her back to herself.

“I’m here,” I whispered, my voice shaking. “I’ve got you. You are safe. Look at me, Maya. Please look at me.”

She shoved me away with surprising force.

Her entire body convulsed as she tried to crawl toward Leo, her nails digging into the dirt.

“No, Caden, let go. Let me go. He is… he is… He can’t be…”

Her voice broke again and she tried to reach Leo, but I wrapped my arms around her waist and hauled her back against me.

“Maya, stop.” The words nearly choked me. “He’s gone, baby. He’s gone.”

She screamed at the sound of it.

Her grief split the bond open and sent a shockwave through my spine.

Around us, the fighting died down.

Rogues were falling, and Blackridge wolves were winning.

But the world had narrowed to one sound.

Her sobs.

My wolf’s howl built in my ribs, and Tylon made a broken noise as he pressed his forehead to Leo’s unmoving body.

The howl ripped out of me first. It tore my throat raw and long. I heard Tylon’s follow, deeper and darker, like a sound that cracked the night open.

Yet none of that mattered compared to the storm pouring through the bond.

Maya’s grief didn’t simply echo inside me; it drowned everything else out. It was raw and crushing and relentless, filling the grove with a pressure that made it hard to breathe.

No sound, not even the distant snarls or the groans of wounded wolves, could cut through the heaviness of it. Her pain expanded until it seemed to pulse through the trees themselves.

Then the world shifted around her.

The relic behind us began to glow with a deep, throbbing light, and the air thickened with energy, charged and wild. Every loose leaf on the forest floor shivered as if caught in a silent wind.

It was responding to her grief as if it recognized it.

Maya stiffened in my arms. Her spine arched as if something grabbed her from the inside.

I felt it before she even did anything.

Her grief turning into anger and desperation.

I tightened my hold on her.

“Maya, stay with me,” I begged. “Look at me. Baby, please.”

But she tore away from me.

Her scream no longer sounded human. It vibrated through the air with a strange resonance, like it came from somewhere ancient.

Her hands slammed onto the relic, and light burst beneath her palms, racing through the carved stone lines like lightning. The ground trembled under us.

“Maya, stop!” I lunged, but a wave of air blasted outward from the relic, hurling me back.

What happened next held me in place as I stared in shock and terror.

Her body convulsed, bones shifting beneath her skin. Her breath came out in short gasps as her shape began to distort. Her entire form glowed white, brighter and brighter until she was almost impossible to look at.

“Maya!” I shouted, feeling helpless, but I couldn’t move.

She didn’t hear me. She was drowning in agony, in grief and worse, in something ancient that had finally answered her call.

Her spine snapped into a new alignment, her limbs lengthened, and light poured off her skin in sheets. Her hair lifted in the air as though the forest itself was holding its breath.

It went on for an agonizing second until her scream broke into a howl.

And then she was gone, replaced by something magnificent.

A silver-white wolf stood where she had been, tall and breathtaking. Her fur shimmered like moonlit water.

Metallic silver threaded through every strand, glowing with its own soft light. Her eyes were luminous, fierce, silver and impossibly old.

She was the most beautiful wolf I had ever seen.

For several long seconds, the entire grove held its breath. Even the rogues that remained alive hesitated mid- lunge.

The Blackridge wolves slowed as well, muscles taut beneath their fur, watching with something close to awe and fear blending together. Even Tylon stared at her like he was seeing divinity.

Rohan,in his human form now, stood completely still, his sharp features illuminated by the pale light radiating from Maya. Whatever smugness he wore earlier shifted into something far more reverent, as if he were witnessing the return of something he had spent years chasing.

Her gaze swept the clearing. She didn’t make a sound. She didn’t need to. It’s as if she made a single command with her gaze, and every single wolf understood.

Every single wolf obeyed.

Every wolf, expect, Tylon, Rohan and I, bowed involuntarily.

Rohan took a step forward, his smile was slow and triumphant, like a man witnessing a prophecy fulfilled.

“She is back,” he said softly.

And then, without another word, he vanished into the trees, the few surviving rogues disappearing with him.

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