Housebound with the Blackridge Heirs novel Chapter 86

Chapter 86

Maya

It was strange how quiet a house full of wolves could be when hope had almost run out.

Leo’s room felt nothing like the rest of Blackridge. The air was softer here, gentler somehow, as if the walls themselves were trying not to disturb him.

I had been sitting beside his bed for nearly an hour, quietly brushing my fingertips along the edge of the blanket that covered his chest, telling myself that he looked peaceful and not simply absent.

I’ve been awake for five days, and Leo was still not

awake.

Everyday I’d come to his room, and I wouldn’t leave until Caden took me out to eat or sleep.

He looked so familiar, yet strikingly different.

It felt wrong that his hair still fell across his forehead the same way, that his eyelashes still brushed his cheeks, that his breathing stayed steady and even when everything else in our world had been shattered.

I reached out and took his hand again, letting my thumb trace a soft line across the back of his

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I lifted my head again and looked at his face. Even pale, even unmoving, there was something about him that made my chest tighten in that same soft way it used to when he smiled at me across the breakfast table. He had always been gentle without asking for anything in return. The first person to treat me like I didn’t have to earn the right to exist.

My fingers tightened around his.

“You can come back to us now,” I murmured. “Please.”

The room stayed quiet. The wooden floors didn’t creak. The wind didn’t shift. Even the house seemed to be holding still, bracing for something none of us knew how to name yet.

And then, very softly, something changed inside

A flare of warmth bloomed in my chest. It was slow at first, small enough that I thought maybe it was only a memory trying to surface. But then it spread, coiling gently around my ribs until my breath caught.

“Aelera,” I whispered. “What is that?”

She didn’t answer with words.

Not at first.

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Instead I felt her stir, stretching, waking fully, like she had been waiting for some signal I never knew how to give.

The warmth grew and thickened.

It pressed outward in a way that made me tense because it felt intimate, almost too intimate. It was like someone had reached into my chest and cupped something fragile, then slowly lifted it out of me.

‘Aelera,’ I whispered again. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Helping,’ she murmured at last, and her voice sounded older than before, softer around the edges. ‘He has been calling for you, Maya. Let him hear you properly?

That didn’t make sense, because Leo couldn’t speak.

He couldn’t move.

He couldn’t call for anyone.

But the warmth kept rising. My palms tingled. My breath stuttered as if something invisible passed through me and poured into him.

And then the world snapped open.

Leo inhaled sharply, a sudden gasp that broke the silence like shattering glass. His hand jerked in

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mire and his eyes flew open as if he had been drowning and finally reached the surface.

I froze.

His eyes were not confused.

They were focused.

They landed on me instantly, locking onto mine with such fierce clarity that every thought in my head stilled at once.

“Leo,” I breathed, tears rushing to my eyes so fast I didn’t have time to wipe them.

His chest rose again in another shaky breath. His lips parted like he was trying to say something but couldn’t form words yet. His fingers twitched around mine, squeezing weakly as if to tell me that he was here, that he was really awake.

The bond between us sparked so softly I almost didn’t notice it at first. A tiny hum beneath my skin. A quiet warmth that made something in my stomach flutter and pull toward him.

I leaned closer, gripping his hand.

“You’re okay,” I whispered, my voice thick. “You’re okay, Leo.”

The door burst open behind me, and the sound

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startled me enough to turn.

Caden was there first. His eyes were wide and glassy, his chest heaving like he had sprinted down the entire hallway. Tylon came/right behind him, jaw tense, gaze locked on Leo as if someone has been risen from the dead.

Neither of them breathed for several seconds.

Neither of them dared to speak.

Leo blinked slowly, his eyes shifting from me to them, then back to me again.

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