Housebound with the Blackridge Heirs novel Chapter 97

Chapter 97

Chapter 97

Maya

It has been almost a week and Caden hasn’t been back as yet.

I knew for sure that he was alive because he made us aware of that much, the bond never fully going quiet, but for some reason he stayed away, and that absence sat in the house like a fourth storm cloud that never moved on.

I knew why.

I just wouldn’t admit it, because admitting it meant naming the thing I didn’t want to be true, and I didn’t want to think my mate didn’t want to come to me because of what happened days ago, because of what Rohan said … what my body proved without my permission when I started feeling things that were not supposed to exist in the same chest as my love for Caden.

Did he see it as some twisted kind of cheating, even though it wasn’t a choice I made?

Did he think I would leave him, and that the only reason I stayed was because I was trapped by bonds and fate and a wolf that apparently had opinions?

Whatever he thought, it made him stay away, and that wasn’t helping his chances of trust with Aelera, not that I even knew what that meant yet, but the way she went quiet whenever I reached for him through the bond told me enough.

Tylon has been helping me with shifting and controlling my instincts from time to time. But because Leo was still healing we didn’t leave him longer than an hour, and even when we did, I swear the house itself felt wrong, as if leaving him alone for too long would invite something darker back into his room.

Leo always complained, of course that he wasn’t a baby who needed watching.

He complained about the soup, the pillows, about how long it took for his wolf to heal him, and he complained about Tylon’s presence hovering like it was a personal insult to the oxygen in the room.

But then, late at night when the house went quiet and the wind pressed against the windows, his eyes would glaze in a way that wasn’t annoyance at all, and I would see something raw behind his calm that made my chest tighten.

It was a good thing we got winter break, because campus would have been torture right now. I couldn’t handle another council hallway or another group of whispering wolves acting like my life was a rumor that belonged to them.

The weather turned right on time, like the world decided to match the mood of the house.

Snow started as a dusting, soft and almost pretty, then it became a steady fall that coated the trees and the roofs and the long stretch of land around Blackridge House until everything looked quiet and clean and harmless.

The first evening it really stuck. I stood by the window in the upstairs hallway and watched the flakes drift down in slow spirals.

I tried to pretend I was normal, that I was just a girl watching snow for the first time on a campus break, and not someone who had shattered a relic, awakened a wolf, and nearly lost a friend in the same night.

Tylon passed behind me, already carrying logs for the fireplace, and even that was a reminder of how strange my life had become.

A month ago, I would have laughed if someone told me the brooding Alpha heir would be doing domestic chores like he lived in a romance novel and not in a house full of tension and secrets.

“You’re staring,” he said, voice low and rough like he hadn’t slept properly either.

“I’m watching,” I corrected, still staring out at the snow. “It’s pretty.”

“It’s a nuisance,” he replied. “The patrols hate it”

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Chapter 97

I glanced at him then, and for half a second the corner of his mouth lifted, which was so rare on him that I almost missed it, but the expression vanished as quickly as it came, like he remembered himself.

“You’d think you’d enjoy it,” I said softly. “Less people outside. Less trouble.”

Tylon’s gaze flicked to me, then away again, and he adjusted the logs in his arms like he needed something to

focus on.

“Trouble doesn’t stop because the ground is white,” he said. “It just hides better.”

That was a very Tylon way to describe snow, and I should have rolled my eyes, but instead I nodded, because he wasn’t wrong, and because I could feel the way his wolf paced under his skin every night like it was waiting for something that never came.

“Is he awake?” I asked.

Tylon’s expression tightened. “He drifted off again.”

I followed him down the hall toward Leo’s room, and the house smelled like pine and smoke and stew. Tylon had insisted on cooking for once when I burned the first pot I tried to make, then looked offended when I told him I didn’t know he could do anything that wasn’t fighting or brooding.

The hearth downstairs was lit, and the warmth from it bled through the walls in a way that made the whole house feel almost safe, almost lived in.

It was strange, because it made me think of what this could have been if we weren’t tangled up in fate and war and council games.

Leo’s room was dim, the curtains half drawn against the pale light outside, and the lamps low enough that the shadows stayed soft on his face.

He was lying on his side, blankets pulled up to his waist, his hair messy against the pillow, and his skin still a shade too pale for someone who was supposed to be healing.

I stepped in quietly, and Tylon lingered near the door, arms crossing over his chest like he was pretending he wasn’t hovering, like he wasn’t counting Leo’s breaths out of habit.

Leo’s eyes opened when he sensed us… He always sensed us now, and even that made me ache, because he wasn’t sleeping deeply anymore, not really.

“You’re back,” he murmured, voice rough.

“Don’t sound so thrilled,” I said lightly as I crossed the room.

His gaze shifted to me, then dropped to my wrist like he was checking the mark out of habit, like he still couldn’t believe it was real.

“How long were you gone,” he asked.

“An hour,” I said. “And you survived, clearly.”

“I knew you’d come back,” he replied, but there was something softer under his words, something that wasn’t

sarcasm.

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