Chapter 76 DOG ON A LINE I

Chapter 76 DOG ON A LINE I
He sat up, ankle chain dragging as he shifted his weight, every muscle tight from too little sleep and too much rage. His wrists were free, but the shackle on his leg was a reminder enough of where he stood and what Sable thought of him.
A dog on a line.
She carried in the tray herself, which irritated him more than if she’d sent a wolf. It meant he mattered to her, and Dion disliked being important to anyone who kept him chained.
She set the tray on the rough table across from him and didn’t speak. Bread. Meat. Water. Nothing fancy. Nothing poisoned, at least as far as he could smell.
He looked at the food, then at her.
“You bring all your prisoners breakfast yourself?”
“I bring food to the ones I want alive.”
Dion laughed once, sharp and humorless. “That almost sounded warm.”
“It wasn’t.”
She leaned against the wall, arms folded, looking unreadable. Sable was never soft. Age hadn’t made her gentle. It had honed her into something harder, lean, mean, and tough enough to survive the end of the world and curse the sky for its lateness.
Dion reached for the water first, drank, then tore into the meat.
She watched him eat.
“I might know who your parents are,” she said.
Dion did not look up.
“I don’t care.”
“You will.”
He swallowed, wiped his mouth on his hand, and met her eyes. “No, I care about why you chained me, why the Blackmoon wolves still track us, and why you won’t say what you want with me.”
Sable's mouth curved without warmth.
“Because the blood moon is close, and when it rises, whatever has been sleeping in you will stop sleeping. I would rather not find out what that looks like while my throat is unguarded.”
Dion sat still.
“You think I’ll kill you.”
“I think your beast will want blood,” she said coldly. “I do not intend for it to be mine, or the rogues’, or the wolves following our trail.”
“What do you want with me?”
Sable pushed away from the wall.
“I need to see what you’re made of.”
He laughed again, quieter this time.
“That sounds like something people say before they ruin your life.”
“Maybe your life needs ruining.”
She crouched in front of him, close enough now that he could see the old scars near her mouth, the fine lines at the corners of her eyes, the hard-earned history in her face.
“Your father was not weak,” she said. “Your mother is not kind. You were hidden for a reason, and someone wanted you gone before it ever rose. That should tell you enough.”
Dion felt his jaw tighten.
“Say it clearly or don’t say it at all.”
“No.” She stood again. “You earn the rest.”
His temper flashed.
“I’m not one of your cubs.”
“No,” Sable said. “You’re worse.”
She crossed the room with steady steps, knelt briefly to unlock the chain at his ankle, and then stepped back, distancing herself before the shackle had even fully fallen away.
“Come outside.”
Dion stayed seated.
“You’re serious.”
“I’m always serious.”
He looked at the open door, then her, then the metal ring still on his ankle. Somewhere in this sat a trap, but after living in traps so long, at least this one offered air and a chance to hit someone.
He got to his feet.
The place she’d brought him to was not a proper camp. It looked like an old holding ground half-swallowed by the trees, with broken fencing, a water trough split down the middle, and open earth. Her wolves were nearby, watching.
The Blackmoon wolves were farther off, somewhere beyond that. He wondered if they were tracking him.
Sable rolled her shoulders once, loosening them, then reached up to pull her hair back from her face, tucking it behind her ears.
“If you want answers, fight me.”
Dion stared at her.
“You chained me, fed me, hinted at my blood, and now you want a brawl?”
She lunged without warning, and she was pure speed.
Dion got his forearm up in time to catch the first strike, but the second landed across his ribs hard enough to force the air from him, and by the time he planted his feet, she was already moving again, driving him backward across the dirt with the kind of confidence that came from long practice and an older, meaner kind of strength.
He blocked high.
She went low.
He caught her wrist.
She twisted free and drove an elbow into his shoulder that turned his arm numb.
He smiled then, though there was nothing pleasant in it.
“That's all?”
Sable’s eyes flashed; her stance grew taut.
“No.”
She hit him again, and this time he let her.
He let himself feel the timing, the rhythm. The choices she made when she thought she had him cornered.
Age had made her efficient.
Youth made him reckless.
But recklessness was not the only thing he had.
So he changed.
The next time she lunged, he stepped into it instead of away, let her think she had the angle, then turned hard, driving his shoulder into her center and taking them both to the ground. She rolled fast and came up on one knee, already striking, but now he was reading her.
He took one hit to land two.
He let her push so he could learn where she thought he would break.
And something under his skin woke enough to help.
It was enough that his body started to move with a confidence he had never learned, something wild and precise running through him.
Sable saw it.
He knew she had seen it because her expression changed, just slightly, into recognition.
He drove her back, caught her by the throat, and shoved her hard enough that she hit the broken fence and splintered it with her shoulder. She came off it with a snarl, faster now, her own wolf near the surface, her eyes brightening with it.
This part of her was stronger than him.
Older and fully claimed.
She had her wolf; his had been imprisoned.
And yet he still took her down.
By then, the fight had turned ugly. Both of them were breathing hard. Sweat, dirt, and blood mixed on their skin, and all elegance was gone. She raked his cheek with blunt nails, but he barely felt it. He took the hit, caught her arm, twisted, and sent her crashing to the ground. She kicked at his knee. He staggered, recovered, and hit her again with everything he had left.
This time she stayed down. Dion landed above her, knee driven into her chest, forearm at her throat, his hand wrapped tight enough to crush.
Everything in him screamed to do it.
His pulse thundered.
His breath came ragged.
His vision edged red.
He could kill her; he knew exactly how, and he could feel the pulse of her life force.