Chapter 20 The Echo
Kier’s POV
The night was still when it hit me.
One moment, I was standing on the balcony of the lodge, the forest stretching endlessly below, a black sea of pines and silver-threaded moonlight. The next, my chest clenched so hard I staggered against the railing.
Sable.
The mate bond flared like wildfire, sharp and unrelenting, flooding me with her emotions. It wasn’t the faint hum I’d grown used to these last months—the soft reminder of her presence somewhere far away. No, this was a surge, raw and violent, a storm crashing into me with such force it stole the air from my lungs.
Fear. Anger. Pain.
And frenzy.
My wolf howled inside me, claws scraping at the walls of my control, desperate to answer her call. Mate, he thundered. Mate. She’s in danger.
I gripped the railing until the wood splintered under my hands. My knuckles burned, my breath came ragged. “Sable,” I whispered into the night, though she was miles away, beyond reach.
The bond dragged at me, urging me to run, to shift, to tear through forest and road until I found her. I could almost see her through the tether—on her knees in the dirt, trembling, fighting herself, the wolf inside her raging for release. My chest ached with the echo of it, with the knowledge that she was hurting and I couldn’t do a damn thing to help.
Every part of me wanted to follow. Goddess, every part of me wanted to run until my lungs gave out.
But the pack needed me here.
Even now, patrols circled the borders, rogues tested our defenses, and the elders whispered of weakness every time my name crossed their lips. If I abandoned them, if I left in the dead of night, it would confirm every doubt they already carried.
And yet… wasn’t letting her go already weakness?
I dragged a hand through my hair, pacing the balcony like a caged beast. My wolf pressed against me, relentless. She needs us. She’s ours.
“She chose to leave,” I said aloud, as if the sound of the words could make them real. “She wanted freedom.”
But even as the words left my mouth, the bond pulsed again—sharper this time, a desperate flare of longing before it dulled, like a candle struggling against the wind.
Behind me, the door creaked open.
“Talking to yourself now?” Jaxon leaned against the frame, arms crossed. Concern shadowed his face beneath the easy sarcasm.
I turned back to the forest. “I felt her.”
His expression hardened instantly. “Bad?”
“Worse than before.” I exhaled, the weight pressing heavier with every breath. “She’s not okay, Jax. She’s struggling out there.”
For a moment, he said nothing. Then he stepped forward, shoulders squared. “Then go get her.”
I shook my head. “You know I can’t. Not yet. The pack—”
“Fuck the pack,” he snapped, his voice sharp enough to cut. “You’re no good to them half here and half with her. You can’t lead if you’re bleeding out through that bond.”
The words struck like a blade because they were true. Every day I buried the ache, pushed down the tether pulling me across miles. Every day it grew harder.
But still, I forced myself to shake my head. “She left because she wanted to choose. If I go now, if I drag her back, I prove her worst fear—that the bond is a chain. I can’t do that to her. You know that.”
Jaxon cursed under his breath but didn’t argue further. He clapped a hand to my shoulder, steady, grounding. “Then what do you do?”
I stared into the forest, the shadows deep, the moon carving silver into the trees. My voice was low when I finally answered. “I wait. I lead. And I pray that when she’s ready, she’ll come back. Not because the bond drags her, but because she wants to.”
My wolf snarled at the words, furious at the restraint. He wanted to hunt, to claim, to demand. But love wasn’t force, wasn’t chains. Love was choice. That’s what she had run for, wasn’t it? To have the right to choose.
Still, the ache of restraint gnawed at me. Waiting didn’t mean peace—it meant pacing nights on the balcony, pressing my palms into splintered railings, swallowing the taste of smoke and ash in my throat. Waiting meant bleeding slowly, every tug of the bond a reminder of what I couldn’t have.
The lodge behind me was quiet now, the pack asleep in their beds. But I could feel their whispers echoing even in the silence. Weakness. Mate-less. Unfit.
Jaxon’s voice broke through my thoughts. “You think she’ll come back?”
I closed my eyes. “I have to.”
Because if I didn’t believe that, then I had nothing.
The forest spread endlessly before me, a dark and waiting canvas. Somewhere beyond it, she knelt in her own shadows, fighting her wolf, fighting the bond, fighting me.
I didn’t move. I couldn’t. My duty anchored me here, as surely as the bond pulled me toward her. Two chains pulling in opposite directions, threatening to tear me apart.
I turned at last, back into the dim glow of the lodge, the scent of pine and smoke following me inside. But as I crossed the threshold, one truth burned steady in my chest:
If the bond surged like that again—if she was in true danger—I wouldn’t wait.
I would burn the world down to find her.