The Storm I Can't Touch

The Storm I Can't Touch
Landon

The door slammed so hard the hinges screamed. John flinched, but I barely noticed. Rage boiled under my skin like acid, burning through thought, through reason, through restraint.
“They’re dead,” I spat, pacing the length of the war table. Maps, markers, and plans littered the surface, useless now. “Every single rogue. Torn apart in the trees like rabbits.”

The scout who’d delivered the news still knelt on the stone floor, head bowed, shoulders trembling. I wanted to kick him into the wall just for carrying the words to me.
My Beta, John, cleared his throat. “We didn’t expect Kane’s pack to....”
“Didn’t expect?” I whirled on him, shadows of rage curling at the edges of my sight. “Didn’t expect them to do what they’ve always done? Kill? Destroy? Bleed anyone who dares step across their borders?”
John stiffened, jaw tight. He’d grown tired of my rages; I saw it in his eyes, in the subtle defiance he thought he hid.
He will betray you.
The thought slid across my mind. Smooth and cold, like oil poured into a wound. I clenched my fists until my nails bit my palms.

Not now. Not when John stood before me, alive, breathing, questioning.
I stalked closer, towering over him. “You let me send rogues who weren’t ready. You let me waste them.”
“They were criminals,” John snapped, then caught himself, lowering his gaze. “Expendable.”
“Expendable?” My hand shot out, fisting in his shirt, dragging him across the table. The scout yelped and scrambled back as I slammed John into the wood hard enough to rattle the markers. “Do you think I can afford expendable? Every wolf lost is one less weapon against him.”

Weak. All of them weak. You should bleed them dry, make them stronger in death than they ever were in life.

I ground my teeth and shoved Darren back, disgust curling in my chest.
“Find me someone who can tear through those wards.” My voice was raw, jagged. “Anybody, a mage, I don’t care. Somebody with as much power, if it exists outside her. Someone who can unbind Kane’s precious mountain.”

John straightened his shirt, defiance flashing again. “We don’t even know if such a person exists. You’re chasing shadows.”
I hit him. Fist to jaw, sharp and brutal. He went down hard, blood already spilling from his mouth.
The scout whimpered against the wall. I didn’t care.

“You think I’m chasing shadows?” I roared, shadows of my own rage stretching across the walls. “You think I’ll sit here while Kane keeps her caged, while he flaunts her, while he pretends he can protect her from me?”
John groaned, pushing up onto his elbows.
I kicked him back down.
Yes. Break them. Use their blood. Wards bow to sacrifice. Cut them open until the stones drink their screams.

My breath came hard, chest heaving, heart hammering. I slammed my palms into the table, leaning over it, glaring down at the maps. The mountains stared back at me in ink and parchment, impassable, untouchable.
“No mountain is impenetrable,” I growled. “Not with enough blood spilled at its feet.”
John coughed, spitting red onto the floor. “You’ll bleed this pack dry chasing her. Even if you get through, what then? Kane will kill you himself.”

No. He will fall. He cannot stand against you.

I pressed my hands to my temples, breath harsh. John’s voice and my thoughts blurred together, one telling me to stop, the other telling me to take, to claim, to destroy.
“Out,” I snapped, finally.

The scout bolted. John staggered after him, clutching his jaw, shooting me one last look of weary contempt before disappearing through the door.
I was alone.
I stalked to the hearth, shoving more wood onto the fire, watching the flames leap high.

“You’re mine,” I whispered to the fire, though I meant her.
Amelia.
Storm Weaver.
Stolen, hidden, defiled by Kane’s mark.
She was mine to wield.

I slammed my fist into the stone above the hearth until blood smeared the rock. The pain steadied me for a breath.

Pain makes you strong. Their pain will open the way. Burn them. Cut them. Offer them.

I laughed a jagged, broken sound. John thought I was chasing shadows? He had no idea.
I turned back to the maps, grabbed the markers, and swept them across the mountain border.
“Scour the villages. Bring me elders. Bring me bloodlines tied to old gifts. I don’t care if you have to tear through half the continent. Someone can break those wards, and I’ll have them.” I said to nobody at all.

The fire was nothing but embers when she came in.
Cynthia’s steps were light, but I knew her rhythm. I’d known it since the day the bond snapped into place. She paused at the threshold, eyes sweeping the wreckage of the room, overturned chair, broken map markers, and blood still slick across the table.

“Landon.”
I didn’t answer.
Her sigh was soft, tired. She crossed the room anyway, skirts brushing the stone, and rested her hand on my shoulder. Warmth seeped into me, unwelcome.
“You can’t keep doing this,” she murmured. “Every time something fails, you tear yourself apart.”
I jerked away, pacing again. “They didn’t just fail. They were slaughtered. Not one made it back. Do you understand what that means? Kane isn’t sitting in his mountain, waiting. He’s hunting. He’s waiting for me to slip.”

She followed with her eyes, not her feet. She’d learned better than to chase me when I was like this. “Maybe it means the mountain is impenetrable. Maybe it means you’re throwing lives away chasing something you’ll never have.”
Her. She didn’t say the word, but it burned between us.

I spun on her, teeth bared. “Don’t.”
Cynthia’s mouth tightened. She was beautiful, she always had been, but right now I hated the sight of her. Hated her calm, her reason.
She stepped closer, voice low. “You talk in your sleep. Do you know that? You say her name. Over and over. Amelia. You call her yours. And then you wake with blood under your nails.”
My throat closed.

“You’re obsessed,” Cynthia pressed, voice shaking now. “You’re unraveling, Landon. This isn’t about power anymore. This isn’t about keeping the pack strong. This is about her. And it’s going to destroy you.”
I slammed my fist into the wall. Stone cracked, dust raining down.

“Maybe I want it to destroy me!” I roared. “Maybe that’s the only way through! Kane thinks he can hide her, keep her locked away like some jewel he stole? He doesn’t deserve her. He doesn’t understand what she is. She was meant for me. For me!”
Cynthia flinched but didn’t back away. Brave. Foolish. “She was never yours.”

The words tore something inside me. I lunged, seizing her by the throat, pressing her back into the wall. Her eyes widened, but she didn’t fight. Her hands stayed at her sides, trembling but still.
“I could kill you,” I whispered.
Her gaze softened, wet with unshed tears. “I know. But you won’t. Because underneath all this madness, you’re still mine. You’re still my mate.”
The bond tugged, sharp, aching. My grip loosened, rage trembling into something hollow. I shoved away from her, pacing again, running both hands through my hair.

Her tears spilled now, tracking down her face. She didn’t sob, didn’t break, she just stood there, silent, enduring.
The silence was worse than her words.
I turned back to the maps, grabbing a knife and slashing it across the parchment, gouging the mountains into tatters.
“No more failures,” I muttered. “If rogues can’t get in, I’ll bleed mages. If mages can’t, I’ll bleed old blood. Someone out there can crack those wards, and I’ll find them. I don’t care how many bodies it takes.”

Cynthia’s voice trembled. “And if there isn’t anyone?”
I grinned, teeth sharp in the firelight. “Then I’ll make one.”
She whispered my name, broken, but I ignored it.
The mirror above the hearth caught my reflection. For a heartbeat, I didn’t recognize it.

Bloodshot eyes. Shadows under my skin. My lips curled into a sneer I hadn’t made.