Chapter 24 The Elevator
Kier POV
The morning of the Ironclad pitch dawned clear and sharp, sunlight glinting off the towers of glass that stretched high into the city sky. From the top floors of Ironclad headquarters, the view was endless—an empire sprawled beneath me, humming with life.
And today, I intended to prove that empire was unshakable.
“Your schedule is tight,” Liora said as we walked down the hall toward the executive elevators. Her heels clicked against marble, tablet balanced easily in her hand. “You’ve got the Everbright team at ten, the overseas call at one, and dinner with the Tokyo investors at eight. I’ve already prepped the briefs.”
I nodded absently, adjusting the cufflinks on my shirt. They caught the light like sharpened steel. “Good. Today sets the tone. I don’t want distractions.”
But even as I said it, the mate bond hummed faintly in my chest, restless and uneasy.
Five years, and I still felt her sometimes. At night when the city went quiet, when the moon burned too bright, when my wolf stirred beneath my skin. Always distant, always faint, but there.
This morning it was sharper than usual. A hum with teeth.
I ignored it. Focus was everything.
We stepped into the elevator, the polished steel doors sliding shut behind us. Liora reached for the panel, pressing the button for the executive boardroom floor.
Her eyes flicked to me, narrowing slightly. “Your tie’s crooked.”
I glanced down, frowning. “It’s fine.”
“It’s not,” she said firmly, stepping closer. Before I could protest, her fingers brushed against the knot, tugging it straight with practiced precision.
Too close. Too intimate.
Her perfume curled around me, sweet but sharp, familiar after years at my side. She leaned in just a little too far, her breath warm against my neck, her hand lingering longer than necessary.
And that’s when it hit me.
Not her perfume. Not the faint scent of citrus and smoke that clung to Liora.
Her.
Cedar smoke. Storm winds. The scent that had haunted me every night for five years.
Sable.
The bond flared like fire through my veins, so sudden and so strong my breath caught. My wolf lunged inside me, claws scraping, howling one word into the marrow of my bones: Mate.
I barely had time to register it before the elevator slowed. The doors slid open.
And there she was.
Sable stepped forward, Everbright’s folder in hand, her dark hair falling loose around her shoulders, eyes sharp with nerves she masked under professionalism.
She froze mid-step, her gaze locking on me instantly.
Then her eyes flicked to Liora, still standing too close, her hand on my tie.
The moment cracked like glass.
The bond surged, snarling between us, raw and undeniable. But the look on Sable’s face wasn’t recognition, wasn’t relief.
It was betrayal.
For a heartbeat, the boardroom, the empire, the years between us—all of it vanished. There was only the girl who had run, the boy who had let her go, and the impossible pull that still bound us together.
“Sable…” My voice broke, her name leaving me like a prayer and a curse.
Her eyes hardened, and she stepped into the elevator, every inch the professional, though her scent told me her wolf was clawing as violently as mine.
The doors slid shut behind her.
The air thickened the second the doors sealed us in together.
Sable didn’t look at me again, not directly. She stepped into the corner, her Everbright folder clasped like a shield, eyes fixed firmly on the glowing numbers above the doors. But her wolf betrayed her—anger rolling off her in waves, sharp and electric.
I felt it. Every pulse. Every jagged edge of her hurt.
The mate bond was a merciless thing. Where she bristled, I burned. Where she clenched her jaw and locked down, my wolf clawed to close the space between us, to soothe, to claim.
But she ignored me. She ignored both of us.
Liora’s hand was still at my tie, though I could feel the weight of Sable’s gaze on it even as she refused to look. I reached up, prying Liora’s fingers off with deliberate calm, though my pulse thundered in my ears.
Her eyes cut to mine for just a second, and that was all it took. Fury and pain collided there—hers, mine, ours—and for a breathless moment the elevator seemed too small to contain it.
The silence pressed in, broken only by the hum of machinery carrying us higher. Liora shifted, sensing the tension but not daring to speak.
My wolf strained against the walls of my chest. She’s here. She’s ours. Why is she hurting? Who hurt her?
But I knew. The way she looked at me—the way she wouldn’t look—it wasn’t just the years apart. It was this moment. Liora’s closeness. My silence.
To her, it must have looked like I’d already chosen.
The numbers ticked up. 38… 39… 40…
Each floor dragged like an eternity, the air tight with everything unsaid. By the time the elevator slowed for the boardroom level, I was ready to tear the steel doors apart just to escape the weight of her anger pressing into me through the bond.
And still, I couldn’t stop staring at her reflection in the mirrored walls.
Her shoulders squared. Her chin lifted.
She was going to war.
And damn me, I’d let her believe I was the enemy.