Chapter 25 The Elevator Ride
Sable’s POV
I was late.
Of all days, of all meetings, it had to be this one. My heels clicked too fast against polished marble, the sound ricocheting off the lobby walls like gunfire. My bag thumped against my hip as I darted past glass-walled conference rooms where junior teams were still scrambling over their campaigns. Donovan’s voice echoed in my head, relentless as a drum: “This client is everything, Sable. Don’t screw it up.”
My lungs burned by the time I reached the elevator bank. Three silver doors stood waiting like judges, numbers ticking down above them. One was closing. “Hold it!” I shouted, jogging the last few steps, adrenaline slicing through my nerves.
The doors stilled, then began to slide open. Relief washed through me—until it didn’t.
Because when I looked inside, the world stopped.
Kier.
Five years older, sharper at the edges, dressed in a suit that fit him like armor. He was taller than my memory, broader across the shoulders, and yet something about him—the tilt of his jaw, the watchfulness in his eyes—was exactly the same. His presence filled the steel box just as it had once filled training rings and forest clearings. My heart lurched violently, traitorously, recognizing him before my mind could catch up.
But it wasn’t just him.
Liora stood there too—perfect hair, perfect lipstick, perfume sharp as a blade. Her body angled too close, her manicured hand tugging at his tie like she’d been born to touch him. Her expression unreadable, but intimate in a way I knew too well.
The sight slammed into me, hot and brutal. For a moment, I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move.
Five years. Five years of clawing for freedom, of building a life, of telling myself I wasn’t bound. And this—this—was what waited at the end?
And then the scent hit me.
Cedar smoke. Storm winds. The tether surged alive, snapping taut in my chest. My wolf erupted, howling, claws scraping against the inside of my skin. Mate. Ours. Claim him.
“No,” I hissed under my breath, gripping the strap of my bag until my knuckles turned white. My pulse roared in my ears, my body pulled toward him even as every rational thought screamed to run.
I forced my face into calm professionalism, into the mask I’d perfected in the human world—the kind of mask that had gotten me through job interviews, client dinners, and long nights of aching silence when the bond refused to let me sleep.
I stepped into the elevator as if my insides weren’t tearing in two.
His eyes—gods, his eyes—locked on mine, and I saw it. Recognition. Hunger. The same bond pulling him like it pulled me.
Kier.
Five years of silence, of distance, of clawing my way free of the life I’d run from—and the moment our eyes met, it all came crashing back.
The mate bond roared to life, cruel and unstoppable, like a vein of fire igniting under my skin. My wolf howled his name in my chest, beating against my ribs, desperate to reach him. Mate.
But all I saw was Liora.
Her hand on his tie, too close, too familiar, as though she belonged there. As though the space I once filled had never been mine at all.
I wanted to rip her hand away. I wanted to bare my teeth.
Kier opened his mouth, my name leaving his lips like it cost him everything.
“Sable…”
The sound of it cracked something deep inside me.
But I didn’t let it show.
Instead, I straightened my back and fixed my eyes on the panel above the doors, counting the glowing floors as though they mattered more than the ache ripping through me. Forty stories to survive this ride. Forty stories to bury the betrayal.
He felt it—I knew he did. The bond thrummed between us, pulling tight, so thick it stole the air from my lungs. Anger, hurt, longing—all of it tangled until I could hardly breathe.
His gaze burned against the side of my face, heavy and relentless. My wolf wanted me to look back. To let him in.
But I didn’t. I couldn’t.
Not when my chest still carried the hollow weight of the night he let me go. Not when his silence now looked like agreement. Not when Liora’s scent wrapped around him like a claim she had no right to make.
The elevator hummed softly as it climbed, but the silence was louder than any sound. It pressed into my ears, into my bones. Every second stretched until it felt unbearable.
Liora shifted beside him, smoothing her skirt. The faint sound of fabric brushing her legs might as well have been claws on stone. I caught her reflection in the mirrored wall—a faint smile tugging at the corner of her mouth, a flicker of triumph in her eyes. She knew exactly what she was doing.
My nails dug crescents into the folder in my hands. If I lost control here—if I shifted, if I snapped—the life I’d built would be over before it began.
I would not give him, or her, the satisfaction of seeing me break.
When the numbers ticked toward the boardroom floor, I inhaled through my nose, forcing my wolf down, burying her under the same discipline that had gotten me through my first nights alone in the human world.
Forty stories down. One more to go.
The elevator slowed, a soft chime announcing our arrival.
The doors slid open with a hush, revealing a hallway bright with sterile light and steel-trimmed doors. I stepped forward first, head high, shoulders squared, each movement deliberate. If my wolf bled for him, if the bond shredded me from the inside out—he’d never know it.
Because I’d already made my choice.
I had to.
I crossed the threshold without looking back.
And behind me, in the elevator, the bond hummed like a live wire, waiting