Chapter 160 Guarding the Line pt 2
Gideon
I turned back to Elaine and my family. “Actually, why don’t we go check that spot out again now?”
The five of us exited the pack house, and I stopped in my tracks. There were twelve strangers waiting along the driveway. Elaine turned to me. “Prince Gideon, I’d like you to meet my coven. When you texted Cora, we teleported her and your parents here.” She smiled at me. “We were all a little anxious to get here and get started.”
And with that, she wasted no more time. We found the boar right where I’d left it, two warriors just arriving to follow my earlier orders to burn it.
“Hold off, gentlemen. We need to do some additional investigating first.” They both nodded, then stepped away respectfully, monitoring the forest as Elaine stepped up to the carcass. Her coven spread around her in a practiced move that spoke of years of coordination. The air shifted as soon as they took their places. It was quieter somehow, like the forest itself was holding its breath to see what came next.
Elaine crouched beside the dead animal but didn’t touch it. Instead, she chanted quietly as she closed her eyes.
The temperature dropped. It wasn’t enough to frost the ground, but enough that I could see Cora’s breath ghost faintly in the air. Curran rose inside me, instinctive and alert, as something ancient brushed against his senses.
Elaine lifted one hand slowly and hovered it above the torn flesh. The air rippled, and then I saw it.
The smear that Curran had sensed earlier today turned into a faint distortion on the air—like an oil slick on water. It clung to the carcass, smeared across the ground under and around it, and trailed off toward the tree line before dissolving into nothing.
Elaine inhaled sharply. “This animal was killed elsewhere, a sacrifice that doubled as a tool. It was brought here.” Her gaze shifted to the edge of the trees and the invisible border there. “And placed.”
“Why?” Cora asked, her voice quiet.
“A test.” Elaine’s eyes hardened. “To gain intelligence.”
My jaw tightened. “They wanted to see how close they could get without detection.”
“Yes,” she agreed. “And likely to see how long it took you to notice the breach and the body.”
One of her coven stepped forward, hands out as her palms glowed faintly. She traced the edge of the smear in the air. “There’s dark binding magic here. Residue of it, anyway. It doesn’t belong to this land.” Her eyes met Elaine’s. “Meredith.”
Elaine nodded, exhaling slowly. “She layered concealment over it. Not strong enough to mask it completely, but enough to blur it from casual patrol.” She looked at me. “Just weeks ago, you wouldn’t have noticed it either.”
It wasn’t an insult. It was the truth. My power had grown and settled since completing my bond with Cora. It stretched in ways I was still coming to terms with. “I sense it now.”
“Yes,” she agreed softly. “You do.” It was a quiet acknowledgment of what I’d become.
“Can you trace it?” I asked.
She shook her head. “It was severed intentionally. You can see where it ends,” she pointed, “there. It was a clean cut. Whoever carried it here stepped back across the line immediately, and their path was cleansed.” Her expression turned colder. “It wasn’t an intrusion. It was a message.”
Curran’s growl vibrated through my chest. “What do you need now?”
Elaine turned toward the tree line and lifted both hands. The coven responded instantly, stepping into position around her. “We cleanse this first, then we move to the tunnels and fortify.”
The air thickened as the coven began to chant. Their voices carried—low, layered tones that felt older than language itself. The smear on the air writhed, resisting, stretching like tar pulled by unseen hands. The earth beneath the carcass darkened, absorbing the taint as Elaine pressed her palm toward the ground.
Silver light flared. The distortion snapped.
The oily sheen evaporated like fog under sunlight, leaving behind nothing but cold air and the stench of rot. The coven lowered their hands slowly. Elaine stepped back and spoke. “Burn it.”
I called a ball of fire into my hand, then tossed it at the dead animal. Flame consumed the carcass quickly, almost unnaturally fast, as if eager to erase the evidence.
She turned back to me. “Now. The tunnels.”
The entrance to the evacuation tunnels lay concealed behind a bookshelf in the Alpha’s office—reinforced after the battle, widened to allow faster movement. Only ranking members and appointed guards knew of its existence.
Elaine paused at the threshold. “These are old,” she murmured, brushing her fingers along the stone. “Older than the pack itself.”
“They were expanded recently,” I said. “But the base structure has always been here, from what we can tell. We used them as an entry point when we took Blood Moon Pack.”
She nodded. “Good. Ancient foundations hold magic better.”
The coven moved with purpose, placing small stones at measured intervals along the tunnel walls. Each stone glowed faintly as it touched the earth, sinking half an inch into the rock as though welcomed.
“What are you building?” Cora asked quietly.
“A layered defense,” Elaine replied. “First, concealment. Second, resistance. Third…” She glanced at me. “…deterrence.”
“Deterrence how?” I asked.
“If someone crosses this threshold with hostile intent,” she said calmly, “the earth will know.”
The temperature dipped again as she pressed both palms flat against the tunnel wall. The coven’s chant rose, harmonizing. I felt it then—not dark, not light—but rooted. Something massive shifted beneath us, like the bones of the earth were waking.
Stone hummed. Silver threads spread outward from Elaine’s hands, racing through the walls, along the ceiling, weaving through the floor like veins. They stretched toward the border, anchoring to the points she had marked in the forest. She’d created a web.
No. A shield.
Curran stepped forward in my mind, silent now—reverent. For all of her help training our own magic, she’d never shown us this depth of power.
The magic settled slowly, sinking into the structure until the tunnels felt…solid in a way they hadn’t before. A space that offered safety, protection. A chance at survival.
Elaine stepped back, breath steady but her eyes bright. “They may test your borders,” she said quietly. “But they will not find easy passage here.”
I nodded once. Above us, I could feel movement in the pack house—elders, guards, shifting loyalties. Let them watch.
We were ready.