Chapter 180 – The Long Night
Ronan
I wait in the guest hall, armor half-undone, sword resting across my knees, the door wide open.
The fire’s been banked to embers. Each one glows like an open eye. I haven’t moved in hours. If I breathe too loud, I might miss a sound.
Mara sits a few paces away, back against the wall, one knee raised, her knife balanced on it. She hasn’t spoken since Eli left. She knows there’s nothing to be said. Nothing that will calm the screaming panic in my head.
I ordered Jace and Hazel to get some sleep. All of us can’t be useless tomorrow. Kieran offered to wait with me and I glared at him until he left. Mara ignored my command and glared right back at me.
Eli is strong, but he’s not unbreakable. Nobody is. And he will always carry the wounds of what Ashgrave did to him.
I’ve worked so fucking hard to get him to believe he’s safe. Valued. Loved. If Alaric does anything to turn him back into the terrified, feral wolf I first dragged home, I’ll peel his skin from his body and feed it to him.
Somewhere above us, a door creaks. My head snaps up at the sound of footsteps, but they’re not headed this way.
My body stays locked long after the sound fades. Every nerve in me strains toward that corridor that leads deeper into the keep. The one that swallowed him.
I told him I’d wait for him to get back. I didn’t promise to stay sane doing it.
The corridor beyond the door runs the length of the east wing. When we were shown these chambers, I noticed the way the stone angles, how the acoustics bend the smallest noise.
Sound travels here. It carries whispers, the drag of a chain, the echo of breath. If he calls for me, I’ll hear. And if I hear, I’ll move.
Mara’s voice comes at last, low. “You won’t hear him.”
“I’ll hear.”
“Not through those walls. They built this place to keep the cries in.”
I grip the hilt across my knees tighter. “Then I’ll hear the silence when it breaks. I’ll feel it through the bond if he panics.”
She exhales through her nose. “You think he’d want you tearing this place apart?”
“I think he’d want to know I was listening.”
That earns me a slow nod. The hours pass the way wounds heal. Slow, ugly, constantly reopening.
Every so often, one of Alaric’s guards drifts by the corridor arch. Their armor whispers against itself. I don’t look at them. They don’t speak to me. We exist in the same space like wolves circling the same carcass, waiting for a command to feed.
Mara dozes once, briefly, head dropping back against the wall. I envy her the trick of closing her eyes without seeing him with Alaric.
I can picture it too well. Alaric’s smile, the way he threatens without needing to move his hands. The thought of Eli standing there, still and quiet, wearing obedience like a weapon. It twists something deep in me. Pride and fury share the same vein.
I shift, slow and soundless, and the sword across my knees gleams faintly in the firelight. The edge catches red. The same color I’ve imagined spilling across Alaric’s marble floors. My palms itch to make it true.
Another hour. Then another. The night feels endless, folding in on itself until time stops mattering. I measure it by heartbeat instead. Mine. His. The bond threads faint and constant through the dark, a pulse under my skin that tells me he’s still breathing. It’s the only thing that keeps me sane.
Mara stirs. “Anything?”
I shake my head.
She rises, crosses to the window slit and peers through the narrow view. “Sky’s starting to grey.”
I want Eli back at my side. “I should never have let him go to that bastard.”
“Too late,” she says. “And he made the decision for himself, you didn’t let him. Either way, we’ve made it through the worst of it.”
The bond hums again, faint and alive. It’s like hearing his heartbeat through a wall of ice. I close my eyes and lean into it until the world narrows to that thread.
He’s alive. He’s enduring. He’s also muffling his emotions so I can’t tell what he’s feeling. My mate has always known how to make survival look like defiance.
I whisper the words to the mind link. I’m here. I’m waiting. Come back to me.
My wolf paces inside my chest, silent but furious. Every muscle waits for an order it can’t take.
Mara returns to her place beside me, folding herself down cross-legged. “You need rest.”
“I’ll rest when he’s back.”
“You’ll fall over when he’s back.”
“With him in my arms. Where he belongs.”
She studies me for a long time. “You think he’s afraid?”
“He’s smart,” I say. “And he’d have to be stupid not to fear Alaric.”
She nods once, approval or agreement, I can’t tell. Then she closes her eyes again.
The window slit glows faintly, the first hint of dawn brushing the horizon. The light spills into the corridor in a thin, cold line. It touches the edge of my blade and makes it shine like something sacred.
I don’t believe in gods, but if they exist, they owe me this sunrise.
For a long moment, I just watch the light creep closer. The bond strengthens with it, faint but sure. I can sense him moving. He’s walking back. He’s coming home.
Mara must see the relief in my face. She straightens, stretching her back, groaning softly. “He’s on his way back. In one piece.”
The sun edges higher. The castle begins to wake. Life resuming, as if the night didn’t hold its breath with me. The guards change shifts. The air smells of bread and furniture polish. I stay exactly where I am. A statue waiting to be brought back to life.
My body aches, but I don’t move until the right sound comes. Light footsteps down the corridor, then the faintest trace of scent. Citrus and rain. The bond starts humming brightly with Eli’s relief and I know he can smell me too.
Mara stands. “I’ll give you a minute,” she says, and slips away toward the others.
The ache that’s been burning through me all night softens into something heavier. Relief sharpened by rage.
Dawn pours through the windows, gold instead of gray. It looks like absolution and doesn’t feel like it. Alaric isn’t worthy of mercy. I will make him pay for every second he forced us to be apart.
I let the sword rest against the floor and straighten my spine. My eyes burn from the sleepless hours, but I can finally blink. The night has done its worst and failed.
He’s alive. He’s walking back to me. And until the day I can’t hear that heartbeat through the bond, I will always be here, waiting, listening, blade across my knees, ready to rush to his defense.