Chapter 14 Fourteen
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Sara’s POV
The healer wing had never felt so silent.
Asher drifted back into unconsciousness after delivering the message, leaving the room thick with the weight of his words.
It begins when she remembers.
Your blood already knows the truth.
Kael stood at the foot of the bed, studying me in a way that made my skin prickle. Not with fear. With the strange pressure of being seen too closely, too accurately.
Xenon stood on my right, his posture rigid, his expression unreadable but dangerous enough that no one dared speak first.
When the tension became too heavy to stand, I whispered, “I do not have any memories that would change anything.”
Kael shook his head calmly. “Not conscious ones. Blood memories do not behave like normal ones.”
Xenon let out a sharp breath and stepped between us. “Kael. Enough of this. She is overwhelmed.”
“She needs clarity,” Kael countered. “Not comfort.”
Xenon bristled. “She needs safety.”
Kael held his gaze. “Safety means knowledge in this case.”
I lifted a hand slightly. “Both of you stop.”
They both went silent, eyes shifting to me.
I swallowed hard. “What does it mean for me to remember something I never lived.”
Kael approached slowly. “Some bloodlines store ancestral memory. Fragments. Images. Emotions. They surface in moments of danger.”
“I have felt nothing,” I said. “Nothing unusual.”
Kael studied me. “You have felt something. You just dismissed it.”
I stiffened. “The heat in my chest.”
Xenon turned sharply toward me. “Heat.”
I nodded slowly. “During the meeting. And again earlier. It was faint. Uncomfortable. But not… painful.”
Kael looked at Xenon. “She is reacting to proximity.”
“Proximity to what,” I asked.
“To them,” Kael said. “To the Creed.”
Xenon shook his head. “She was reacting before they arrived today.”
Kael’s expression changed. “To the pendant.”
My stomach twisted. “The broken pendant they stole from the healer wing.”
Kael nodded. “It may have belonged to someone connected to your bloodline. Or it may be a relic tied to the memory they believe you carry.”
Xenon stepped closer to me. “She is not touching that thing.”
“She may need to,” Kael argued.
“No,” Xenon snapped. “Not until we understand what it contains.”
Kael’s shoulders dropped slightly. “Time is not on our side.”
“I am not sacrificing her mind because we are running out of time,” Xenon shot back.
The bite in his voice made Kael quiet down.
I took a slow breath. “What if touching it triggers something that makes things worse.”
“It could,” Kael admitted.
Xenon moved closer, his hand brushing my arm. “Then we avoid it.”
Kael exhaled. “Sara, you need to prepare for the possibility that something inside you is waking whether you want it or not.”
A chill ran through me. “What if it is something dangerous.”
Kael held my gaze. “Then it is better to understand it before the Creed forces it out of you.”
Xenon’s eyes darkened. “No one forces anything out of her.”
He placed a hand on my back. The contact was light, gentle, but the tension in his body was anything but controlled.
Before Kael could respond, the healer wing doors burst open and a guard rushed inside, breathless and pale.
“Alpha,” he said. “We have a problem.”
Xenon stepped forward. “What now.”
“The southern border,” the guard said. “The Creed left something else.”
My stomach tightened. “Another message.”
The guard swallowed. “No. Not a message.”
Xenon’s expression hardened. “Then what.”
“A body,” the guard whispered. “Someone from the inner villages.”
Xenon cursed under his breath. “Show me.”
He started to move, but I grabbed his arm. “Xenon. It is because of me. They are showing you what they can do.”
His jaw flexed. “They are showing me what happens when they cross into my territory. And I will answer it.”
“Alpha,” Adrian called from outside, “the body is near the gate. You should see it.”
Xenon nodded once and turned to me. “Stay behind me.”
He didn’t wait for my reply. He took my hand and pulled me with him out of the healer wing. Warriors gathered around us as we moved, forming a tight formation in case of another ambush.
When we reached the southern gate, a crowd of warriors parted, revealing a small space cleared around a body lying in the snow.
My breath caught.
It was a young woman. Maybe twenty. Human-born wolf. She wore a simple cloth robe from the village. Her eyes were closed. Her expression peaceful, almost as if she were sleeping.
But her hand was curled around something.
A small object wrapped in dark cloth.
Xenon crouched slowly. He signaled for everyone to stay back, then gently pried the cloth from the woman’s fingers and opened it.
My heart stopped.
It was the same symbol from before. The same circular mark with uneven rays.
But this time it wasn’t on cloth.
It was carved into a piece of bone.
Kael knelt beside Xenon. “That is not a summons mark.”
Xenon’s voice was low. “Then what is it.”
Kael took the bone from Xenon’s hand and studied it closely. His face drained of color.
“It is a blood trigger,” Kael said quietly. “The Creed is not waiting for her memory to wake naturally.”
My stomach twisted. “What does that mean.”
Kael stood slowly and faced me with a seriousness I had never seen from him. “It means they will force your awakening.”
Xenon rose sharply. “They are not touching her.”
“They do not need to touch her,” Kael said. “They only need to get close enough to provoke her blood.”
“I do not understand,” I whispered.
Kael’s voice was low. “If your bloodline carries dormant knowledge, the Creed will use shock, fear, and trauma to trigger it. They will try to destabilize you. That is why they brought the body. It is not random. This is calculated.”
My breathing faltered. “They killed her because of me.”
“No,” Xenon said firmly, stepping between me and the body. “They killed her because they want control. That is not your fault.”
The world felt too small. Too loud. Too cold.
Kael spoke again. “If they trigger it before we understand what it is, Sara could lose control. Or worse, unlock something the Creed could manipulate.”
Xenon turned sharply to Kael. “Enough. She is hearing too much.”
Kael didn’t stop. “She needs to hear it.”
“No,” Xenon said. “She needs stability.”
He reached for my wrist again, grounding me.
My voice was barely steady. “Xenon. What do I do.”
His answer came without hesitation.
“You stay with me.”
Kael added quietly, “And we find the other half of that pendant.”
My head snapped toward him. “There is another half.”
“Yes,” Kael said. “That pendant was broken intentionally. The missing piece contains whatever the Creed wants.”
Xenon’s grip tightened slightly. “And I will find it before they do.”
Kael held his gaze. “You do not have much time.”
Xenon didn’t look away from me when he said, “Then I will not waste any.’
His voice softened.
“They are not taking you. Not your mind. Not your blood. Not anything.”
His reassurance didn’t erase the fear building inside my chest.
Because for the first time since I arrived at BloodRidge, I could feel something shifting inside me.
A pressure.
A stirring.
Memory that didn’t feel like mine.
Something old.
Something waiting.
And the Creed was ready for it.