Chapter 22 The Unwanted Echo
ELARA
The horn’s final note fades, leaving a ringing silence in its wake. Damon turns, a final, unreadable look on his face before he follows his father into the shifting sea of warriors. The confrontation is over. The air I was holding rushes out of my lungs in a shaky breath.
“Well,” Rhys says, coming to stand beside me. “I think we just declared war on the biggest pack in the territory. Good first day.”
Anya just grunts, her eyes still scanning the crowd, ever the watchful Beta. “Let them come. We’re ready.”
I am ready. I believe it. For a second, I feel a surge of pure, unadulterated power. I am not the girl who ran. I am the woman who returned.
Then it hits me.
It is not a thought. It is a physical sensation. A low, sickly hum that starts deep in my chest. A vibration on a string I thought was cut long ago. My eyes snap to Damon’s retreating back. The hum intensifies, pulling at me. A phantom limb aching with a memory I want to forget.
The mate bond. Or the ghost of it.
It is not the brilliant, fiery connection I felt on my birthday. This is a rotten thing. A festering wound. The pull is a violation, a sickening reminder that a piece of him is still tied to me, a chain I never agreed to wear.
My stomach rolls. The scent of him, pine and arrogance, cuts through the thousand other smells in the arena. It is a poison. A memory my body refuses to forget.
What is this filth? Luna’s voice is a vicious snarl in my mind. He is still connected to us. A parasite. Cut him off.
A wave of dizziness washes over me. I stumble, my hand flying to my chest as if I can physically hold the broken pieces of my heart in place.
“Elara?”
Kael is there in an instant. His voice cuts through the fog of nausea. He follows my horrified gaze to Damon. He does not need to ask. He knows.
His body shifts, a subtle movement that puts him directly in my line of sight. He is a wall. A shield of warm, solid muscle. His own scent, clean earth and leather and something that is purely Kael, floods my senses. It is a balm. An antidote.
“Look at me,” he says. His voice is a low, quiet command. Meant only for me. “Breathe. He has no power here.”
“I can feel him,” I whisper, my voice shaking. I hate the weakness in it. “The bond. It’s… it’s not gone.”
“It’s a scar,” he says, his green eyes intense, unwavering. He is holding me here with the force of his will. “A memory burned into you. It is not real. It only has the power you give it.”
His words are a lifeline. He is not telling me I am weak for feeling it. He is telling me I am strong enough to overcome it.
“It hurts,” I admit. The confession is a raw thing, torn from a place I keep locked away.
His expression softens, but the strength in his eyes does not waver. “I know. But you are stronger than any ghost, Elara. He is the past. Look at me. I am the present.”
I focus on his face. On the lines of concentration around his eyes. On the calm, steady rhythm of his breathing. The sickening pull towards Damon doesn’t vanish completely, but it recedes. It becomes a distant, meaningless hum instead of a siren’s call.
My own breathing starts to even out. I feel Luna’s strength surge into me, a cold, clean fury that burns away the last of the fear.
He is a memory, she agrees, her voice a promise of violence. We are the future.
I straighten my spine, lifting my chin. My gaze travels past Kael’s shoulder. Across the field, Damon has stopped. He is looking back, a confused frown on his face. He felt it too. He felt the sickening echo of what he threw away.
Our eyes lock. For a moment, the world is silent again. He sees me. He sees Kael standing guard. He sees the defiance in my posture. The arrogance in his expression curdles into something dark and possessive.
I do not look away. I do not flinch. I let him see the ghost he created, and I let him see that she is no longer afraid of him.
Kael’s hand comes to rest on my shoulder. It is a brief, firm pressure. A silent message of support. Of solidarity.
“It is time,” he says, his voice a low rumble. “Let’s go show them what the Crescent Moon pack is made of.”
He turns, and I turn with him. We walk shoulder to shoulder, our small team falling into formation behind us. We move as one. A single, unified force marching toward the center of the arena.
I do not look back again. The phantom limb still aches, a dull, throbbing reminder of the wound. But it no longer controls me.
Damon is a ghost. Kael is my anchor. And I am the storm that is about to break.