Chapter 29 A Brother's Vow
ELARA
The inside of the tent is a pocket of suffocating silence. Outside, the arena is a low roar, a beast digesting the chaos Kael just fed it. A blood feud. The words are a brand on the air itself.
Anya finishes tying the knot on my bandage, her movements precise and gentle. Her face is a mask of grim concern.
“He’s put a target on all our backs,” she says, her voice a low murmur. She is not blaming him. She is stating a fact.
“He was defending me,” I say. My voice sounds thin, a pale echo of the fury I felt on the platform.
Rhys snorts from his position guarding the tent flap. “He wasn’t defending you. He was promising to burn them to the ground. There’s a difference.”
I look down at my bandaged hand. The white cloth is so clean against my skin. It hides the cuts, the proof that I saved myself. But I didn’t. Not really. Serena’s face flashes in my mind, her sweet, poisonous smile. She would have killed me.
Kael’s face follows. The raw terror in his eyes when he saw me fall. The absolute, world-ending rage that followed. He did not see a liability nearly costing him points in a game. He saw me.
Then he pulled away. In the tent, after that moment of impossible connection, of a bond I could almost taste, he closed a door. A wall of an Alpha went up, and I was on the other side of it. Alone.
“No one from Silver Creek comes near this tent,” Rhys growls, his body tensing. “I don’t care who it is.”
“Let them try,” Anya says, rising to her feet. She draws the knife from her thigh, its polished steel gleaming in the dim light.
“Wait,” I say.
A voice from outside the tent cuts through the tension. A familiar voice. Desperate.
“Let me in. I need to see her.”
Liam.
“Not a chance,” Rhys snarls back, his hand on the tent flap. “Your pack tried to kill her. You’ve lost the right to even breathe the same air.”
“I had nothing to do with it,” Liam’s voice is strained. “Please. She’s my sister.”
“She’s our pack,” Anya counters, her voice like ice.
I stand up. “Let him in.”
Anya and Rhys both turn to look at me, their expressions a mixture of shock and disbelief.
“Elara, he’s one of them,” Rhys says, his voice a low warning.
“He’s my brother,” I say. My voice doesn’t waver. “And he is not my enemy.”
Rhys hesitates, his jaw tight. He looks at Anya. She looks at me, a long, searching look. She sees the certainty in my eyes. She gives a single, sharp nod.
Rhys pulls back the tent flap. Liam stands there, his face pale, his eyes wide and haunted. He looks past Rhys, his gaze landing on me, on my bandaged hand. A look of such profound guilt crosses his face it’s like a physical blow.
He steps inside. Rhys lets the flap fall, but he doesn’t move. He and Anya are silent, stone sentinels guarding their Alpha’s charge.
“Leave us,” I say to them, my voice quiet but firm. “Please.”
Rhys looks like he wants to argue, but Anya places a hand on his arm. She nods to me again and then guides Rhys out through the back of the tent. We are alone.
Liam takes a hesitant step toward me. Then another. He stops a few feet away, as if there is a wall between us.
“Your hand,” he says, his voice a choked whisper.
“It’s fine. It’s already healing.”
“No,” he says, shaking his head. “It’s not fine. None of this is fine. I saw her. Serena. Before the trial. She was at your harness.”
My breath catches.
“I saw it, and I did nothing,” he continues, his voice cracking. He won’t meet my eyes. He stares at my hand like it’s his own personal failure. “I thought it was strange. The way she was smiling. But I just… I stood there. Like a coward. Damon saw it too.”
“What could you have done, Liam?” I ask, the words soft. “Accused your future Luna of sabotage in front of everyone? Damon would have torn you apart.”
“He should have,” he says, his voice raw with self-loathing. He finally looks up, and the pain in his eyes is a mirror of the agony I felt the night I left. “I should have done something. I should have stopped you from ever climbing that tower.”
He closes the distance between us, his big hands hovering near my shoulders, afraid to touch me, as if he might break me. “This is all my fault.”
“Liam, no.”
“Yes,” he insists, his voice breaking completely. “Not just this. All of it. The night you left. I stood there. I let you walk out that door. I should have fought Dad. I should have followed you. I should have burned the whole world down before I let you walk into it alone.”
His words are a key, unlocking a door to a room I have kept sealed for three years. A room filled with the ghost of a scared, lonely girl.
“I was so scared that night,” I whisper, the confession a painful, freeing thing. “I walked into those woods, and I had never been so alone in my life. I kept waiting. Hoping you would come after me.”
A tear escapes his eye, tracking a clean path through the grime on his cheek. “I wanted to. Goddess, I wanted to. I packed a bag. But Dad stopped me. He said… he said it had to be your choice. That my following you would just put a target on your back.”
He finally touches me, his hands gripping my shoulders gently. “I was a fool to listen. I should have been with you. I let you face everything alone. For three years. And then you come back, and I let it happen again. I stood by and let them try to kill you.”
“You didn’t let them,” I say, my own tears starting to fall. “You couldn’t have known.”
“But he knew,” Liam snarls, his grief hardening into a familiar rage. “Damon. He saw it. He felt it. And he did nothing. He chose her. Again.”
He shakes his head, a look of profound disillusionment on his face. “That Alpha… Kael… he declared a blood feud. He was ready to start a war for you. And our Alpha… my Alpha… he stood there and watched his chosen mate try to murder his fated one.”
His fated one. The words hang in the air between us.
“My loyalty is not to him,” Liam says, his voice a low, vicious vow. “Not anymore. It died today, on that platform when you fell.”
He looks me right in the eye, his gaze fierce, unwavering. The boy is gone. A warrior stands in his place. A brother.
“My loyalty is to you, Elara. Only you. I don’t care about the Games. I don’t care about Silver Creek’s honor. I care about my sister. If it means standing against Damon, if it means turning my back on my pack, then so be it. They will not touch you again. I swear it on my own life.”
The promise is a powerful, healing thing. It is the anchor I lost three years ago. It stitches together a piece of my soul I thought was gone forever.
“You don’t have to do that,” I whisper.
“Yes,” he says, his voice full of a terrible certainty. “I do. I will not fail you again.”
I step into him, my arms wrapping around his waist, my face pressed against the rough fabric of his tunic. He crushes me in a hug, his own arms a protective cage around me.
“I missed you,” I sob, the words muffled against his chest. “Every day.”
“I’m here now,” he says, his voice thick with tears. “I’m not going anywhere.”
We stand there for a long time, two broken pieces of a family finally fitting back together. The bond between us, the one I thought was just a memory, reforges. It is stronger now. Tempered in the fire of pain and guilt and a love that refused to die.
He finally pulls back, his hands still on my shoulders. “You need to be careful, Elara.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t,” he says, his expression grim. “Damon… he’s not just arrogant anymore. Seeing you, seeing your power, seeing you with him… it’s not regret in his eyes. It’s obsession. He doesn’t want to win the Games. He wants to win you. Like a prize. He thinks the bond gives him a right to you.”
My blood runs cold. A prize. Reclamation.
“He threw me away,” I say.
“And now he wants his toy back,” Liam says, his voice full of disgust. “He will not let this go. He will see Kael’s protection as a challenge. He will try to break you to prove he can. Do not underestimate how cruel he can be when his pride is on the line.”
He gives my shoulder a final squeeze. “I have to go. Before my father sends a search party. But I’ll be watching. Always. You are not alone in this fight.”
He turns and slips out of the tent, a ghost returning to the enemy camp. But he leaves a warrior behind. He leaves an ally.
I stand alone in the quiet tent, my hand resting on the clean white bandage. The fear is still there. A cold snake in my stomach. But it is different now. It is not the paralyzing terror of a lone wolf.
It is the sharp, focused fear of a warrior who knows exactly what she is fighting for.
I have my wolf. I have my Alpha. And now, I have my brother.
Let them come. We are ready.