Chapter 94 Excuse me..?
Chapter 94 Excuse me..?
/Nelson/
“They’re coming for us next.”
Edlyn’s words stayed lodged in my head long after she’d stopped speaking, echoing there like something that refused to settle. For several seconds I couldn’t move. I just stared at her, trying to understand what she’d said and, more importantly, what she’d actually seen behind those glowing eyes.
The Northern Pack was alive.
That should have been good news, the kind of relief we’d been praying for since they first vanished. Instead, every instinct inside me was screaming that it was the opposite, that being alive and being safe were two very different things.
“How do you know?” I asked, my voice rougher than I intended.
Edlyn looked at me, and the fear still lingering in her eyes told me she was struggling to put words to something that defied them. “I saw them.”
“Saw who?”
“The Northern Pack.” She rubbed her forehead as if she could still feel the vision pressing against her skull, the memory of it clearly not done with her yet. “They were somewhere underground. I couldn’t see everything, but there were hundreds of them. The elders were there. The warriors were there. Even the children.”
My chest tightened until it physically hurt.
“Did you see who took them?”
She shook her head, frustration bleeding into the gesture. “No. There was something blocking me.”
Luca stepped closer, his expression sharpening. “Magic?”
“I don’t know.”
“What did you feel?”
Edlyn looked at him, and when she answered, her voice had dropped to barely more than a whisper.
“Fear.”
That single word was enough to silence both of us completely.
I moved toward the table and stared down at the map again, though the lines and borders seemed to blur together now. The Northern Pack’s territory was marked several regions away from us, and yet suddenly it felt like they were standing directly in front of me, closer than they’d ever been.
“Did they hurt anyone?” I asked, bracing myself for the answer.
Edlyn swallowed hard. “No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. I didn’t see anyone injured.”
I released a breath I hadn’t even realized I was holding, the relief only slightly loosening the knot in my chest.
“Then they’re being kept alive for a reason.”
Luca’s expression hardened into something colder. “Which means we need to find them before that reason becomes obvious.”
I nodded, already dreading what that reason might turn out to be. “Exactly.”
Edlyn looked between the two of us, something else clearly weighing on her.
“There’s something else.”
I turned toward her fully. “What?”
She hesitated, her hands twisting together in her lap. “They knew I was watching.”
The room went completely still.
Luca’s eyes narrowed sharply. “Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“Edlyn.”
“I don’t know, Luca.” Her voice cracked with frustration now, raw at the edges. “I was trying to see where they were, and then something turned toward me. It felt like someone was looking straight through the vision and into me. Into everything.”
A chill ran straight through my body.
“You mean they could see you?”
She nodded slowly. “Yes.”
My wolf growled low inside my head, a warning that needed no translation. They know about her.
I clenched my jaw until it ached. “Did they say anything?”
Edlyn’s eyes shifted toward me, something haunted flickering behind them. “No.” She paused. “Not exactly.”
“What does that mean?”
“I heard a voice.”
My stomach dropped straight through the floor.
“The same voice?”
She nodded, and I watched her throat work as she swallowed. “The one that told me to choose.”
Luca’s expression darkened further, something dangerous simmering just beneath the surface. “What did it say?”
Edlyn looked down at her hands, her fingers trembling slightly. “Nothing this time.”
“Then what?”
“It laughed.”
Nobody spoke. The silence stretched thin and brittle between us.
I looked at Luca, and he looked just as disturbed as I felt, all the earlier calculation in his eyes replaced by something closer to dread. This wasn’t a normal enemy we were dealing with. We were up against something that had been watching Edlyn long before either of us had even realized a war was coming for us.
“We need to move,” I said, the words coming out harder than I meant them to.
Luca nodded once, sharp and certain. “Immediately.”
Edlyn pushed the blankets away and swung her legs off the bed. “I’m coming.”
“No.”
Both Luca and I said it at the exact same moment, and for a second neither of us seemed to register that we’d spoken in unison.
She stared at us, her chin lifting in that stubborn way I’d already come to recognize. “Excuse me?”
I sighed, dragging a hand down my face. “You just woke up from a vision.”
“And?”
“And you’re staying here.”
She folded her arms tightly across her chest. “Nelson.”
“Edlyn.”
“Don’t start.”
“I’m not starting anything.”
“You are absolutely starting something.”
Luca stepped between us before it could escalate further. “For once, I agree with the wolf.”
She looked at him, betrayal written across her face. “You too?”
“Especially me.”
Edlyn rolled her eyes, though I could see the fear underneath the exasperation now. “I swear, the two of you have been together for five minutes and you’re already teaming up against me.”
“Because you’re impossible,” I said.
“Because you’re both annoying.”
Despite everything hanging over us, Luca actually smiled, just briefly, before his expression turned serious again.
“We aren’t leaving you behind because we think you’re weak.”
Edlyn looked at him, waiting.
“We’re leaving you behind because you’re the target.”
That single sentence changed everything in her face. The stubbornness faded, replaced by something quieter and more afraid, because she knew he was right and hated that she did.
I stepped closer to her, softening my voice as much as the urgency would allow. “Whoever is behind this knows about your bonds, your visions, and your powers. They’ve already tried to make you choose between us.” I pointed toward the map, toward the marked territories that suddenly felt like a countdown. “If they can manipulate you, they can manipulate the entire war.”