POV: Caspian
I punched the training dummy so hard its head flew off.
It sailed across the yard and hit the fence with a dull thud, rolling twice before stopping in the mud. The dummy's body swayed once, twice, then toppled over like a puppet with its strings cut. I stared at it for a second, breathing hard, knuckles aching, and felt absolutely nothing.
That was the problem. I felt everything and nothing at the same time. The bond was doing that — filling me up with so much sensation that my brain had started shutting pieces of it down just to keep me functional. But it was not working anymore. Every hour, the connection between me and Sable grew stronger. More open. More impossible to ignore.
Last night I felt her pain again. The same kind as before — deep, humiliating, the kind that leaves marks on more than just the body. I had sat on the roof afterward, gripping the stone edge until my fingers bled, and I had not slept at all.
This morning I was useless. I could not focus on training. Could not focus on anything. My wolf would not stop pulling me toward the mansion, toward her, like a rope tied around my ribs being yanked by an invisible hand.
Dimitri found me an hour later, covered in sweat and surrounded by three destroyed training dummies.
"You heard?" he asked. He already knew I had. He could read me like an open book.
"Heard what?" I said, even though I already knew.
"She is in the kitchen. Helping Mrs. Holt cook." Dimitri crossed his arms and watched me carefully. "One of the pack members saw her this morning. Said she looked almost... happy."
Happy.
The word did something strange to my chest. A tightness that was not anger. Not pain. Something softer. Something that scared me more than the fury did.
"Good for her," I said. My voice came out flat.
Dimitri raised an eyebrow but did not push it. He knew when to push and when to back off. Right now he backed off, handed me a water bottle, and walked away to let me destroy the rest of the training yard in peace.
But I could not stop thinking about it.
The Alpha's wife. In the kitchen. Chopping vegetables and helping an old woman cook like she was any normal person living any normal life. There was something about that image — something so painfully small and human — that made my chest ache in a way I could not shake.
She should not be here. She should not be in this house at all. She should be somewhere safe, somewhere warm, somewhere no one could hurt her. And instead she was here, in my father's cage, finding tiny scraps of normalcy to hold onto just to keep herself from drowning.
I told myself it was not my problem. I told myself it at least a dozen times between noon and two in the afternoon. And every single time, my wolf disagreed.
At quarter past two, I grabbed a glass from my quarters and walked to the kitchen.
I told myself I was thirsty. I told myself I needed water. I told myself I was not going there to see her. I told myself all of it, and none of it was true, and I walked down that hallway anyway.
I heard her before I saw her.
Laughter.
Not loud. Not forced. Real laughter — bright and surprised, like it had escaped from her before she could stop it. The sound floated out of the kitchen doorway and hit me like a wave, and I stopped walking. Just stopped. My feet would not move. My wolf went completely silent inside me — not quiet from calm, but quiet from shock. Like it had been waiting its entire existence to hear that exact sound and had finally, finally heard it.
I stood in the doorway.
Sable was at the counter, sleeves pushed up past her elbows, flour dusted across one cheek, her hands buried in a bowl of dough. Mrs. Holt was beside her, saying something I could not catch, and Sable was laughing — really laughing — her head tipped back just slightly, her eyes crinkled at the corners, her whole body relaxed in a way I had never seen before.
She looked like a completely different person.
Not the scared, silent girl who sat next to my father at dinner with dead eyes and shaking hands. Not the pale, thin woman who flinched every time someone moved too fast near her. This was someone else entirely — someone warm and alive and present, someone who had not yet been broken by the world.
The sight of her like that — happy, for even one second — made something crack open inside my chest so wide and so fast that I could not breathe.
Then she saw me.
The laugh died instantly. Cut off mid-sound, like someone had flipped a switch. Her body went rigid. Her shoulders pulled inward. Her hands dropped to her sides, and her eyes — those grey eyes that had been bright and alive one second before — dropped to the floor.
She made herself small. Smaller than she already was. Like she was trying to disappear into the tiles.
My wolf snarled. Not at her. At everything. At my father for putting that fear in her. At this house. At this pack. At the entire world that had made this woman believe that being seen was dangerous.
"Sorry," I said. My voice came out rougher than I meant it to. I cleared my throat and tried again. "Sorry. Did not mean to scare you."
Mrs. Holt was watching me from the stove. Her brown eyes were sharp and knowing, and there was something in them — a warning, maybe, or an assessment. She said nothing. She just watched.
Sable looked up. Slowly. Carefully. Like she was checking to see if it was safe before she dared to meet my eyes.
When she did, that warmth hit me again — the same electric pull from the woods, from the clearing by the stream, from every single moment we had been in the same room. It was stronger now. So much stronger. I could feel it in my bones, in my blood, in the place behind my ribs where my wolf lived.
Her eyes flickered gold. Just for a heartbeat. Then it was gone.
"It is okay," she said quietly. Her voice was steady. Steadier than I expected. And underneath the fear, underneath the habit of making herself small, I heard something else. Something new.
Strength.
I held her gaze for one second longer than I should have. Two seconds. Three. The air between us was thick and charged, and I knew — I could feel it — that she felt it too. The pull. The connection. The invisible thread running from my chest to hers that neither of us could cut.
Then I looked away. Grabbed a glass from the shelf. Filled it with water from the tap. Drank half of it in one swallow just to give my hands something to do besides reach for her.
"Carry on," I said, setting the glass down. I turned and walked out of the kitchen without looking back.
I made it to the end of the hallway before my legs almost gave out.
I pressed my back against the wall and pressed both hands over my face, breathing hard, trying to force my heart rate down, trying to calm the storm raging inside my chest.
That was when Dimitri's voice came through the pack bond. Urgent. Sharp. Frightened in a way that made my blood go cold instantly.
Thalia. She was in the hallway. The whole time. She saw everything.
I dropped my hands.
She had seen me in that doorway. Seen the way I looked at Sable. Seen the way Sable looked back.
Thalia saw everything, and Thalia told my father everything.
Which meant that by tonight, Garrick would know exactly what was happening between his son and his bride.
And Garrick Ravenclaw did not forgive. He did not warn.
He simply destroyed.