Free Web NovelChapter 382: Chapter 382 When The Ground Gives
Elijah POV
We have been awake for too long, long enough that time has blurred into something measured by tasks instead of hours, and even when we move with purpose there is a constant undertow pulling at my focus, a steady awareness of absence that refuses to quiet.
We did not leave the pack last night and that was the hardest part.
We went back to the dinner, smiles set and posture controlled, and Ethan told the pack Allison wasn’t feeling well and had stepped back for the evening, his voice calm enough that most accepted it without question, while Ezra stood at his side with his shoulders squared and his temper leashed, and I nodded along where needed, answering greetings and questions as if my world hadn’t tilted on its axis.
It was hell.
Absolute hell to stand there and talk about food and patrol rotations and the weather while Daniel, Mateo, and Fallon worked the shadows, slipping in and out of ops, tracing threads that refused to resolve into anything solid, and every time someone laughed too loudly or clapped me on the shoulder I had to remind myself that alarming the pack would help no one. ƒreewebηoveℓ.com
’She’s not gone,’ Loki keeps saying, steady and insistent. ’She’s moving. I can feel it.’
’I know,’ I answer, because I have to believe that.
Morning comes whether we want it or not, pale light filtering through the packhouse windows, exhaustion settling into my muscles like a second skin, and Abigail takes one look at the three of us hovering in ops and makes a decision.
"You’re done," she says flatly. "Go to bed." Ezra opens his mouth to argue, she doesn’t let him.
"If you don’t get some sleep," Abigail continues, voice sharpening, "I will use my powers on you, and I promise you won’t like the result." Ethan studies her for a long second, then nods.
"She’s right." He says, and I can hear he doesn’t like it one bit.
None of us are happy about it, but we go, because on some level we know she’s right, and because she adds, softer but no less firm, "I’ll keep looking. My brother-in-law has eyes on the camp, and so far nothing is happening, which means whatever’s coming hasn’t tipped its hand yet. Rest while you can."
Sleep is a shallow thing and I manage a few hours at most, drifting in and out, Loki coiled and watchful even when my body finally gives in, and when I wake just after noon it’s with the unmistakable sense that waiting is no longer an option.
I pace ops until Abigail notices, which takes all of thirty seconds, and she pinches the bridge of her nose before jerking her head toward the hall.
"Training room," she says. "Now." She doesn’t give us a choice.
She hauls all three of us into the indoor training area and works us hard, harder than any drill we’ve run in months, pairing us off, then throwing herself into the mix, forcing us to react instead of think, to bleed off excess energy through motion and impact rather than letting it rot inside our heads.
It helps, but not enough.
Ezra is the worst off.
I can feel it through the bond we share, the way his focus keeps slipping, the way Damon churns under his skin, restless and frustrated, because Ezra needs Allison calm and present in the way fighters need a fixed horizon, and right now that horizon is missing.
’She’s alive,’ Loki insists again, more firmly this time. ’The ground isn’t grieving.’ That steadies me more than anything else.
Night falls slowly, the kind of dusk that drags its feet, stretching tension thin, and by the time darkness settles fully we’re all coiled tight, ready to move, every instinct screaming to go find her instead of sitting on our hands.
Abigail and our mother meet us halfway.
"This is the worst part," mother says quietly, her presence a calm anchor even now. "Waiting feels like doing nothing, but it’s not. It’s restraint."
"If you rush in blind, you make it easier for them. Jax and Willow will contact us when they have something solid." Abigail nods
The hour that follows is agony, but then the mindlink comes and everything snaps into place.
Orders move fast after that, mindlinks firing in clean chains as we direct the pack into safe rooms, explaining enough to keep panic at bay but not enough to compromise security, promising answers later, promising safety now, and when the last doors seal and the wards shift into defensive posture, the night seems to hold its breath.
We feel it before we see it as the forest surges.
A shockwave of magic ripples through the treeline, raw and violent, and then it’s chaos, sound and motion crashing together as figures burst into the clearing, fur and shadow and power colliding in a way that steals the air from my lungs.
Ruby is there.
Allison.
She’s already engaged, dark blue fur a blur as she pivots, claws digging into the earth, and then Lizzy’s wolf comes out of nowhere, all momentum and malice, slamming into Ruby from behind with enough force to drive them both sideways.
Lizzy’s jaws clamp down, aiming for the neck and for a heartbeat the world narrows to that single point of impact.
’Now,’ Loki snarls.
We shift as one.
The change tears through me, bones realigning, muscle surging, the world sharpening into scent and sound as I hit the ground running, Ethan and Ezra flanking without needing to look, Blake and Damon roaring their own fury into the night.
We don’t reach them in time, not quite.
A massive shape crashes into the fight from the side, black and silent and devastating, as a panther form hits Lizzy’s wolf with lethal precision, claws raking deep, weight and momentum snapping her grip before she can finish what she started.
Blood spills into the ground where his paws dig into her side, raking a long deep wound. She howls in pain, calling other rogues to her as the panther ignores her call for help. He pins her, teeth closing around her throat with brutal efficiency, and the sound that follows is wet and final, the life leaving Lizzy’s wolf in a rush of heat and scent that makes my stomach clench even as relief crashes through me hard enough to make my knees weak.
She doesn’t get up and she won’t again. The rogues immediately stop their charge as the panther turns its silent sleek body in their direction, growling and stalking forward.
’My brother-in-law’s panther’s name is Meadow. And you surely remember Willow.’ Abigail’s voice rings in Loki’s mind. I file it for later, keeping in mind to thank him when this is all over.
I skid to a stop beside Ruby, heart pounding, the night still roaring around us, and all I can think is that she’s breathing, Allison is breathing, and whatever comes next, we will face it together.
The ground settles under our feet. And our warriors flood the scene before our eyes, fighting for their Luna, for their pack and for the change we have begun and won’t stop just because some are scared of it.
