Chapter 23 Wall Between the Wolf and the Man #2
The swarm of rogues was breaking through the defensive line on the eastern perimeter. Too many. Too coordinated. Moving with intelligence that omega wolves shouldn't have, exploiting weaknesses in the formation with tactical precision.
Ronan pushed himself back to his feet.
Blood matted his fur where my magic had burned him. His body trembled with the effort of movements he couldn't control.
“You can't win this, Gideon.” Silas's voice. “Either you hurt him enough to stop him, or he kills you.”
Ronan advanced again and I met him with light that felt like tearing pieces from myself.
The working hit him in the shoulder and spun him sideways, buying me seconds to scramble toward better positioning. My legs shook. My hands trembled when I tried to gather more power. Blood ran from my nose in streams I couldn't stop.
Ronan came at me from a different angle and I barely blocked the strike.
His claws raked across my hastily raised shield and the impact drove me backward into the wall of the bakery. Brick cracked behind me. My vision greyed at the edges. The curse flared with agony that made conscious thought difficult.
“Stop,” I managed through blood and broken breathing. “Please. You don't want this.”
He lunged for my throat.
I threw myself down and his jaws closed on empty air where my head had been. I rolled away and came up casting, light exploding outward in a dome that forced him back, that bought me precious space to think past the panic screaming through my nervous system.
Michael's voice cut through the chaos.
“Gideon! We can't hold him much longer!”
I risked a glance backward and saw my father smiling while moonfire rained around him like he was standing in a storm that couldn't touch him. Michael and Daniel were magnificent together but Silas was broader. His magic pushing against their combined assault like ocean against a levee.
And he was barely trying.
Just watching. Waiting. Letting them exhaust themselves while I fought Ronan and the curse ate me from the inside and the town bled around us.
Ronan hit me from the side.
I hadn't seen him move. Hadn't tracked his positioning through the pain and exhaustion. His weight slammed into me with the force of a freight train and we went down together, tumbling across pavement in a tangle of limbs and fur and desperate magic.
His jaws found my shoulder.
Teeth sinking through flesh with pressure that ground against bone. Pain exploded white-hot and immediate, wiping out coherent thought, reducing reality to the animal imperative of get away before he tears you apart.
I screamed and threw light directly into his face at point-blank range.
The magic detonated with enough force to send us both flying in opposite directions.
I hit the ground and skidded, leaving blood across concrete in patterns that suggested the wound was worse than I wanted to acknowledge.
Ronan landed near the sheriff's position and came up snarling, blood on his muzzle that was mine.
I pushed myself upright with hands that wouldn't stop shaking.
My shoulder was on fire. Blood soaked through my shirt in spreading patterns that said arteries were involved. The curse twisted tighter in response to injury, feeding on my weakened state, growing stronger as I grew weaker.
I had minutes left. Maybe less.
Ronan circled again and I knew with cold certainty that I couldn't keep doing this.
I needed to end this.
Needed to break the compulsion completely. Needed to do the thing I'd sworn I wouldn't do because there was no time left for ethical hesitation and Ronan would either forgive me later or he wouldn't but at least he'd be alive to make that decision.
“I'm sorry,” I whispered through the tether. “I'm so sorry.”
Then I grabbed the bond with both hands and dove into his mind without permission.
The world inverted.
Physical space falling away into the strange architecture of Ronan's consciousness. I hit the wall immediately.
Smooth. Black. Absolute. Magic woven so tightly I couldn't see individual threads, just the result of their combination.
I could feel Ronan behind it.
Aware. Terrified. Fighting with everything he had against a prison he couldn't escape.
His consciousness pressed against the barrier like hands against glass, trying to break through, trying to make himself seen, trying to reach me through the inches of magical architecture that separated him from control of his own body.
“Gideon, I can't stop. I'm trying but I can't stop. Please don't let me kill you. Please.”
I tore at the wall with raw magic and raw will.
Threw power at the barrier like I was trying to demolish a building, burning through soul-stitching I couldn't afford to lose, ignoring the way the curse flared in my chest with agony that whited out peripheral vision.
“Stay with me,” I said through gritted teeth. “I've got you. Stay with me.”
The wall fractured.
Cracks appearing in the smooth surface like ice under pressure, spreading outward from the point where my magic struck.
Through those cracks I could see Ronan's eyes, pale and wide with terror and recognition, his consciousness clawing toward the surface with the desperation of someone who'd been drowning for hours and finally saw light.
I grabbed those cracks and pulled.
Ripped them wider with magic that felt like tearing pieces from myself.
Blood filled my mouth and my lungs and possibly my stomach.
My soul-stitching split wider under strain that should have killed me.
But I didn't stop. Couldn't stop. Because Ronan was right there, so close, and if I gave up now the compulsion would cement and he'd be lost forever.
The wall crumbled.
Pieces dissolving back into nothing as the structure failed. Ronan surged toward the surface like a cork released underwater, his consciousness flooding back into his body with force that made the physical world shudder.
I yanked him up and out.
Dragging his true self to the surface with the tether as a rope, anchoring him to reality through the bond that connected us more deeply than flesh or blood. We had seconds. Maybe less. I could feel Silas preparing to slam the weave back in.
I made the choice that would haunt me or save us.
I strengthened the tether.
Forced my own burning soul-stitching into a tighter bond, weaving pieces of myself into Ronan's consciousness in ways that would make future separation catastrophic for us both.
Creating an anchor that would make Silas's next pull harder.
Building structure that would resist compulsion because breaking it would mean breaking me and Ronan simultaneously.
The magic required for that kind of bonding was supposed to be done slowly. Carefully. With consent and preparation and the understanding that once woven this tightly, souls didn't come apart without tearing.
I did it in three seconds while bleeding from every orifice and feeling my soul come apart at the seams.
“Come back to me,” I whispered through the bond. “Please. Come back.”
Ronan snapped back into himself.
His massive form shuddered as consciousness and control aligned again, as mind and body remembered how to work together. His eyes, pale and clear and absolutely Ronan, found mine across the space.
For a heartbeat we just looked at each other.
Then he shifted to human form and crossed the distance between us in three strides.
He kissed me.
His mouth was hot against mine, tasting like blood and fury and the desperate relief of being saved when you'd accepted dying. His hands found my face with enough force to leave bruises and I didn't care because he was here, he was real, he was himself again.
The tether sang.
Harmonics that hadn't existed before, new frequencies born from the bonding I'd just forced into place.
Our souls recognizing each other with the certainty of matched pieces finally aligned.
The pain in my chest eased fractionally, not because the curse had stopped, but because the tether was helping to bear the weight now.
Ronan pulled back just far enough to meet my eyes.
“I felt you,” he said, voice rough. “The whole time. Felt you fighting for me when I couldn't fight for myself.” His thumb brushed across my cheekbone. “Thank you.”
“Never,” I managed. “I'll never give up on you.”
Silas screamed.
The sound tore through the battlefield with the force of genuine rage, the first time I'd heard my father lose control.
“What did you do?” His voice cracked with emotion that might have been grief if grief could turn that vicious. “What did you do to my working?”
I turned to face him with Ronan at my side and blood still running from wounds that wouldn't heal on their own.
“I took him back,” I said clearly. “And you'll never touch him again.”