8. Chapter 8 - Matt #3
Theron let out a slow breath. “Before Valker opened the outer seals, it was different,” he said. “The prison still answered. The corruption slept for years at a time. I could hold it back.”
His voice roughened.
“Now it never sleeps.”
Matt looked at him. “So you’ve been fighting it alone this entire time.”
Theron didn’t answer.
He didn’t have to.
Another dark vein spread from the shard toward Theron’s throat.
Matt reached toward it more carefully this time. “Whatever happens when the King wakes, leaving this inside you is making it worse. I need to remove it.”
Theron’s eyes sharpened. “Dangerous.”
“So is becoming a feral cave cryptid.”
Theron was quiet for a moment. “If the shard is removed too quickly, the corruption will fight.”
Matt checked the knife in his medical kit before meeting his gaze steadily. “Good thing I’m very stubborn.”
For several seconds Theron simply watched him. Then, “Matt.”
The way he said the name felt different this time. Softer. Careful in a way that made the connection pulse warmly in Matt’s chest again.
“If this fails,” Theron said, “you leave without me.”
Matt shook his head. “Absolutely not.”
“You do not understand.”
“No,” Matt interrupted softly. “I understand perfectly.”
The chamber fell quiet around them after that except for the distant groaning of the mountain. Then Matt reached for the shard. And this time, Theron let him.
The shard did not want to come out.
The moment he pressed the blade carefully beneath the exposed edge, the black stone reacted violently beneath Theron’s skin. Dark veins flared outward across his shoulder and neck while a deep growl tore from Theron’s chest hard enough to vibrate through the chamber walls.
Matt froze instinctively. “Okay,” he said carefully, “that feels medically significant.”
Theron’s claws slammed against the stone floor hard enough to crack it.
“Do not stop,” he ground out.
The words barely sounded human anymore.
Matt’s pulse spiked hard enough that he felt it in his throat, but he forced himself to stay focused. The chamber around them had gone unnervingly quiet except for Theron’s uneven breathing and the persistent groaning of the mountain somewhere far below.
Matt tightened his grip on the knife. “You are aware this entire situation would absolutely fail every OSHA regulation imaginable.”
Despite the pain twisting through him, Theron seemed genuinely puzzled. “What is OSHA?”
Matt blinked once. “Somehow, that question just emotionally devastated me.”
Another wave of pain rolled through Theron hard enough that his claws gouged deeper into the stone floor beneath him.
Matt shook his head while repositioning the blade carefully beneath the shard. “Occupational Safety and Health Administration. They make rules designed to prevent workplace injuries.”
Theron’s breathing roughened further. “And this violates them?”
Matt watched the corruption spreading beneath his skin. “Theron, this violates all of them.”
The black veins spread farther. Matt saw silver flicker sharply beneath Theron’s eyes. Then something reacted.
The bond surged violently through Matt’s chest the instant his hand closed more firmly against Theron’s shoulder. The force of it blurred the edges of the chamber around him while something foreign pressed into his thoughts.
Not words. Memory.
Sunlight flooded through him first, warm and painfully real after so much darkness beneath the mountain.
Matt staggered against the force of it while fragmented images flashed through his head in rapid succession. Towering mountains untouched by ruins. Massive underground halls illuminated by silver fire. Guardians standing watch beside enormous carved doors deep beneath the earth.
And Theron.
Fully human and standing beneath open sky with dark hair falling across his forehead while distant laughter echoed faintly through the memory. There was nothing monstrous about him there, nothing partially shifted or feral. Just a man who looked painfully alive.
Then the memory shifted violently.
Blood covered the stone floor.
Screaming echoed through collapsing halls while silver fire raced across the stone like lightning. Something enormous slammed against the foundations, splitting corridors apart as the mountain itself shuddered.
Matt saw Theron again, younger somehow despite the chaos surrounding him, shoving another guardian toward an escape tunnel while black corruption crawled beneath the skin of one arm.
Then came the loneliness. Centuries of it.
The sheer weight of isolation hit Matt hard enough that his breath caught painfully in his chest. Endless tunnels.
Endless silence. Watching the hungry ones lose themselves one by one until Theron remained alone beneath the mountain with nothing except duty and the slow terrifying certainty that eventually he would become one of them.
Matt jerked sharply back into himself. The chamber snapped into focus again around him while Theron gasped beside him like the memory surge had hit both of them at once. For several seconds neither spoke. Then Matt looked toward him. “You stayed.”
Theron’s pale eyes widened. “You saw.”
It was not a question.
Matt swallowed hard against the emotion still lodged painfully in his chest. “You stayed down here alone to keep that thing contained.”
Theron didn't answer.
“You think that makes you a monster,” Matt said carefully.
The low growl that escaped Theron sounded exhausted more than defensive. “You saw fragments. You did not live what I became.”
Matt almost laughed at that. “I literally just got emotionally flashbanged by your trauma, Theron. I absolutely felt it.”
Theron genuinely looked unsettled. Not by the catacombs. By Matt understanding him.
Then another violent tremor slammed through the mountain hard enough to knock loose part of the ceiling overhead.
Theron jerked sharply as the corruption surged again beneath his skin.
Matt saw the black veins spread instantly. “Okay,” he muttered, forcing himself back into focus. “New medical priority.”
He repositioned the blade carefully beneath the exposed shard while Theron braced visibly against the wall behind him. “This is going to hurt.”
Theron gave him a flat look. “You said that already.”
“Yes, but now I’m saying it with concern.”
The shard resisted like it had grown roots through muscle and bone. Matt tightened his grip, swallowed hard, and pulled harder. The shard tore free violently. Theron roared.
The sound detonated through the chamber hard enough that dust burst from the ceiling while black blood splattered across the stone floor. Matt barely had time to throw the shard aside before Theron’s body convulsed violently against the wall.
Then the corruption reacted.
Silver light flared beneath Theron’s skin, not clean or healing, but sharp and fractured where the corruption fought back.
Matt grabbed his shoulders before Theron could shove himself away.
Something between them finally gave way.
Theron’s fear crashed into Matt alongside his own, relief and desperation tangling so completely he could no longer tell where one ended and the other began. For one staggering second, they felt each other without distance, thought, or restraint.
Matt had spent the entire night explaining the connection away: adrenaline, fear, proximity, whatever his exhausted mind could grasp.
None of those excuses survived what he felt now.
This wasn’t panic or instinct, and it certainly wasn’t the corruption.
It was the connection Theron had recognized from the beginning and feared enough to keep unnamed.
Theron froze beneath his hands with a strangled sound somewhere between pain and desperation as the warmth between them flared bright enough to steal Matt’s breath.
The pale eyes snapped toward him. Silver flickered wildly through them.
“Matt,” Theron said, and this time the name sounded terrified.
Matt tightened his grip instead of letting go. “Hey,” he said firmly. “Stay with me.”
The corruption surged again. Matt felt it now through the bond itself, cold and hungry and ancient in a way that made instinct recoil automatically.
Something beneath the mountain was reaching toward Theron through the channel the shard had left behind, trying to pull him back.
Theron’s breathing broke unevenly while his entire body trembled beneath Matt’s hands. “I cannot.”
“Yes, you can.”
The answer came out harder than Matt intended.
Theron looked at him like he had forgotten anyone could speak to him that way.
Matt leaned closer without fully realizing he was doing it. “You survived this long alone,” he said. “You are not losing yourself now.”
The chamber shook violently again. Another roar thundered through the catacombs.
But this time Theron did not look toward it. His entire focus remained locked on Matt. Painfully, the silver light beneath his skin began to dim. The trembling eased next.
Then the growling beneath his breathing finally quieted altogether.
Matt exhaled shakily without realizing he had been holding his breath.
For several long seconds neither of them moved. They were suddenly very close.
Close enough that Matt could feel the heat of Theron’s breath against his face despite the cold air filling the chamber. Close enough that the bond pulsed steadily between them now instead of violently, warm and aching and impossible to ignore.
Theron looked almost stunned.
“So,” Matt said softly, trying and failing to sound casual, “I’m starting to suspect this bond thing may be medically relevant.”
To Matt’s surprise, Theron laughed. A real laugh, brief and rusty with disuse, but warm enough that something deep in Matt’s chest tightened painfully at the sound.
Then voices echoed faintly through the tunnels beyond the chamber. Human voices.
Both of them turned toward the corridor entrance.
Matt straightened. “The others.”
Theron rose carefully to his feet beside him. The silver glow had completely disappeared from his eyes.