10. Chapter 10 - Theron
Theron had forgotten what gentle touch felt like.
The realization stayed with him after Matt stepped away near the underground stream, lingering beneath his skin with far more persistence than the corruption ever had.
He could still feel the warmth of Matt’s hand around his arm as though the contact had marked him somehow, burning through centuries of instinct and isolation with terrifying ease.
No one had touched him like that in a very long time. Not with kindness, and not without fear.
For centuries, every hand raised toward him had carried violence, restraint, desperation, or pity. Eventually even those disappeared. The guardians died. The hungry ones forgot themselves. The mountain remained.
And Theron endured it alone because that had been the purpose.
Contain the prison. Hold the line. Die before becoming one of them. Simple. At least it had been once.
The simplicity had kept him sane long after sanity should have abandoned him.
Now nothing felt simple anymore.
Another tremor rolled through the chamber while operatives prepared equipment near the collapsed passageways, but the movement barely registered beneath the noise inside his own thoughts. Theron remained near the outer edge of the room, forcing himself to focus on practical things instead.
Escape routes. Structural instability. The First King growing stronger beneath the mountain. Anything except Matt Reynolds.
It did not work.
His senses kept tracking him automatically through the chamber despite every attempt to stop.
The sound of his breathing separated itself from the others without effort.
Theron could identify the rhythm of his footsteps beneath the shifting stone and distant voices.
Even the scent of him lingered persistently through the cold underground air, warm and alive in ways the catacombs had not felt for centuries.
The bond intensified everything, stripping away what little distance he still tried to keep.
Before the First King’s corruption, bonds had been considered sacred among their kind. They were neither ownership nor destiny, but something far more dangerous than either.
The bond did not create love where none existed, nor obedience, nor affection. It simply stripped away distance until two souls could no longer pretend they were strangers to one another.
Most bonds formed slowly over years. Some remained weak their entire lives, little more than heightened instinct and emotional awareness.
What existed between him and Matt was nothing like that. Theron had felt him long before the collapse united them beneath the mountain.
The moment Matt entered the catacombs, Theron sensed something unfamiliar moving through the prison, an awareness that reached him more deeply than sound or scent. A steady presence pulling at him through corridors that should have swallowed everything alive.
The closer Matt came, the louder the bond became.
Theron had tried avoiding him. That part almost made him laugh now.
As though there had ever been any possibility of escape once the bond recognized them both.
Even before they touched, Theron felt Matt’s emotions through the connection in fractured waves. Fear. Determination. Anger. Compassion so instinctive it unsettled him more than violence ever could. And now the bond had fully awakened.
The corruption quieted whenever Matt stood near. The endless hunger beneath Theron’s skin retreated beneath the sound of his voice. Even the mountain itself felt farther away when Matt touched him, like the prison could no longer fully reach him through the connection binding them together.
That should have terrified him more than it did. Instead, something he had buried centuries ago stirred despite every effort to keep it silent.
Theron stared down briefly at his own hands where the claws had partially receded. They still looked wrong. Still dangerous. But less than before.
The corruption had been progressing for so long that he no longer remembered what slowing felt like. Every year beneath the mountain stripped another piece of himself away until survival became less about living and more about remaining functional enough to keep the prison intact.
He had accepted that ending long ago.
Accepted that eventually the corruption would take everything from him.
It happened, with the kind of patience only centuries could teach.
First memories would blur at the edges until faces and voices became impossible to separate from dreams. Language would follow after that. Thought itself would narrow beneath the endless hunger until instinct consumed everything that remained.
Eventually he would forget his own name.
Forget duty.
Forget why the prison mattered at all.
And when that final piece disappeared, he would become one more creature crawling through the catacombs beneath the mountain, hunting blindly through the dark alongside the others who had once been guardians too.
Theron had made peace with that ending centuries ago.
Then Matt touched him and the corruption retreated. The thought alone nearly unraveled him.
“Theron.”
His head lifted instantly toward the sound of Matt’s voice. The reaction was immediate and humiliating. Relief hit first. Sharp enough that Theron actually hated himself for feeling it.
Matt approached through the shifting floodlight glow with the same steady confidence he carried into almost every impossible situation. Dirt and dried blood still marked portions of his tactical gear while exhaustion lingered heavily beneath his eyes, but somehow none of it diminished him.
If anything, the catacombs only seemed to sharpen what already existed underneath.
Theron had spent centuries around fear.
Matt carried compassion the way other people carried weapons. Ready without thinking. It was infinitely more dangerous.
“You’re staring again,” Matt said as he stopped beside him.
Theron looked away. That only made Matt sigh. “You know,” he muttered, “most people usually try to hide the emotionally catastrophic eye contact.”
Something guarded entered Theron’s expression. “I do not know what that means.”
“That is honestly probably healthier.”
Despite himself, Theron’s shoulders loosened slightly.
Another pulse of warmth moved through the bond before Theron forced himself to focus elsewhere.
Across the chamber, Vale directed the remaining operatives through preparations while Baptiste reviewed equipment near the collapsed corridor entrance.
Weapons changed hands. Floodlights were dismantled.
Injured wolves forced themselves back to their feet as the distant groaning beneath the mountain continued growing louder.
Theron clung to the movement and purpose of it all desperately. Because every time Matt stood too close, the mountain felt farther away. And that terrified him more than the corruption did.
“You’re doing it again,” Matt said.
Theron blinked once. “Doing what?”
“Looking like you’re about to walk directly into a tragic self-sacrifice scene.”
Theron stared at him in silence.
Matt’s expression flattened. “That was not supposed to be confirmation.”
The bond reacted sharply to the fear beneath the humor.
Theron felt it.
Matt feared losing him.
The truth struck with enough force that for a moment the chamber seemed unsteady beneath his feet.
Every instinct Theron possessed rejected the feeling. Hope was dangerous. Attachment was dangerous. And after centuries beneath the mountain, he no longer trusted himself with either.
And yet the bond carried no deception with it. Theron felt the truth of the emotion clearly beneath Matt’s controlled expression.
Matt feared losing him because somewhere along the way, Theron himself had started to matter beyond the prison he guarded or the mountain failing around them.
The mountain groaned violently beneath the chamber before Theron could respond. Stone cracked somewhere deep below, and distant screams echoed through the catacombs.
The moment shattered.
Matt’s head snapped toward the tunnel entrance. “That sounded bad.”
“Yes.”
Matt sighed. “Your ability to confirm my worst suspicions is becoming deeply unsettling.”
Another tremor rolled through the floor, harder this time. Several operatives cursed while fractured stone broke loose from the ceiling near the rear passage.
Vale looked toward Theron sharply. “How long before the lower sections collapse completely?”
Theron listened carefully to the shifting vibrations moving through the mountain before answering.
“I am not certain,” he said. “But if containment fails, none of us survive long enough for the collapse to matter.”
The chamber fell silent as everyone finally understood what he meant.
Matt exhaled beside him before checking the magazine in his pistol again. “Okay,” he said. “Then we move fast, save everyone still breathing, stop the ancient underground apocalypse king, and get out before the entire mountain comes down on us.”
One of the younger wolves stared at him. “You say that like this is a normal mission briefing.”
Matt shrugged tiredly. “Honestly, denial is carrying me pretty far right now.”
A few strained laughs broke through the tension. Theron watched the room find its balance. The fear hadn’t disappeared, but it no longer dictated every movement. Without realizing it, Matt had become the point everyone unconsciously oriented themselves around.
The thought settled painfully inside Theron’s chest.
This was what leadership looked like now. Not power held through fear, but trust earned so completely that people followed even when terror surrounded them.
Once, long ago, others had looked at Theron that same way before the mountain, before the corruption, and before centuries turned him into something people feared on sight.
The memory ached like an old wound reopening beneath his ribs.
Matt glanced toward him again, and the bond pulsed softly between them the instant their eyes met.
Theron still did not understand how one person could undo centuries of isolation simply by looking at him like he was worth saving.