19. The Silent Island

    The hum of the private jet’s engines was a low, vibrating drone that seemed to pulse in time with the headache throbbing behind my eyes. I sat in the oversized leather captain’s chair, staring out the window at the French coastline as it blurred into a smear of indigo and charcoal. We were flying low, skimming the edge of the Mediterranean, avoiding the radar of the remnants of the Moretti family and whatever was left of my father’s fractured Syndicate.

    Across the aisle, Girard was a statue of obsidian and repressed violence. He hadn’t changed out of the suit he’d worn in the Monaco lab, though it was ruined—the silk of the lapel was scorched, and there were faint, dried splatters of purple ichor on his cuffs. He was staring at his own reflection in the darkened window, his jaw so tight I could see the muscles jumping in his cheek.

    Through the Lien de Sang, the connection between us was a raw, frayed wire. I didn’t just see him; I felt the absolute, crushing weight of his exhaustion. Every breath he took felt like a struggle against the beast that was still pacing behind his ribs, unsatisfied by the blood we had spilled in the vault. The Primal State he had entered to save me hadn’t fully receded; it had left a residue of dark energy that made the air in the cabin feel heavy and charged with ozone.

    “You’re thinking about the Moot,” I said, my voice sounding thin and raspy in the pressurized cabin.

    Girard didn’t turn his head, but I saw his pupils dilate in the reflection. “I’m thinking about the fact that I let a human infiltrate my mind so deeply that I risked the entire pack’s future for a single heartbeat.”

    “You didn’t ‘let’ me in, Girard,” I countered, unbuckling my seatbelt and standing up. I swayed as a patch of turbulence hit the plane, but I caught the edge of his table. I walked over and sat on the arm of his chair, ignoring the way his body tensed at the proximity. “The bond chose us. And if you hadn’t risked it, we’d both be corpses in a Moretti lab right now. Your pack would be a collection of science experiments.”

    He finally looked at me, and the amber in his eyes was flecked with a dangerous, metallic gold. “The elders don’t care about ‘what ifs,’ Arielle. They care about the fact that their Alpha was seen on camera being dismantled by a man in a white suit. They saw me weak. In a pack like ours, weakness is a scent that invites the scavengers.”

    I reached out, my fingers trembling slightly as I brushed a stray lock of dark hair from his forehead. His skin was burning, a feverish heat that spoke of the internal war he was fighting to remain human.

    “Then we don’t show them weakness,” I whispered, my thumb tracing the line of his scarred eyebrow. “We show them the truth. We show them that the Alpha didn’t fall; he evolved. And we show them that the Luna isn’t a liability. I’m the only reason you’re still breathing, and they need to know that.”

    Girard caught my wrist, his grip firm but not painful. He pulled my hand to his lips, kissing the center of my palm where the silver-flecked scar from the North Tower sat like a brand. The spark of the link flared—a sudden, sharp jolt of desire that made my toes curl against the carpeted floor. Even in the middle of a war, even when we were falling apart, the hunger was always there, simmering just beneath the surface.

    “You speak like a Roux,” he murmured against my skin, his voice dropping to that subsonic growl that always made my heart skip. “But Soline has been whispering in their ears for days. She’ll use your humanity against you. She’ll say you’re a leash, not a partner.”

    “Let her whisper,” I said, leaning down until our foreheads touched. The scent of him—cedar, rain, and the metallic tang of the hunt—enveloped me, a sensory cage I never wanted to leave. “A leash can be used to lead, Girard. But it can also be used to strangle.”

    He let out a low, dark chuckle that vibrated through my chest. He pulled me down into his lap, his arms wrapping around me with a possessiveness that was both terrifying and comforting. For a long moment, we just sat there, two broken predators huddled together in a tube of steel thirty thousand feet above the sea.

    “When we land,” he said, his voice hardening, “it won’t be a homecoming. It will be a trial. Bastien messaged me while you were asleep. Soline has already gathered the elders at the cliffs. They’ve prepared the Moot. They want a demonstration of leadership, Arielle. Not a speech.”

    “What kind of demonstration?” I asked, my hand moving to the Glock at my hip.

    “The kind that usually ends in a funeral,” he replied.

    I looked out the window as the lights of Marseille began to twinkle on the horizon like a scattered necklace of diamonds. I wasn’t the girl who had been tossed into a cellar weeks ago. That girl was dead, buried under the weight of the silver and the blood.

    I was Arielle Roux. And if the pack wanted a demonstration, I was going to give them one they would never forget.

    The plane began its descent, the wheels locking into place with a heavy, mechanical thud. I looked at the ring on my finger—the blackened silver and the ancient runes. It felt heavy. It felt like a promise.

    “Girard,” I said as the runway lights rushed to meet us.

    “Yes, Luna?”

    “Don’t hold back. If you have to be the monster to win, then be the monster. I’ll be the one to bring you back. Always.”

    He didn’t answer with words. He leaned in and kissed me—a hard, desperate claim that tasted of the salt of the sea and the fire of the coming war. As the jet screeched to a halt on the tarmac, the bond didn’t just hum; it roared.

    The Silent Return was over. The storm had arrived.