Training in the Dark

CHAPTER 5

“Again,” Sera said.

Elena’s arms were shaking.

She’d lost count of how many times she’d run the drill—block, pivot, strike, reset. Somewhere past thirty, her body had made its opinion very clear about continuing toward forty.

The small bump at her stomach was barely visible beneath her loose clothes. It was enough, though, for Sera to adjust every exercise, shortening the drills and cutting anything that could send Elena into a hard fall.

Elena hated the adjustments almost as much as she needed them.

“I said again,” Sera repeated.

She didn’t raise her voice.

Somehow, that was worse.

Elena reset her stance and ran the drill again.

They’d been doing this for three weeks. Physical training in the mornings. Something stranger in the evenings.

The evening sessions belonged to Garrick, and they had nothing to do with fists or footwork.

“Sit,” he told her that night.

The fires had already been lit, and the rest of the camp had settled into its usual low hum of voices and clattering pans. Garrick led her toward a small clearing near the treeline, far enough from the main camp that nobody would overhear them.

He nodded toward the ground across from him.

“Close your eyes.”

“I’ve done this every night for a week. Nothing happens.”

“Something happened the night you crossed the border,” Garrick said. “You felt it during the ceremony too, if I understood what you told Sera.”

Elena sat down.

“It’s in you,” he continued. “It’s just buried under a lot of noise right now. Pain. Fear. Grief. We’re going to teach you to find it instead of waiting for it to find you.”

She closed her eyes.

“Feel your own bond first,” Garrick said. “Even severed, even torn, there’s a scar where it used to be. Find that.”

That part was easy.

The scar beneath her ribs had never really stopped aching. She could locate it with her eyes closed from anywhere.

She found it and nodded.

“Good. Now reach past it. There are bonds all around this camp. Mates, packmates, blood ties. You’re not going to touch them. Just feel for them.”

Elena frowned.

“Like listening for a heartbeat through a wall,” Garrick added.

She reached.

At first, there was nothing but her own pulse and the distant crackle of the fire.

Then something else began to emerge.

Faint threads.

Dozens of them.

They ran between the tents, almost invisible but somehow clear to her senses, pulsing gently in time with the people they connected.

She felt Sera’s bond to a mate long dead, an old scar that carried an ache not unlike her own.

Two young rogues near the supply tent had a thread that was bright and new, barely a year old.

Then she found Garrick’s.

His was steady. Old.

It seemed to stretch beyond the camp toward someone she couldn’t place.

“I feel them,” Elena whispered.

Her eyes remained closed.

“I feel all of them.”

“That’s the gift,” Garrick said quietly.

Elena opened her eyes.

“Now comes the part that matters. Feeling them is safe. Touching them isn’t.”

“What happens if I touch one?”

“Depends on how strong you are and how strong the bond is.”

His voice had changed. Careful now. Deliberate.

“Your father could sense a bond from a mile away and never disturb it if he didn’t want to. Total control. It took him decades to get there.”

“And if I don’t have decades?”

“Then you might do something you don’t mean to do.”

Garrick looked directly at her, firelight moving across his face.

“Tonight, we’re just listening. Not touching. Do you understand me, Elena?”

“I understand.”

She meant it.

The threads kept pulling at her attention.

Each one was different. Some were faint. Others were stronger.

But the two young rogues near the supply tent had the brightest bond in the camp.

It was new. Unguarded.

Almost alive beneath her awareness.

Elena found herself drifting toward it without meaning to.

She didn't decide to touch it.

She barely understood what touching even meant until the moment it happened.

Her attention brushed against the bright thread.

Curious.

Careless.

The thread snapped.

A young man cried out near the supply tent.

The sound was raw and full of shock.

Elena’s eyes flew open.

A young woman screamed immediately after.

Then came sobbing.

Garrick was already on his feet.

Elena scrambled up and followed him, dread building with every step.

When she reached the supply tent, the two young rogues were on the ground several feet apart.

Both were curled in on themselves as if something inside them had been ripped away.

The young man gasped for air, his face chalk-white. Blood trickled from his nose.

The young woman was shaking so badly she could barely speak. Tears ran down her face as she stared at him.

Not with recognition.

With confusion.

“What happened?” Garrick demanded, dropping beside them.

“Their bond.”

Sera had arrived a step behind him. She took in the scene with the quick, flat assessment of someone who knew exactly what she was looking at.

“It’s gone,” she said. “Completely severed. That doesn’t happen by accident. Not to a bond that strong—”

She stopped.

Her eyes moved to Elena.

Elena stood at the edge of the firelight, both hands pressed over her mouth.

She couldn't look away from the two young rogues.

She had done this.

She hadn't meant to.

She hadn't even understood how.

Garrick’s warning came back to her.

Depends how strong you are.

Elena stared at the broken bond she could no longer feel.

She hadn’t touched it on purpose.

She hadn’t even tried.

And somehow, she had broken it like it was nothing.