Brief

ELARA'S POV Caleb had turned back to his rifle, the steady, rhythmic scrape of his oil rag against cold steel filling the silence. But in my mind, the quiet was deafening.What is wrong with him?I stared at the back of his broad shoulders, my jaw clenched so hard my teeth hurt. What was he playing at? He spoke like a tactical genius, but keeping me trapped under ten feet of rock while the sun was blazing outside was sheer madness. Broad daylight meant visibility—it meant I could actually see a thermal scope lens glinting in the treeline before I walked into its range. It meant I could navigate the ridge without snapping an ankle in a hidden snow pit. Moving at midnight was a death sentence; navigating frozen granite in total darkness would only slow me down, making me an easy target for whoever was waiting in the shadows.He wasn't protecting me. He was hoarding me.A sudden, sharp wave of conviction washed over me, burning away the lingering weakness in my limbs. My arm was healed.

Obsessed

ELARA'S POVThe furious heat in my chest didn't dissipate, but the relentless, brick-wall resistance in Caleb’s eyes suddenly vanished. His shoulders dropped, the tension bleeding out of his tall frame in a long, weary exhalation that sounded like defeat."Fine," he said quietly, his voice hollowed out. "Fine, Elara. You win."I blinked, taking a cautious step back, my muscles still coiled to fight or bolt up the stone stairs. "What?""I said you win." Caleb ran a calloused hand over his face, looking exhausted beyond his years. He stepped aside, clearing the path to the chute. "If you’re so convinced I’m just an obstacle keeping you from Dante, then go. I won't drag you back down here again. I won't be your jailer."A wave of relief, so sharp it almost made me lightheaded, swept through me. "You're... you're letting me go?""I am." He walked over to the wooden crate, setting his oil rag down, then picked up a tin cup sitting beside the gas lamp. He poured clear liquid into it from a

Pulled

CONGO'S POVThe wood of the staircase groaned under my boots, the sound sharp and grating in the suffocating silence of the abandoned academy."Congo, hold up," murmured Toby, the younger of the two recruits trailing me. His breathing was already coming in shallow gasps, his flashlight beam slicing erratically through the settling dust and cobwebs. "This doesn't feel right. The boss was right... there's nobody here.""Shut up and keep moving," I growled without looking back. I gripped my carbine tighter, my knuckles white against the polymer grip. My mind was a storm of bitter static. Dante lost his nerve. He’s looking at ghosts. I refused to believe that seven days of grueling tracking, broken supply lines, and near-death firefights had led them to a dead end. Elara was here. She had to be here.They reached the top landing, a wide-open gallery where moonlight poured in through a shattered skylight, casting long, skeletal shadows across the floorboards.The air up here was different.

Cultivate

CHAPTER FIVE: LEFT BEHINDThe three-minute mark came and went with the sickening, metallic shriek of heavy steel blast doors locking down deep within the core of the academy.I stared up at the dark, silent stairwell, my heart hammering a violent, angry rhythm against my ribs. The stale air of the abandoned hallway seemed to press down on us, thick with the lingering scent of ozone, damp stone, and impending disaster. Marcus stepped up beside me, his face tight with tension, his rifle still shouldered and tracking the empty shadows."Boss," Marcus said, his voice dropping into a desperate, urgent plea that echoed softly off the cracked plaster walls. "That was the third floor. Congo and the boys are up there. We can't just leave them to rot in that tomb.""They walked straight into a trap I warned them was there," I snapped back, my voice cold, hard, and devoid of compromise. I turned on my heel, facing the rest of the squad, my eyes locking onto Marcus with an intensity that made him

Frozen Woods

Elara's PovThe biting December wind cut straight through my jacket, turning every breath into a cloud of sharp white vapor. Behind us, the burning wreckage of the compound cast a dying, jagged orange glow against the black canopy of the winter forest, but the light was fading fast, swallowed by the encroaching dark."Keep your footing!" I hissed, my boots crunching heavily into the hard, crusted snow as I pushed forward through the dense thicket of pine trees.To my left, little Lily stumbled, her small frame shivering violently inside an oversized winter coat that swallowed her hands. Before she could face-plant into the frozen snowdrift, Maya caught her by the collar with a sharp, practiced jerk, hauling her back up to her feet. Maya’s breath came in ragged, painful gasps, her knuckles stark white as she gripped the strap of her duffel bag."She’s freezing, Elara," Maya panted, her voice trembling not just from the bone-chilling sub-zero temperature, but from the raw adrenaline of

Bound by Blood のすべてのチャプター: チャプター 71 - チャプター 75

Brief

Obsessed

Pulled

Cultivate

Frozen Woods