Tous les chapitres de : Chapitre 291 - Chapitre 300

Austin knew Hallie was gone before he looked toward the door. The bond changed first.The pressure beating against him through the meeting shifted, stretching away without disappearing.He kept his eyes on the route papers while Grant finished gathering them.The agreement was settled. Bellamy Creek would hold its section of the safe-conduct route. Cedar Draw would hold its own.The route work should have occupied Austin. Hallie’s uneven tension through the bond kept intruding.It carried no words, only enough feeling to tell him something was happening beyond his sight.Austin set the report down and waited for the sensation to settle.Austin looked toward the open doorway. Saevren was no longer at the table. He had left after Hallie.Austin’s jaw tightened. Grant noticed. Of course he did.But he did not move toward the door.He folded one route page over another and said to the Bellamy Creek men, “We’re done here.”Austin waited until the others began filing out.Then he asked, “Yo

The rerouted group was safe.Hallie heard Caleb say it twice, and still waited until the written confirmation reached the table before she let herself believe him.Grant stood beside her while she read it.No one had been injured. No one had crossed the closed road. The travelers had made it through Everen and Cedar Draw safely without anyone promising more than they could protect.Hallie set the message down.“Good.”Grant nodded. The debrief ended there: one road closed, one reroute completed, everyone safe.Nothing about the morning required Hallie to answer Saevren.For part of the morning, urgency had made everything else seem stupidly complicated.There was a way to end the bond. Austin’s presence yesterday had reminded her how badly she wanted that. War pressure was already narrowing routes today.A clean answer had become dangerously attractive. Say yes. Remove one problem. Stop carrying it. Hallie hated the thought because she understood it.She had made too many permanent ch

Hallie kept her hand against Grant’s chest after the last words were gone.He was still afraid.She could feel it in the restraint of his body, in the way his arm stayed around her without tightening.For a while, neither of them moved. The quiet mattered. No slammed door.No retreat to separate rooms. No desperate attempt to make the uncertainty disappear through touch. Hallie lifted her head.“Grant.”His eyes opened.“There’s one thing I need to say before we let this settle.”Grant’s thumb stopped moving against her back.“Say it.”“I won’t make this decision under an emotional threat.”His arm loosened another fraction. Hallie kept her palm where it was.“I know you didn’t give me one.”“I didn’t.”“I know.”She drew a breath.“But I need us to be clear anyway. I will not turn this into ‘tell Saevren no or lose your husband.’”Grant’s expression hardened with something that looked more like pain than anger.“That isn’t what I want.”“I believe you.”“Hallie—”“I do.”She stepped

The new report reached Austin while the morning patrols were still changing shifts.He read it standing at the end of the council table.Armed movement had stopped being rumor along two regional roads. More wolves were gathering near the approaches between territories, and one community farther out wanted Bellamy Creek to commit defenders before the route became unusable.The report did not say who had started the escalation. It did not say who intended to attack. It only made waiting more expensive.Austin set the page flat. The mate bond pulled hard beneath his ribs. Hallie.The sensation came with enough force to interrupt his next breath, a rush of feeling from too far away to name cleanly. Tension. Want. Resistance. Something held back.His first instinct was immediate. Go. He hated how quickly the thought formed.He hated more that some part of him still tried to turn the bond into evidence.Austin put both hands on the t

Saevren had been gone long enough for the road to stop holding his shape when Hallie finally turned away.Grant did not ask what she was thinking. He only walked back with her toward the house. That restraint followed them inside.Hallie washed the dust from her hands while Grant checked the latch, set aside the papers he had carried from the meeting room, and poured water for both of them. Ordinary motions. The kind they had learned around each other without ever deciding they were learning them.She drank half the glass before she spoke.“I still don’t know what I’m going to do about the bond.”Grant leaned one hip against the table.“I know.”The answer was almost too easy.Hallie set the glass down. “That’s all?”“What do you want me to say?”“I don’t know.”“That makes two of us.”A reluctant breath o