Page 31

LYRA

T he torches burned lower now, their flicker dimmer than before. Time had passed, though Lyra couldn’t say how much. Her sense of it stretched thin, distorted by enchantments and the steady thrum of restrained magic crawling beneath her skin.

She sat curled in the corner of the stone chamber, every bone aching from holding herself together.

He returned.

Ezra stepped inside like he owned the air in her lungs. The wards didn’t buzz when he crossed them. Of course they didn’t. This was his prison.

Lyra sat straighter, brushing hair from her face with a slow, deliberate hand. Her cuffs sparked when she moved. They were tighter now. As if the magic inside her had grown louder, angrier.

"Comfortable?" Ezra asked, as though they were sharing tea, not a hostage situation. His voice carried that silken quality that made Lyra's skin crawl, like oil sliding over water.

"I've had worse dates." She forced lightness into her tone, even as the magic cuffs bit into her wrists, sending sharp tingles up her forearms.

His smile faltered for a second, a hairline crack in his perfect composure.

Then he turned, pacing with his usual flair across the ancient stone floor, his footsteps echoing in the chamber. The torchlight caught the angles of his face, casting shadows that made him look more predator than man. "You know, this could've been easier. I offered civility."

"Is that what you call kidnapping now?" Lyra shifted, wincing as her muscles protested. The silver threads in her auburn curls caught the firelight, glinting like tiny warning signals.

Ezra stopped at the far wall, tapping a rune with one long finger.

It flared blue before settling again, sending ripples of energy through the room that made her teeth ache.

"I didn't want it to come to this. But you left me no choice.

" His voice carried a practiced regret that never reached his eyes.

"You don't get to say that to someone you shackled," Lyra snapped, the moss-green of her eyes darkening with rage. One of her enchanted rings sparked weakly against the binding cuffs, a small rebellion.

He looked over his shoulder, his gaze crawling over her like something physical. "You're not just anyone, Lyra."

"Damn right I'm not." She straightened her spine despite the pain, refusing to cower in his presence.

"You're powerful. Beautiful. The kind of chaos magic the council has feared for generations—and wasted." He gestured expansively, as if presenting her with some grand truth. "All because of some misguided loyalty to the Moonfang Alpha."

"His name is Jace ," she hissed, the name itself a talisman on her tongue, warming her from within.

Ezra turned fully then, his mask slipping, revealing the cold calculation beneath. "And what has Jace given you? Silence? Distance? Regret?" Each word landed like a precise blow, targeting vulnerabilities he had no right to know about.

Lyra's jaw tightened, the muscles working beneath her honey-toned skin. Her fingers curled into fists, nails biting into palms.

"You think he'll come for you," he continued, moving closer with predatory grace. "But you felt it, didn't you? That hesitation? That weight in his voice when he talks about duty . He'll never choose you over the pack. He's trying so hard to not be his father."

"No," she said quietly, but with steel. "He's not." The certainty in her voice was unshakeable, despite the doubts that had plagued her on darker nights.

Ezra studied her, head tilted like she was a curious specimen. "Then why are you here?"

Her magic flared in her fingertips—wild, hot, sparking against the cuffs like lightning seeking ground. The chaos inside her churned, responding to her emotions, building pressure against her restraints.

Ezra didn't notice. Or maybe he underestimated her. A fatal mistake that many had made before him.

"Because you're a coward," she whispered, the words hanging between them like a challenge.

He stepped closer, drawn by her defiance or perhaps by the magic crackling beneath her skin.

She let him, her eyes never leaving his, gathering her strength like a storm cloud collecting charge.

"You took me because you knew he wouldn't let me go. You wanted to provoke him. Test him. You wanted to make me a weapon—or a wedge." Her voice grew stronger with each word, her certainty building like the pressure before a spell breaks.

He raised an eyebrow, amused by her analysis but not denying it.

She smiled, slow and dangerous, the kind of smile that had once made an entire coven back away. "But I'm not some lost little witch waiting for rescue. I am chaos. And you just pissed me off."

Ezra moved to grab her arm and the cuffs snapped .

Magic erupted from the broken restraints like water from a shattered dam.

Not shaped, not clean—but raw, pulsing from her core like a scream made of thunder and moonfire.

The force knocked Ezra back against the wall, his body hitting stone with a satisfying thud.

The runes on the door cracked, ancient symbols splitting like ice in spring.

The torches flared blue, casting the room in an eerie, otherworldly light.

Lyra stood slowly, hands trembling with power that had too long been contained. Her silver-streaked curls danced around her face, responding to currents of magic rather than air.

"You really should've listened when they told you not to mess with Ravenshade blood," she said, voice thick with fury and the intoxicating rush of freedom.

Ezra groaned, dragging himself up, eyes wide with the first genuine fear she'd seen in them. His perfect composure shattered like the cuffs that had bound her.

The air around Lyra shimmered, pulsed, bent inward as reality itself responded to her unleashed power. Tiny motes of golden light swirled around her, manifestations of chaos magic seeking direction.

Her hair lifted from her shoulders as if she stood in a wind that touched nothing else. Her boots cracked stone as she stepped forward, leaving faint, glowing footprints in her wake.

Ezra lifted a hand, perhaps to cast or to plead, but she slapped it down with a flick of her wrist. "I'm done playing quiet."

She stormed toward the door and then stopped. Because something shifted. Something familiar .

The bond flared inside her, pure and sharp and real .

Jace.

She felt him, near , too near to be ignored.

She smiled, slow and wicked.

“You’re screwed now,” she whispered.

Behind her, the door burst open.

One of Ezra’s men stumbled in, panic in his eyes.

“Alpha! We’ve got a breach! Shifters—lots of them. It’s Moonfang.”

Ezra’s face paled.

Lyra laughed.

And chaos kissed the air.