Page 83 of Before the Bond
I heard running in the hallway.
Jake appeared in the doorway, still wearing the clothes he'd had on at dinner. His already pale face turned paper white.
"No," he said.
He crossed the room in four strides and dropped to a crouch at my side, one hand gripping my arm above the elbow. He scanned me. Fast. Clinical.
"We can still catch her," he said. "I could call her. I could —"
"No." It came out slurred.
Jake's grip tightened. For a moment, he didn't move. He just held on, and I watched something move across his face. He chose not to argue.
He turned toward the door.
"Donovan!" he called out.
His voice hit the stone walls and came back sharp.
Donovan's footsteps were already in the corridor, suggesting that he hadn't been far. When he came to the doorway, he paused to assess my condition.
He didn't ask immediately.
"What happened?" he said.
"She knows." My breath thinned even more. "She left."
Something moved through Donovan's expression. His jaw tightened. His eyes narrowed as he drew closer.
I knew him well enough to know that he was already calculating. Territory, timeline, the Voss pack at the perimeter, me on the floor. What it all added up to.
Donovan didn't share his insights immediately. Instead, he directed Jake to the left of the room.
"Help me get him to the sofa," he said.
I felt another wave of vertigo as they hoisted me up. I didn't know what was upright anymore. My legs were functional — just barely — and I used them to push myself onto the seat.
"Master Caleb!"
Maureen's voice came from the hallway before she did. She was already moving fast, faster than I’d ever heard. She appeared in the doorway with her hands clasped in front of her and that look she got when something was wrong.
"The car," she said. "Miss Cruz drove off. I didn't notice until Tomas told me what he saw and —" She stopped when she saw me on the sofa. Her hand went up to her mouth. "No. Please don't tell me."
Donovan and Jake could only stare back.
She crossed the room without being asked and sat beside me, settling there wordlessly.
The truth was I kept two things from Olivia. First was what happened to her parents, and the second was that… the bond wasn’t just a connection. It was a tether. Distance weakened me. But nothing had ever been like this.
By the time Stella arrived, the estate had gathered itself into the kind of quiet that preceded decisions no one wanted to make. She came through the back entrance without knocking. She sensed the air the moment she walked in.
Jake met her in the hall, and I could hear the low, quick exchange between them — his voice, then hers cutting in before he finished.
When she came into the study, she took in the room: Donovan at the window, Jake in his chair, Maureen at my side.
Then her eyes landed on me and she let them stay there for a beat — longer than Donovan did. Whatever she thought, she chose not to voice it.
She looked at Donovan near the window, and something in her posture shifted. It wasn't softening. It was a kind of bracing.
