Page 57 of The Hyena’s Guardian

Matt tightened his grip on the knife. “You are aware this entire situation would absolutely fail every OSHA regulation imaginable.”

Despite the pain twisting through him, Theron seemed genuinely puzzled. “What is OSHA?”

Matt blinked once. “Somehow, that question just emotionally devastated me.”

Another wave of pain rolled through Theron hard enough that his claws gouged deeper into the stone floor beneath him.

Matt shook his head while repositioning the blade carefully beneath the shard. “Occupational Safety and Health Administration. They make rules designed to prevent workplace injuries.”

Theron’s breathing roughened further. “And this violates them?”

Matt watched the corruption spreading beneath his skin. “Theron, this violates all of them.”

The black veins spread farther. Matt saw silver flicker sharply beneath Theron’s eyes. Then something reacted.

The bond surged violently through Matt’s chest the instant his hand closed more firmly against Theron’s shoulder. The force of it blurred the edges of the chamber around him while something foreign pressed into his thoughts.

Not words. Memory.

Sunlight flooded through him first, warm and painfully real after so much darkness beneath the mountain.

Matt staggered against the force of it while fragmented images flashed through his head in rapid succession. Towering mountains untouched by ruins. Massive underground halls illuminated by silver fire. Guardians standing watch beside enormous carved doors deep beneath the earth.

And Theron.

Fully human and standing beneath open sky with dark hair falling across his forehead while distant laughter echoed faintly through the memory. There was nothing monstrous about him there, nothing partially shifted or feral. Just a man who looked painfully alive.

Then the memory shifted violently.

Blood covered the stone floor.

Screaming echoed through collapsing halls while silver fire raced across the stone like lightning. Something enormous slammed against the foundations, splitting corridors apart as the mountain itself shuddered.

Matt saw Theron again, younger somehow despite the chaos surrounding him, shoving another guardian toward an escape tunnel while black corruption crawled beneath the skin of one arm.

Then came the loneliness. Centuries of it.

The sheer weight of isolation hit Matt hard enough that his breath caught painfully in his chest. Endless tunnels. Endless silence. Watching the hungry ones lose themselves one by one until Theron remained alone beneath the mountain with nothing except duty and the slow terrifying certainty that eventually he would become one of them.

Matt jerked sharply back into himself. The chamber snapped into focus again around him while Theron gasped beside him like the memory surge had hit both of them at once. For several seconds neither spoke. Then Matt looked toward him. “You stayed.”

Theron’s pale eyes widened. “You saw.”

It was not a question.

Matt swallowed hard against the emotion still lodged painfully in his chest. “You stayed down here alone to keep that thing contained.”

Theron didn't answer.

“You think that makes you a monster,” Matt said carefully.

The low growl that escaped Theron sounded exhausted more than defensive. “You saw fragments. You did not live what I became.”

Matt almost laughed at that. “I literally just got emotionally flashbanged by your trauma, Theron. I absolutely felt it.”

Theron genuinely looked unsettled. Not by the catacombs. By Matt understanding him.

Then another violent tremor slammed through the mountain hard enough to knock loose part of the ceiling overhead.