Page 62 of The Hyena’s Guardian

Theron went completely still beneath his touch.

Not because the bond surged between them again or because instinct pushed him toward violence. This felt different. More fragile than that.

The chamber seemed to fall away around them until Matt could hear nothing except the distant rush of underground water and Theron’s uneven breathing.

Warm skin rested beneath Matt’s fingertips where fur and corruption had begun to recede. The simple, undeniable humanity of the touch struck him far harder than he expected.

For the first time since they had met, Matt was not touching the monster the catacombs had created. He was touching the man still trapped somewhere inside it.

Theron looked at him like he did not know what to do with the gentleness of it. Like the contact itself hurt in some quieter, more dangerous way. Theron held himself perfectly still, but the loneliness in his eyes was impossible to hide.

Matt saw enough to understand that nobody had touched Theron like this in a very long time.

Maybe nobody ever had.

Matt swallowed once before letting his hand fall. The contact had lasted only a few seconds. It felt far longer.

Matt smiled. “Looks like you’re winning.”

Theron stared at him. The words seemed to hit harder than Matt intended. Something shifted behind the pale eyes, something vulnerable enough that Theron quickly looked away. Matt pretended not to notice, because some things deserved privacy.

Another tremor rolled through the mountain. This one stronger than the last. Somewhere across the chamber, Baptiste shouted for everyone’s attention.

Reality returned all at once.

The catacombs pressed back in around them with their distant roars, trembling stone, and the constant awareness that something ancient was waking beneath their feet. Across the chamber, survivors whispered arguments over escape routes while floodlights flickered against fractured walls and collapsing support pillars.

The moment between them shattered beneath the weight of it all.

“We should probably go save everybody.”

Theron looked at him again.

Without the silver corruption burning through Theron’s eyes, Matt could finally see the man beneath everything else more clearly.

Theron held his gaze for a long moment before nodding.

“Yes,” he said. “We should.”

***

The chamber became controlled chaos once they started moving again.

Vale divided the survivors into smaller groups while Baptiste worked beside the injured near the collapsed passage. Operatives dismantled the portable floodlights and redistributed spare magazines as the tremors beneath the mountain continued growing stronger.

Nobody argued with Theron anymore.

That unsettled Matt almost as much as their open hostility had.

The distrust had changed. Earlier they had looked at Theron like a monster. Now they looked at him like a warning.

Theron seemed painfully aware of it.

He stayed near the outer edges of the chamber while Vale reviewed possible routes with Baptiste, keeping enough distance between himself and the others that nobody had to wonder whether he was doing it intentionally.

Matt suspected he was. “You could at least pretend this doesn’t bother you,” Matt muttered as he approached.

Theron glanced toward the survivors before looking away again. “Fear is reasonable.”