Chapter 5 Five
CHAPTER FIVE
Sara’s POV**
I woke to the quiet sound of someone moving.
Not loud. Not careless. Controlled.
The room was dim. Only the soft glow of a lamp lit the far corner. For a moment I didn’t recognize where I was. The scent gave it away before memory did. Cedar. Smoke. That heavy presence that filled the space even when he wasn’t looking at me.
Xenon.
He stood by the window, shirt off, muscles tense beneath the bruising light. His shoulders rose and fell slowly. Too slowly. His breathing was heavy in a way that did not belong to exhaustion. It was restrained. Forced. Like he was fighting something inside him.
His wolf.
The realization made my chest tighten.
He hadn’t slept. Not even for a moment.
I pushed myself up from the couch quietly, but he heard it anyway. His gaze snapped toward me. Sharp. Alert. And for a split second something flickered in his eyes. Relief. Then it vanished beneath that cold mask he never let slip for long.
“You are awake,” he said.
I rubbed my eyes. “You didn’t rest.”
He didn’t deny it. He looked back out the window, arms crossed over his chest like he needed to hold himself together.
“The patrols found traces of the intruder in the southern boundary,” he said. “He escaped the territory but not without leaving tracks.”
“Does that tell you anything?”
“Yes.” His jaw tightened. “He knew this place. He knew the blind spots. He knew exactly where the healer wing was located.”
My stomach dropped. “So someone from inside helped him.”
He didn’t speak, which was answer enough.
A traitor inside the pack.
Someone who moved freely.
Someone who knew the layout better than I did.
“Did anyone else get hurt?” I asked.
“No.” He paused. “Only Asher.”
“Is he alright?”
“Stable.”
“Good,” I whispered.
Xenon finally turned toward me again. His eyes ran over my face. Not in a way that felt intimate. In a way that felt… assessing. Checking. Confirming I was still here, still breathing, still not harmed.
“You should shower and prepare for the day,” he said quietly. “You are staying here until we catch whoever entered the healer wing.”
I stood slowly. “You can’t keep me locked in your private quarters.”
“I can,” he said. “And I will.”
“You are controlling me for something that has nothing to do with me.”
He stepped closer. “Someone broke into a restricted area and attacked a warrior to get to something in the healer wing. You were there. That makes it everything to do with you.”
“But I am not in danger.”
“You do not know that.”
I stared at him. “You don’t know that either.”
He stiffened, and something heated flickered beneath his calm expression. Not anger. Something sharper.
“The risk is enough,” he said. “You stay here.”
“And if I refuse?”
“You will not.”
The air tightened around us. Not from dominance. From something far more complicated.
I forced myself to look away, grounding myself. “Fine. But I need to check on Asher at some point. He is my friend.”
Xenon’s jaw twitched. “I will take you.”
“You do not need to—”
“I will take you,” he repeated, voice low.
I swallowed hard. “Alright.”
I moved toward the bathroom, needing distance from him. From the tension. From the way his presence filled every breath.
Before I reached the door, he spoke again.
“Sara.”
I turned.
Xenon looked at me like he was holding words he did not want to say.
“Stay where I can reach you,” he said quietly. “Do not disappear. Not today.”
I nodded once, unable to trust my voice, then closed the bathroom door behind me.
The moment I turned on the water and let the hot stream hit my skin, I finally exhaled.
He was hiding something.
Something big.
Something that scared even him.
And I didn’t know what frightened me more.
The unknown danger outside.
Or the bond inside me that refused to die no matter how hard I tried to push it away.
When I stepped out of the bathroom, Xenon was already dressed. His shirt hugged his shoulders, sleeves rolled, dark hair slightly tousled like he had run a hand through it too many times.
He didn’t look at me immediately.
He was reading a slip of paper.
A message.
His expression was unreadable, but I felt the shift in the room the moment he finished reading it.
“What happened?” I asked.
He folded the note and slid it into his pocket. “We need to meet Adrian in the courtyard.”
“That fast?”
“Yes.”
He opened the door, and two guards straightened immediately.
Xenon gave an order so low I barely caught it. “No one enters my quarters until I return.”
“Yes Alpha.”
He turned to me. “Stay close.”
I walked beside him, heart pounding with every step.
The courtyard was alive with movement. Warriors ran drills. Guards stood in formation. But something was wrong. The air was tense, too heavy, too quiet.
Adrian approached with two warriors at his sides.
“Alpha,” he said. “We found what the intruder left behind.”
Xenon gestured. “Show me.”
Adrian handed him a small cloth-wrapped object. Xenon unwrapped it slowly, tension radiating from him in sharp waves.
Inside was a pendant.
Old. Dark metal. Inscribed with symbols I didn’t recognize.
The moment Xenon saw it, anger rippled through him.
“What is that?” I whispered.
Xenon didn’t answer.
Adrian stepped in. “We believe it was left intentionally. As a message.”
“And what does it mean?” I asked.
Xenon finally looked at me.
His eyes were darker than night.
“It means,” he said, “that this was not a random attack.”
A shiver ran through me. “Then what was it?”
Xenon closed his hand around the pendant until the metal dug into his skin.
“It was a warning.”
My throat tightened. “For you?”
“No,” he said quietly. “For you.”
The world tipped.
For me?
“What do you mean?” I whispered.
Xenon stepped closer, lowering his voice. “Whoever broke into the healer wing knew exactly where you would be. He left this in plain sight.”
“But why me?” My voice cracked. “I did nothing.”
His jaw tightened. “Someone thinks you did.”
Adrian added carefully, “We found traces of a scent we have not detected in years. It belongs to an old rogue faction from outside the region.”
My breath caught. “Rogues? Here?”
Xenon looked at me as if the air itself had shifted around us.
“They want you to know,” he said. “They are watching.”
My heart raced. “This is about me.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Xenon’s voice dropped lower. “That is what we are going to find out.”
There was something else beneath his calm tone.
Fear.
Not for him.
For me.
I took a step back instinctively. Xenon stepped forward just as quickly, catching my wrist before I slipped away.
His grip was gentle. Firm. Unwilling to let me retreat.
“Sara,” he said. “Look at me.”
I lifted my eyes slowly.
His gaze held something I had never seen in him before. Something raw. Something he was trying very hard to hide.
“You are not alone in this,” he said quietly. “Whatever is coming, whatever they want, they will go through me first.”
My breath shook.
“You rejected me,” I whispered.
His jaw clenched. “And I regret it every time I breathe.”
The words crashed into me. Hard. Unexpected.
Before I could speak, Adrian stepped forward.
“Alpha. There is more.”
Xenon’s hand fell from mine. His posture straightened.
Adrian handed him another paper. A smaller one. Folded.
Xenon opened it.
His eyes darkened.
He turned the paper toward me.
A single sentence was written in sharp, precise handwriting.
We found her.
The world stilled.
Heat drained from my chest.
Xenon crumpled the note in his fist. “This ends today.”
I swallowed hard. “What does that mean?”
He looked at me with a calm that terrified me more than anything else.
“It means you are coming with me,” he said. “And we are going to find out who wants you.”
My heart pounded.
And for the first time since arriving in this pack, I realized:
The danger wasn’t near me.
The danger was for me.
And Xenon knew exactly how deep it ran.
