Shattered Bonds A Second Chance Mate (by Yui) novel Chapter 174

Chapter 174

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The night after their decision stretched long and thin, a thread pulled tight between hope and fear.

Sleep came in tatters. I drifted and rose, drifted and rose again, catching the flicker of torchlight under the door and the steady cadence of boots as our sentries changed posts.

Somewhere down the hall a child cried out from a dream and was soothed; somewhere in the courtyard a hammer rang once, twice–someone securing a latch that never quite fit. The manor breathed around us, the way a body breathes when it knows it must be strong by morning.

By the time I gave up on sleep entirely, the window was no longer black but gray–the antechamber of dawn. Francesco was already awake, sitting at the foot of the bed, elbows braced on his knees, hands steepled. The black in his eyes was banked heat, quiet but unignorable. Our bond moved between us like a river under ice.

“You felt it too,” I murmured, drawing the shawl around my shoulders.

He nodded once. “Choices travel the halls. They keep their own hours.”

I crossed to him and folded myself into his lap, a habit old as our first winter together.

His arms came around me automatically, breath loosening. For a minute we said nothing, letting stillness do its work.

Then, because dawn is impatient, a knock came–soft, respectful, decisive.

“Enter,” Francesco called.

Alfonso slipped in, already dressed for travel though he wasn’t leaving with them. He carried the practical scent of ink and leather and the faint bitter ghost of coffee. Behind him, in the corridor, the manor’s quiet bustle had gathered itself: the scrape of a trunk, the whisper of oiled hinges, the metallic peal of a curb chain tested for weakness.

“It’s time,” Alfonso said.

We dressed in silence that wasn’t empty.

I braided my hair back; Francesco fastened the leather guards that he never went without now, not even for short walks through our own yard.

In the corridor, Monica waited with a wicker case that clinked softly, and Audrey with a bundle strapped tight in oilcloth.

“Don’t argue,” Monica said as a greeting, pressing the case into my hands for a moment so she could straighten the strap. “I know what you’re about to say and the answer is that they’re taking everything I give them.”

“Everything?” I echoed.

“Salves. Dried meat. Tinctures. Charms.” Monica’s eyes flicked to me and the iron softened beneath their brown. “A little luck, bottled where it can find them when they forget they have it.”

12:44 Mon, Sep 15

Chapter 174

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Audrey’s grin was all tooth. “And this,” she said, slapping the oilcloth. “Maps, two spare blades, flint, and a coil of line that won’t betray them in the rain. And bells for your boots.”

I blinked.

“Kidding,” she added, deadpan. “Mostly.”

Sofia and Lucien stood at the end of the hall by the great stair, hands twined so tightly their knuckles ached white.

She wore a dark traveling cloak one of the women had altered through the night; he wore a coat that once belonged to an officer in a human army–anonymous, well–cut, forgettable. He had tucked his hair back. He had tucked everything sharp back except his eyes.

Sofia’s gaze found me and flinched with memory and relief all at once. I crossed the space between us and took her free hand in both of mine.

“You don’t have to say anything,” I told her.

She said it anyway. “Thank you.”

Lucien dipped his head toward Francesco. Not quite a bow; something more honest. “I won’t forget who did what my own would not, King Francesco.”

Francesco’s mouth crooked at the corner. “Keep her safe,” he said, and the word her carried the bone–deep, vow–cold weight only a mated wolf can recognize. “Or I come to Romania and ruin someone’s day.”

“Several someones,” Audrey supplied helpfully.

Monica elbowed her in the ribs, discreet in the way a thunderclap is discreet.

We moved as a small procession through the waking manor. In the kitchen Maria stood with steam rising around her like prayer, ladling soup into crockery that would be eaten by men who hadn’t expected to be hungry at this hour. She stopped us with a hand on Sofia’s sleeve and kissed the girl’s forehead the way grandmothers are allowed to kiss even queens. “You come home to us if you want,” she said. “Or send word that your home found you elsewhere. Both are allowed.”

Lucio pressed a leather pouch into Lucien’s palm. “Coins,” he said. “And a wedding ring I wore once when the world was less complicated. It buys better treatment in human inns than a crest ever will.”

Outside, the sky had diluted from slate to pearl.

The horses were ready–two steady bays for the road, chosen for sense over speed; two remounts tethered behind.

Beta Alfonso had laid the gear as if he’d been born with a list in his hand.

On the mounting block, he unfurled a map already creased where fingers had thought too much in the night.

“Here,” he said, tapping. “Avoid the old smugglers‘ path. Alpha Dorian’s men know it. Take the salt road to the mill and then cut north by the willow stand–there’s a ford there that doesn’t look like a ford, which is the best

12:44 Mon, Sep 15

Chapter 174

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kind. In two days you’ll hit the border market; keep to the fishmongers‘ side and no one will sniff you. Another two, and you’ll see the first Romanian waystones. Vaughan’s pass is watched; take the shepherds‘ track just below it. If anyone stops you before then, you trade names for names–not truths.” He looked up, expression going from clerk to brother. “I’ve sent ahead. There will be a woman with a red scarf at the border inn. Tell her you’re buying winter apples.”

Sofia said the word very softly. “Winter.”

Lucien slid his hand over hers, thumb drawing one, slow circle. “We’ll have one,” he said. “Many.”

Monica opened her case on the mounting block.

No potions winked inside, no theatrical smoke–just the lives that carry you through the valley between intention and fact.

Row on row of little bottles and wrapped leaves. She touched each one as she named it: “Comfrey for wounds. Willow for fever. Witchhazel when you can’t get a bruise to mind its manners. Rosemary and ash–rub it in your hair and clothes when you need to smell like nothing in particular. Lavender for sleep when the road gives you stones for pillows. Wolfsbane–no, don’t touch it–carried only, never used, and only if something older than you decides you look delicious.” She closed the lid and set the case in Sofia’s hand. “I know each leaf. I will know when you use them, and I will talk unkindly to the ones that misbehave.”

Audrey unsheathed one of the blades and turned it so the morning made a clean line along the edge. “This stays hidden in your boot,” she said, looking at Sofia because she knew Lucien would think his own body enough. “If you don’t need it, it’s a friend. If you do, it will already know you.” To Lucien she added, “And there’s a second in the saddle roll. You’re fast, but fast bleeds if it thinks it’s immortal.”

He accepted the admonition without pride. “I’ve bled enough to know it’s messy,” he said.

Sofia hugged Audrey with a fierceness that startled them both. “Thank you,” she whispered into armor that smelled of oil and rain.

Audrey’s hand hovered awkwardly and then landed on the girl’s back, uncertain as a woman teaching herself softness again.

“Keep your head down,” Audrey muttered. “And your spine up.”

They mounted. The horses shifted, snorted, settled under hands that tried to be steady. Monica stepped back, then forward again, impulsive, and tucked a scrap of blue ribbon into Sofia’s palm. “For your hair,” she said. “Or your wrist. Or the door of your first house.”

For a breath we hovered on the cusp of everything.

Farewells are cliffs; they make liars of lungs.

I reached up and touched Sofia’s knee. “If you change your mind,” I said, “we make space. Always.”

She lifted her chin, tears glossing her eyes without spilling. “If we change our minds, we bring you bread from the border market and tell you every ridiculous thing that happened on the way back.”

“That’s allowed too,” I said, and smiled because she needed me to.

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