Chapter 3

The lighthouse was a cold cylinder of stone, smelling of salt and rot. Outside, the world was screaming. Inside, the silence was heavy, pressurized.

I sat with my back against the wall, trying to slow my heart rate. Silas was pacing. He’d taken off his ruined jacket, rolling up his sleeves to reveal forearms corded with muscle.

"This doesn't make sense," Silas muttered. "The artifact... we should have found a physical anchor by now. But the energy signatures aren't coming from the ground. They’re mobile."

"Maybe the artifact has legs," I offered, rubbing my temples. A headache was blooming behind my eyes—a sharp, throbbing pull.

"Be serious, Rox."

"I am serious! This whole town is a glitch, Silas. Maybe we're the glitch."

Silas stopped pacing. He turned to look at me. In the gloom, his eyes were glowing—a bright, luminous gold.

My breath hitched. "Your eyes."

"Yours too," he said quietly.

He walked toward me. The air in the room thickened, turning viscous. The headache spiked, evolving into a hunger so profound it made my stomach cramp. My wolf was howling now, a song of desperate recognition.

"Stay back," I warned, though I didn't move. "We fight every time we get close. We’ll tear this place apart."

"Do we?" Silas knelt in front of me. "Do we fight? Or do we resist?"

"What are you talking about?"

"The static," he whispered. "The tension. The fact that I have tracked your career for three years not because you're a nuisance, but because I couldn't look away."

He reached out. His hand hovered over my cheek.

"Don't," I breathed. "Silas, something is wrong. The Blur... it gets worse when we're together."

"Let's test that hypothesis."

He touched me.

It wasn't a spark this time. It was an explosion.

The moment his skin grazed mine, the lighthouse didn't just shake; it groaned. But inside me, the chaos vanished. The anxiety, the feeling of being "defective," the constant noise of my wolf—it all went silent. It was replaced by a warm, golden hum of *rightness*.

*Mate,* my wolf purred. *Finally.*

Silas gasped, his pupils blowing wide. "Rox."

"No," I choked out, scrambling back. The walls of the lighthouse cracked. Outside, the storm doubled in intensity. "No, no, no. This isn't right. Look at the walls! The closer we get, the more the world breaks!"

"It’s a Cataclysm Bond," Silas said, his voice filled with awe and terror. "I’ve only read about it in the Archives. Two alphas with incompatible energies. If they fight the bond, the friction destroys everything around them. If they accept it..."

"We destroy each other?" I finished, panic rising like bile.

"I don't know," Silas admitted. He looked vulnerable for the first time in his life. "But I’m tired of fighting it."

He leaned in, his intent clear. He wanted to kiss me. He wanted to seal it.

And I was terrified.

I was a Solo. I was broken. I destroyed things. If I bonded with Silas—perfect, orderly Silas—I would ruin him. I would consume him.

"I can't," I whispered.

I didn't kiss him. I reached into my boot, grabbed the syringe of sedative I kept for rogue wolves, and jammed it into his neck.

Silas’s eyes went wide. betrayal flashing across his face. "Rox...?"

"I'm sorry," I sobbed as he slumped forward, heavy and unconscious against me. "I have to fix this. I have to go."

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