Page 303 of Salt Between the Wolves

She drove her fingers into the snow, grounding herself in the cold and the pain because those things belonged to her, while the pressure did not.

Somewhere beyond the ringing in her ears, shouting broke through the chaos. Another voice followed—a growl that was deep, dangerous, and unmistakably familiar.

Soren.

The sound cut through everything.

For a brief, disorienting instant, she could no longer tell where her own emotions ended. Anger, determination, fear, and something far larger surged through her at once as the two bonds strained against each other.

Something gave.

Not in the snow-covered pass.

Not in the world around her.

Inside the magic itself.

The two bonds pulled against one another hard enough to tear something open.

Chapter 35: The Yielding

Soren

Soren caught her before she hit the ground, reacting before he even realized he had moved.

One moment Eira had been on her knees, fighting something he could not see, and the next her body went limp in front of him.

He crossed the distance in an instant, snow spraying beneath his boots as someone shouted and another reached for a weapon, though Soren ignored all of it.

"Eira," he said, but there was no response.

He dropped to one knee and pulled her against him, immediately sensing that something was wrong with her skin, which felt far too cold and far too pale.

The mark on her neck burned beneath the torn fabric, dark veins spreading outward from it like frost across glass, and for a single terrible moment he thought she was dead.

His hand moved to the side of her neck, searching for a pulse that he finally found, weak but present, and the relief that followed hit him so hard it was almost painful.

Around him, White Pass had erupted into chaos as warriors moved and voices rose from both sides of the valley, shouting orders, questions, and warnings that Soren barely registered.

His attention remained fixed entirely on the woman in his arms.

"Eira," he tried again, but there was still nothing—no movement and no answer.

Something inside him became very still, settling into the kind of silence that arrived just before violence.

Slowly and carefully, he lowered her back onto the snow before rising to his feet.

The noise around him seemed to fade, not because it had grown quieter, but because he had stopped hearing it.

Across the narrow stretch of ground, Vargan remained where he was, with Elder Sael standing beside him, and neither of them had moved or tried to stop what had happened.

For several seconds, Soren simply looked at them without speaking, shouting, or moving, and the silence that stretched between them was more unsettling than any threat could have been.

Vargan understood that, and Soren saw the realization in his eyes as the Alpha of Frostvein opened his mouth, perhaps to explain, justify, or claim that things had gone further than intended, though Soren never learned which.

A growl rolled from his chest, low, deep, and unmistakably animal, carrying across White Pass and silencing half the valley.

Every warrior present knew that sound, recognizing that it was not anger or warning, but something far worse—the moment before an Alpha decided whether another Alpha deserved to keep breathing.