Page 11 of The World Undone

Dark gray eyes locked on mine, the usual dark, mischievous gleam present in their depths, if clouded slightly by concern. “Max, good to see you again. Eli.” His eyes didn’t move from mine, like he was searching for something there. A chill ran up my spine at his perusal.

There was something strange about Levi, uncanny almost. In many ways, he reminded me of Eli—they both had a flair for arrogance, a desire to soften discomfort with teasing.

The same mouth.

But there was something else even more disconcerting about Levi, hard to place. A coldness that Eli didn’t share, something almost feral—dangerous—buried deep.

I dropped the intense eye contact, trying to see into the room. Levi, unhelpful as ever, seemed unconcerned about stepping out of the way to let us through the doorway. “How’s Seamus?”

“And why are you the one watching him?” Eli’s tone was clipped with ill-disguised anger. He took a step down until he was pressed against my side. “I highly doubt he wants you here.”

I stroked my thumb over the back of his hand.

Eli and Levi’s relationship was a deeply fraught one. I had no idea if they’d ever find a path towards mending it, but now wasn’t the time to lean into the inevitable explosion either.

Family trauma never really stayed truly buried, but hopefully they’d find a way to push it to the side with everything going on. They had no choice but to trust each other, to work together as well as they could.

Levi’s eyes narrowed, but his focus was still on me. “Actually, wolfy Seamus seems to like me quite a bit. I’m one of the few who seems able to calm him. I’m here most days, whenever?—”

The rest of the sentence was swallowed into silence, but we all knew the conclusion—whenever Eli wasn’t around.

Eli definitely seemed to hate his brother, or what he represented to him at least, but Levi’s commitment to keep his distance took a different shape.

The muscle in Eli’s jaw twitched. If he clenched it any tighter, he’d crack a tooth.

I pressed my palm to Eli’s chest while I sent a glare at his half-brother. “Enough of the baiting. None of us have the time or the energy for this shit. Let us in, Levi.”

His lip twitched briefly into a grin, eyes narrowing on me for a long breath, but then he stepped to the side.

The room opened into a small cellar with dusty wine bottles lining one of the walls.

Seamus stood chained in the back corner, the thick metal rings around his ankles bolted deep into the concrete floor.

He was naked, likely from the constant warring with his wolf, shifting between bodies several times a day. The wound where he’d been bitten was still not healed all the way—it looked infected and deep. I kept my eyes on his face, noticing the dark lines of exhaustion creasing his eyes, the sweat coating his forehead. His breathing was ragged, his expression drawn in pain.

My chest squeezed at the sight of him, at the clear torment in his normally kind, gentle eyes.

“Hi, Dad.” Eli took a few steps into the room. He stopped just out of reach of the chain’s give.

Seamus’s eyes narrowed and my stomach clenched at how much they reminded me of Cy’s in that moment. “Eli?” His gaze cut to me. “Max? How are you? It’s been months.”

“I’m doing okay, all things considered.” I didn’t bother asking him how he was. The tension and pain were marked clearly in his posture, in every muscle twitch, in every line of his body.

“And Cyrus? Where is he? I thought he’d make his way down to see me by now?” He grunted, the sound caught between a strangled laugh and a moan of pain. “Stubborn prick.”

My breath caught in my chest as Cy’s name pierced through me like a spear. Eli and the others had warned me that Seamus’s memory was unpredictable—sometimes he’d forget the last few days, sometimes he didn’t seem to even remember who he was.

“He’ll be here soon,” Eli said, wincing slightly as he turned to me in apology.

I understood. There was no use putting Seamus through a grief that he wouldn’t remember. If, when the war in his mind and body settled down a bit, he still didn’t remember all that had happened, we’d tell him then. Right now, it was kinder to let him imagine his brother stomping around upstairs and raising hell.

As if a switch had been flipped, Seamus’s face warped into something sharper, angrier. His brows furrowed as he glanced around the room, like he suddenly didn’t recognize where he was.

“Unlock me.” He turned to Eli, eyes fierce, hints of the soldier shining through. “Don’t just stand there, boy. We haven’t time for this. Get me out of here, they’re coming.” The chains rattled at his feet. I noticed a few scattered pieces of wood surrounding him—the relics of what was probably once a chair.

The violence of his pain was mapped across the cellar clear as day when I knew to look for it. Blood caked the ground in dark patches. Gouges had been dug out of the floor, lined with red vestiges from where his nails had peeled back, his blood soaked into the floor.

His body was battered and bruised—a surprising thing to see in a protector, but even more so in a wolf. I wasn’t sure if these were new markings and injuries or if he just wasn’t healing as quickly as we’d expected, beyond the bite.

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