Chapter 17: 365 days

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*Chapter 17: 365 Days*

We didn’t sleep that night.

Back inside the cabin, Kieran tore through every book, scroll, and old pack record he had hidden here.

I sat on the floor with my laptop, searching everything. "Black bond" "Forced mate" "Moon curse"

Nothing.

Just legends. Warnings. 

"Black bonds consume the Alpha. 1 year. No exceptions."

“Stop,” Kieran said finally. He slammed a book shut. “You’re going to make yourself sick.”

I looked up. My eyes were red. “You’re going to die.”

“Not if I can help it.”

“How? Mae said the only way is—”

“Don’t.” He crossed the room and knelt in front of me. Took my hands. “Don’t say it.”

One of us has to die.

The words hung between us anyway.

“The silver lines,” I whispered, touching my neck. “They weren’t there before the attack. Maybe it means something.”

Kieran’s thumb brushed over the mark. The silver glowed faintly at his touch.

“I’ve never heard of silver in a black bond,” he said. “Maybe... maybe it’s changing. Maybe we can change it.”

“Into what?”

“A real bond.”

Hope flared in my chest. Then died. “Is that even possible?”

“I don’t know.” He stood up and pulled me with him. “But we’re going to try. Every single day for the next 365 days.”

365 days.

A year.

“First,” he said, “we need to know everything about how the bond works. If it feeds on touch, pain, proximity... maybe we can starve it. Or feed it something else.”

“Like what?”

“Like trust.”

He led me to the table. Spread out maps, old texts, and a journal. His grandfather’s.

“Alpha before me,” Kieran explained. “He wrote about bonds. About the moon.”

We read for hours. 

No romance. No kissing. 

Just two people desperate to survive.

But every time our hands brushed reaching for the same page, the bond sparked.

Warm. Not painful.

“Look at this,” I said around 3am. Pointing to a passage. 

`“The moon’s punishment can become her blessing, if both souls choose it freely, thrice.”`

“Thrice,” Kieran repeated. “Three times.”

“Choose what freely?” I asked.

Kieran was quiet. Then: “Me. You. Us.”

My face burned. “That’s... vague.”

“It’s werewolf law,” he said with a small, sad smile. “Vague is how they get us.”

We kept reading.

At dawn, Kieran made coffee. I fell asleep with my head on the table.

I woke up to a blanket over me and Kieran watching me.

“How long was I out?”

“2 hours.” He pushed a mug to me. “Found something.”

He showed me the journal. One last page. Scribbled in the margins.

`“Black to Silver to Gold. The path of redemption. Requires: Sacrifice. Truth. Love.”`

My heart stopped. “Sacrifice. Truth. Love.”

“Three things,” Kieran said. “Thrice.”

“So we have to... what? Sacrifice something? Tell the truth? Fall in love?”

“I already love you,” Kieran said. Quiet. No hesitation.

The room went silent.

The mark on my neck burned. But not in pain.

In heat.

The silver lines spread a little more.

Kieran reached out and tucked my hair behind my ear. “So step one is done. Now we need truth. And sacrifice.”

“What do we sacrifice?”

“I don’t know yet.” He looked tired. Older. “But we have time.”

“365 days,” I whispered.

“365 days,” he repeated. “And I’m spending every single one with you.”

He leaned in and pressed a kiss. 

Not to my lips.

To my forehead. Right above the mark.

The bond sang.

Outside, snow started to fall.

Inside, for the first time since he bit me, I wasn’t scared.

We had a plan.

We had each other.

We had a year.

Until the door splintered open.

And Gamma Rafe stood there with 6 wolves.

“Alpha Kieran,” he said. “By order of the Shadow Moon Pack. We’re here to collect the rogue Mae’s sister.”

Kieran stood in front of me instantly.

“Over my dead body.”

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*END OF CHAPTER 17*