AlbertI woke up with a weight inside me.Not metaphorical but a literal, pulsing weight.Warm. Stretching. Throbbing.At first, I thought I was dreaming. Everything was hazy, the air thick with sweat and the scent of something wild and familiar. My body ached in a way that was all too telling.Then I moved my leg… and felt him.Still inside me.Still knotted.Panic hit me like a flood.I opened my eyes and blinked through the shadows of Emon’s bedroom… Emon’s… and I remembered.Edward.His voice. His touch. The way the bond had cracked open and I had fallen into him like gravity.I bit back a sob.Why would I after I had tried to resist for so long? I thought I was winning!He stirred behind me, his arms wrapped around my stomach, his chest pressed against my back like a furnace."You are awake," he murmured, lips brushing my shoulder."Get out of me," I rasped, my throat raw.He exhaled slowly. “I can’t yet. The knot…”“I know how it works,” I snapped.My face flushed with shame.Th
EmonWhen I walked into Bibi Kamwe’s workroom that night, I already knew something had changed.The air was heavier. The shadows were longer. The fire crackled in her hearth, but it gave off no warmth, only light. Pale and thin and flickering.She was waiting for me, her back to the door, her long gray braids falling down the curve of her spine like rivers of ash. In front of her, the table was covered in things that didn’t belong in the modern world; feathers still sticky with blood, black stones that pulsed like hearts, bones carved with symbols I couldn’t read.“You said I could break the bond,” I said.She didn’t turn.“I said it could be done. I never said it would be easy.”I took a step closer. “Then tell me how. Teach me how.”Slowly, she faced me. Her eyes were ancient fire.“I’ll tell you. But you must listen without flinching. No protests. No naive demands for shortcuts. This is real magic, boy. It doesn’t care about your good intentions. Magic takes and you must be ready.”
EmonWhen Bibi Kamwe summoned me to the back room of her cottage the next morning, I knew it was time and I was so ready.It was time to see exactly what I was going up against.She was quiet as she worked; drawing chalk symbols across the wooden floor, lighting candles that flickered blue instead of orange, placing bowls of herbs and bones at each corner of the room.There was a hum in the air. A pulse. Like the room itself had taken a breath and was holding it. It was as if the hut was alive.I didn't bother her and she turned to me at last, when she was done organising.“You want to sever a bond marked by an Alpha. You must first understand what an Alpha is.”I nodded once. “I’m ready. I wanted to understand Edward and why Albert would be so smitten by him.She gave a slight grunt, approval or warning, I couldn’t tell.“Sit. Don’t speak unless I ask you to.”I lowered myself into the center of the circle she had drawn, legs crossed, hands resting on my knees. She sat opposite me an
EdwardI felt him break.Not in some poetic, abstract way. Not like sensing his sadness from afar. I felt it like lightning through my spine, sharp, searing and all wrong.One moment, there was a distant ache in my chest, the usual pull that never left me since I had marked him. The next, it twisted. Collapsed. Then it went silent.The bond never went silent. It never did unless…My body moved before thought caught up. I bolted from the office, ran towards the forest and then shifted halfway through the woods, clothes tearing, gravel flying beneath my paws. I didn’t even know where I was going at first, just that I had to move. I didn't care that it was daytime and that someone might see me. The bond had a scent now. A direction. His pain called to me like a beacon. Albert.Albert.My Albert.My mate needed me.When I reached the edge of the city, I shifted back. Blood still under my nails. Mud on my feet. I didn’t care. I grabbed whatever I could from someone's spare stash in a car
EmonThe second drink went down smoother than the first. Or maybe I was just getting used to tasting ancient magic.Bibi Kamwe sat across from me again, her old hands folded neatly in her lap, her eyes shining like moons in the firelight.“You are about to learn something most humans never do,” she said. “Knowledge like this doesn’t come through books. It comes through blood. Through memory. I am trusting you not to harm others with it because there is always a price to pay.”I nodded, though my hands were still shaking.“I’m ready.”She watched me for a long moment, as if testing my words for cracks. Then she stood, slow and deliberate, and walked to a large chest beneath a shelf of animal skulls.She opened it and pulled out a scroll, thick, old parchment rolled and bound in leather. When she unwrapped it, the air shifted. Heavy. Sacred.She laid it on the table between us.The drawings weren’t like anything I had seen in school or folklore. They were brutal and elegant all at once,
EmonThe inside of Bibi Kamwe’s house was nothing like I expected.It looked small from the outside, weathered and crooked, like it had been built by stories rather than hands, but inside, it seemed to breathe as if it was alive.The walls were lined with shelves crammed with jars, bones, feathers, dried flowers, stones that shimmered like stars and shells that looked as if they were of extinct animals. Candles flickered in bowls of water. A fireplace crackled low, and shadows danced across the wooden floor like old spirits warming themselves.The air smelled of herbs, smoke, and something older. Something sacred.“Sit,” she said, gesturing to a low stool near the fire.I obeyed without a word.She poured something dark and steaming into a clay cup and handed it to me. “Drink. It will open your mind.”I hesitated. “What is it?”Her eyes glinted. “Truth. In liquid form.”I stared at the cup. Then at her. And then at it again, finally, I drank.It tasted bitter and strange, but warm. L