Chapter 6: The Bonds I Denied

Ragriel.

The name meant nothing to me.

I stared until the letters blurred. Somewhere beyond the mortal realm, a sister I had never known might have felt Asterion and Faolan complete our bonds.

My mother had given her a divine name. Just as she had given one to me.

I hurled Father's diary across the room. It struck the rug and fell open, its pages folding beneath the cracked leather cover.

"Bullshit."

Neither of my mates moved to retrieve it.

I began pacing instead. The room was too small for my anger. Five steps carried me to the locked door. Seven returned me to the window. Every turn pulled at the healing burns beneath my bandages, but the pain gave me something simple to hate.

Raiden had destroyed two packs because of a prophecy. He had turned two grieving boys into my slaves, trained me to treat affection as ownership, forged the order for my death, and left instructions that continued controlling us after his body entered the ground.

Yet his diary claimed Lunaria had known the prophecy first.

"Why would Mother allow this?"

The question escaped before I could bury it.

Asterion watched me from beside the table. Faolan leaned against the wall with his arms crossed, but neither man offered an answer.

"She is the Moon Goddess," I continued. "Every werewolf is born beneath her light. Every Luna asks for her blessing. She knew what I was before Father ever held me. She named me." My voice sharpened. "So, why would she leave me with him? Why would the Goddess of Werewolves, Creation, and Universe allow one of her own mates to do all of this?"

"Perhaps, she didn't know," Asterion said.

I stopped long enough to glare at him. "She is a goddess. A deity, Asterion."

"That does not make her all-seeing."

"You know nothing about her."

"Neither do you," Faolan said.

The truth landed exactly where he intended. I turned on him. "Careful, puppy."

"There she is." His smile held no humor. "I was beginning to worry the diary had stolen your teeth."

"I could show you what they can still do."

"Later. When you can cross the room without swaying."

I hated that he had noticed.

Asterion's attention had followed every unsteady step as well. Concern pressed through his side of the bond, cold and relentless.

I resumed pacing to spite them both. "Father said I could enter the Celestial Realm," I muttered.

The words stopped Faolan's smile, and my mates exchanged a look.

"You can open a portal?" Asterion asked.

"I said he told me I could."

"Is it true?" Faolan pushed away from the wall.

"I don't know."

"Have you ever tried?"

"With what instructions?"

Neither of them responded.

I pressed my fingers against my temples. A memory surfaced from when I was sixteen. Father had taken me to the moon altar at the highest point of Crescent Ice and ordered every guard to remain below. The sky had been cloudless, the full moon so bright that silver coated the snow.

He had placed his hand over my heart.

"One day, Pandora, the power inside you will split the heavens. Then you will stand before the woman who named you."

For years, I had carried the promise like proof that Mother had not abandoned me. "He said Mother and I would meet when the time came," I told them. "That my blood could open a path to Her."

"But he never taught you how," Asterion said.

"He taught me how to summon moonfire. How to shape divine power into weapons. How to strengthen my wolf and sense where a battle would begin before the first sword was drawn." I looked down at my empty hands. "He taught me every way my power could destroy something. Never how it might open a door."

Faolan crossed the room slowly. "Then, the promise was another leash."

"No."

"He let you believe you could reach Her whenever you became powerful enough. Every failure would send you back to him for more training."

I wanted to call him wrong.

Instead, another piece of Father's design settled into place. If I had reached Mother, She might have told me about my sisters. She might have shown me the complete prophecy. She might have explained that Asterion and Faolan were meant to stand beside me rather than beneath my feet.

Father had never intended for me to open that portal. He had intended for me to spend my life becoming the weapon he wanted while waiting for a mother he had ensured I could never find.

My pacing stopped. "He was afraid She would tell me the truth..."

"He was afraid you would no longer need him," Asterion said.

The distant pressure of moonlight brushed against the completed bonds again.

Ragriel...

Was she searching for me now? Did she know my mundane name? Had she known about me all along?

Questions crowded together until I could no longer separate my own thoughts from the emotions entering through my marks.

Asterion's cold vigilance.

Faolan's restless heat.

Both of them much closer than they had been a moment ago.

I noticed too late.

Asterion's arms closed around my waist from behind. He drew my back against his chest with quiet, possessive certainty. His chin settled near my shoulder, and his breath warmed the mark he had left on the side of my neck.

Faolan stopped in front of me. One hand came to rest on the table beside my hip, blocking the clearest path away. With the other, he took my bandaged wrist and turned my palm upward.

A soft gasp betrayed me. "What are you doing?"

"Keeping you upright," Asterion murmured.

"I was standing perfectly well."

"You were preparing to fall perfectly well."

Faolan lifted my hand toward his mouth. "And you were disappearing again."

"I am standing between you."

"Your body is," he said. "The rest of you is chasing ghosts." His lips touched the center of my palm.

The kiss was slow and warm. He turned my hand and pressed another to the uninjured skin just above the bandage around my wrist.

My wolf stirred. She recognized the wolf beneath Faolan's skin and answered with a low, aching pull. Asterion's arms tightened when he felt it through the bond.

"Release me," I said, but the command lacked its usual edge.

Asterion grazed his nose along my neck. "Do you mean it, my moon?" His mouth hovered over the mark.

I should have repeated the order. Instead, I held my breath.

Asterion kissed the sensitive skin beneath my ear. Heat spilled down my spine. He did not touch the swollen mark directly. His lips traced its edges with maddening care, as though learning the shape of the claim he had forced upon me. Every kiss opened the bond wider until I felt the hunger he kept buried beneath that cold composure.

Five years of empty rooms.

Five years of reaching across a bond that ended in ashes.

Five years of wanting the woman he believed had died in his arms.

Faolan's gaze never left mine as he kissed my wrist again. "You have thought about Raiden long enough," he said. "Your mother is beyond our reach. Ragriel is a name on a piece of paper. We are the ones standing here."

"An unfortunate circumstance."

His thumb passed over my pulse. "Think about us, little tyrant."

"I have wasted enough years doing that."

Pain flickered across his face before his familiar arrogance covered it. "Then think about what happens now."

Asterion's mouth moved lower along my throat.

My wolf pushed harder, welcoming both of theirs. The completed bonds pulsed like living things beneath my skin, carrying desire in every direction until I could no longer tell where mine ended and theirs began.

I hated the weakness gathering in my knees.

I hated how easily Asterion felt it and supported more of my weight.

Most of all, I hated that neither man smelled unwanted. They smelled like the tent we had once shared during winter campaigns. Like sweat after training, cedar fires, and the rare nights when Father could not reach us. Like something that had been mine long before I understood the difference between love and possession.

"There is nowhere left for you to run," Faolan whispered. "No death to hide behind. No borrowed name that can keep us away." His amber eyes dropped to my mouth. "The only thing left for you to do is submit."

I scoffed. "I would sooner return to the auction block."

"Liar."

"I will never submit to either of—"

Asterion kissed the place where my neck met my shoulder. The rest of the sentence dissolved into a breath.

Faolan smiled, but triumph did not reach his eyes. He wanted more than my body's surrender. Through the bond, I felt the terrible depth of it. He wanted me to stay.

Asterion raised his head. "Not submit," he said quietly. His arms loosened around my waist. The sudden absence of pressure felt colder than it should have.

Faolan lowered the hand braced beside me, opening the path to the door.

"Choose," Asterion finished.

Neither man touched me.

I could have stepped away. I could have crossed the room, ordered them out, and locked the door behind them. The marks would remain, but the moment would end.

Faolan released my wrist. I took one step toward freedom, but my wolf snarled.

Faolan's hurt flooded the bond before he buried it. He began to turn away. But I caught the front of his shirt as his amber eyes widened.

"Do not mistake this for surrender," I warned.

Then, I pulled his mouth down to mine. The kiss collided rather than began.

Faolan went still for a single heartbeat, giving me one final chance to change my mind. When my fingers tightened in his shirt and I kissed him harder, five years of restraint broke.

His hand slid into my hair while the other settled at my waist. He kissed me with the same fierce intelligence he brought into battle—learning every movement, answering every challenge, yielding just enough to make me chase him before taking control again.

My wolf surged toward his. The bond burned gold beneath my skin. I bit his lower lip where the earlier cut had nearly healed.

Faolan groaned against my mouth. "Still vicious," he whispered.

"Still insolent." I pushed him away before he could kiss me again.

The room tilted with my breathing. Asterion stood behind me, exactly where I had left him. He had not reached for me. Only the bond betrayed the ruin beneath his composure. His desire was colder than Faolan's but no less consuming like a frozen lake cracking from below.

"My moon," he said.

Nothing more.

He did not need to ask.

I turned, caught his face between my hands, and lifted my mouth to his.

Asterion shuddered. The man who had endured my cruelty without lowering his eyes, who had searched five years without surrendering to grief, trembled because I had chosen to kiss him. His hands settled carefully at my waist.

For several breaths, his kiss remained controlled. Then, I brushed my thumb over the split in his lower lip and felt his restraint collapse.

He pulled me against him. His mouth claimed mine with everything he refused to show: anger, devotion, hunger, and the unbearable relief of touching someone he had already mourned.

Faolan's warmth remained at my back, close without trapping me. Both bonds blazed.

For the first time since the war, my wolf stopped searching for an escape. I told myself the marks had made the decision for me. I told myself my wolf had wanted them, not me. But the marks had not taken Faolan's shirt in my fist.

My wolf had not turned me inside Asterion's arms and lifted my mouth to his.

I had not submitted.

I had done something infinitely more dangerous.

I had chosen them.