The weight of Chains

Bastian's hands were still raised when the first arrow punched into his shoulder. He didn't flinch. He just looked at me—claimed, bleeding, mine—and said, "Keep your head down. No matter what."

The enforcers swarmed the clearing before I could answer. Maren Holt barked orders, and her wolves fanned out with rifles leveled at Bastian's chest. Torchlight carved their faces into hard masks. One of them dragged me up by my arm, and my bare skin screamed against the cold. Someone threw a rough wool blanket over my shoulders, but the fabric scraped like sand against my raw nerves.

"Chain the rogue," Maren said, and her voice was flat and cold as the snow underfoot. "Silver."

A younger enforcer with a scar splitting his chin stepped forward, and the chains in his hands gleamed wrong in the dawn light. Not iron. Silver. Thick links that hissed when they touched the air. Bastian didn't lower his hands. He didn't look away from me.

The first chain hit his wrist, and I felt it.

The bond screamed. Silver burned worse than fire, worse than claws, and the pain shot through the thread between us like lightning down a wire. My knees buckled. I hit the snow, and the enforcer holding my arm cursed and yanked me up again. Bastian's jaw clenched, but no sound came out of his mouth. His gold eyes stayed locked on mine, and I felt the command even without words. Stay down. Stay quiet.

They wrapped chains around his wrists and throat. They forced him to his knees. The silver sizzled against his skin, and through the bond I felt the cold fury simmering under his surrender. He could have killed them. Even wounded, even outnumbered, he could have taken half of them down before they put him in the ground. But he didn't. Because of me.

Maren walked over to where I stood shaking in the snow. Her scarred eyebrow pulled low, and her dark eyes moved from my face to the fresh mark on my neck. She didn't say anything for a long moment. Then she jerked her chin at the enforcer holding me.

"Get him something to wear. He'll freeze before we reach the border."

The march south took hours. They gave me rough trousers and a shirt that smelled like someone else's fear, but my feet were bare, and the snow bit into my soles with every step. Bastian walked ahead of me, his wrists bound behind his back, silver chains trailing from his throat to the lead enforcer's fist like a leash. Every time the chains pulled, I felt the burn in my own neck.

I stumbled. Bastian's head turned before my knees hit the ground. The bond yanked tight, and I felt his instinct surge—protect, defend, mine—but the chains jerked him forward, and he stumbled too. Maren saw it happen. Her eyes narrowed.

"Interesting," she said, and the word sounded like a threat.

At the border, Kellan Draven waited with a line of enforcers behind him. The morning sun caught his silver-blond hair and turned it white. His glacial blue eyes swept over the procession and landed on me. On my neck. On the claiming mark that throbbed with Bastian's heartbeat.

Something flickered across Kellan's face. I couldn't read it. Not anger. Not quite. It was there and gone before I could name it, and his mask of cold control slid back into place.

"Take the rogue to the prison block," Kellan said, and his voice carried across the clearing without effort. "Maximum security. I want four guards on him at all times."

Maren nodded and signaled her wolves. They dragged Bastian forward, and the chains sang against the frozen ground. As he passed Kellan, Bastian's gold eyes met the alpha's blue ones, and something silent passed between them. A challenge. A warning.

Then Kellan turned to me. "Take the omega to the medic hut. Elara needs to examine him."

"His name is Caelum," I said, and my voice came out hoarse and small.

Kellan paused. He looked at me, and his expression didn't change, but something in his posture shifted. "Take Caelum to the medic hut."

The enforcers pulled me away before I could say anything else. I twisted in their grip, searching for Bastian, and I found him at the edge of the tree line. He was looking back at me. The chains burned against his throat, and blood dripped from the arrow wound in his shoulder, but his face was steady.

The bond stretched. Ached. A physical pain behind my ribs that made breathing feel like swallowing glass.

Stay alive.

The words weren't spoken. They were a feeling, a pulse through the thread between us. I held onto it like a lifeline as the enforcers dragged me through the gates.

The medic hut smelled like rosemary and alcohol, and it hit me so hard I almost broke down right there in the doorway. Archer was at the supply shelves when they pushed me inside, and he turned with a jar of something in his hands. When he saw me, the jar hit the floor and shattered.

"Caelum." He crossed the room in three strides. His hands found my shoulders, my face, tilting my chin up to the lantern light. His hazel eyes were wild. "What did they do to you?"

I couldn't answer. The words were stuck somewhere behind the bond ache and the exhaustion and the memory of Bastian's teeth in my throat.

Archer's hands moved down, and his fingers brushed the claiming mark. He went still. His whole body went still, and his face drained of color.

"You're bonded," he said.

His voice was wrong. Not surprised. Not horrified. Something else. Something that made my wolf stir weakly before going still again.

Archer's hands were still on my throat. His thumbs rested just below the mark, and I felt his pulse racing through his fingertips. His scent shifted. Just slightly. Barely there. But I caught it, and something in my chest pulled tight in response.

Archer pulled his hands back like I'd burned him. He stepped away, and his face was pale, and his eyes wouldn't meet mine.

"I need to report to the Alpha," he said, and he was already moving toward the door.