Chapter 08

The Elder smiles, but it’s not kind. It’s the smile of a predator who’s cornered wounded prey.

“You have one choice, Cassian Thorne,” she says, her voice carrying the weight of ancient law. “Deny her. Sever the bond before it fully forms. Cut the thread that binds you.”

She pauses, letting the words sink in.

“Or lose your right to rule.”

The threat hangs in the air like a blade.

I don’t answer immediately. Can’t answer. Because I don’t know if I can do what they’re asking.

The thought of cutting the bond, of severing the connection that pulses between us like a second heartbeat, makes something inside me howl with rage. The wolf doesn’t want to let her go. Neither does the man.

“The choice is yours,” the Elder continues. “But choose quickly. The longer you wait, the stronger it becomes. Soon, it will be beyond your power to break.”

I look around the circle at the ancient faces watching me. Some curious. Some disgusted. All of them waiting for my answer.

“And if I refuse?” I ask quietly.

“Then we will choose a new Alpha,” she says without hesitation. “One who understands that our survival depends on keeping the bloodline pure. On maintaining the old ways.”

The threat is clear. Absolute.

I’ve spent my entire life preparing to lead this pack. Sacrificing everything—including my own happiness—for the good of our people. The thought of losing it all now, over a human girl I barely know…

But the bond pulses, and I feel her. Miles away, confused and frightened and fighting something she doesn’t understand. Her pain becomes my pain, her fear becomes my rage.

I don’t answer the Elders.

Because I don’t know what my answer is yet.

I leave the hollow without another word.

The Elders don’t try to stop me. They’ve delivered their ultimatum. The rest is up to me.

I climb through passages carved into the mountain’s heart, following tunnels that have existed for millennia. My bare feet find purchase on stone steps worn smooth by countless generations of my ancestors, all of whom faced their own impossible choices in these depths.

I climb until the smell of ash fades and is replaced by pine and loam and the clean scent of morning fog. Until the oppressive weight of the mountain lifts from my shoulders and I can breathe freely again.

But the mark still burns.

Worse now than before, if that’s possible.

Hot and tight and constant, like something is trying to claw its way out from under my skin. Not the wolf this time—I know that feeling, the restless energy of the beast pacing beneath the surface. This is different.

This is the bond.

I’ve known pain in my life. Physical agony, emotional torment, the weight of impossible decisions. I’ve bled for this pack more times than I can count. I’ve buried friends, lovers, family members. I’ve carried the responsibility of an entire people on my shoulders since I was barely old enough to understand what that meant.

But I’ve never felt anything like this.

Not even with her.

The first one. The human girl whose name I don’t let myself think anymore.

That had been different. A gentle thread, barely visible. A whisper of connection that grew slowly over months of careful courtship. A promise of what could be, not a demand for what must be.

This?

This is a chain.

Forged in fire and bound with blood, dragging me toward something I’m not sure I want to resist.

And the terrifying thing is—I don’t know if I want to break it.

I emerge from the mountain into a clearing I’ve known since childhood. The same spot where my father taught me to hunt, where my grandfather shared the old stories, where I first learned to shift from boy to wolf.

Dawn is breaking through the canopy above, painting everything in shades of gold and green. Somewhere in the distance, a mockingbird calls, and the sound is achingly normal after the suffocating weight of the hollow.

I kneel on the soft earth, pressing one hand against the mark beneath my ribs. My skin pulses in rhythm with something that isn’t quite my heartbeat. My blood hums with an energy that doesn’t belong to me alone.

And in my mind, clear as if she were standing beside me, I see her.

Not the dream version this time. Not the idealized fantasy my subconscious has been creating.

Ivy.

Real. Human. Angry.

Terrified.

I see her flushed face, her wild hair, her eyes burning with fury and fear. I remember the way she smelled—like rain and defiance and something indefinably *hers*. The way her voice shook when she spoke my name, the way she looked at me like I was both salvation and damnation.

She said my name.

Miles away, in a house, surrounded by walls that can’t keep me out if I decide to claim what’s mine—she said my name.

And I felt it. Like a physical touch. Like she’d reached across the distance between us and laid her hand over my heart.

The bond had sung with satisfaction, and for a moment, just a moment, I’d felt complete in a way I haven’t experienced since…

Since the last time I lost everything.

I look up at the canopy above, where shafts of sunlight filter through leaves that are just beginning to turn with the coming autumn. The moon is still visible, a pale ghost against the brightening sky, watching over everything with ancient, knowing eyes.

She’s judging me. I can feel it.

*Choose*, she seems to say. *But choose knowing the cost.*

I close my eyes and whisper the truth into the morning air. The first completely honest words I’ve spoken since this all began.

“If I let her go… if I sever this bond… I’ll tear this forest apart.”

The admission hangs in the air like a confession.

Because that’s what happened before. When the thread snapped, when death took what was mine, I lost myself completely. Became something monstrous. Something that had to be stopped before it destroyed everything I was supposed to protect.

The pack still bears the scars from that time. So do I.

And this bond—this connection that pulses between us like a living thing—it’s already stronger than what I had before. Deeper. More essential.

If it breaks now…

I rise slowly, every muscle in my body aching with exhaustion and something deeper. A weariness that goes bone-deep, soul-deep.

The Elders think I have a choice.

But they’re wrong.

The choice was made the moment I looked into her eyes and felt something inside me recognize its other half. The moment her blood answered mine and the mark bloomed beneath her skin.

She’s mine now.

Whether she likes it or not.

Whether I deserve her or not.

Whether it destroys us both or not.

I turn toward the forest, toward the invisible thread that connects me to a girl who hates what I am, what I represent, what I’ve done to her life.

And I vanish into the shadows between the trees.

Because I can’t let her go.

Not now.

Not ever.

The bond won’t let me. And neither will the part of me that’s been waiting my whole life to feel complete.

Even if completing myself means destroying everything else.