Chapter Thirteen: Bonds That Bleed

Silas’s POV

At first, it felt like a whisper under his skin.

Not pain just… off.

The morning after the council meeting, Silas stirred in Ethan’s bed, sunlight streaming through the stone-framed windows. The sheets were warm. The scent of Ethan still clung to the earth, smoke, and something uniquely him.

But as Silas stood to stretch, his balance faltered.

A flash of vertigo. His knees buckled.

He caught the edge of the table before collapsing.

“What the hell?” he murmured, blinking.

His pulse pounded. His breath came shallow. His wolf stirred, uneasy.

But the worst part?

His bond to Ethan flickered.

Not severed. Not snapped.

Just… dimmed, like a lantern choked of air.

And in his chest, a quiet, bone-deep dread took root.

Ethan’s POV

He knew something was wrong the moment he returned from patrol.

Silas was sitting in the corner, unusually still. Eyes distant. Shoulders tight.

“You didn’t shift this morning,” Ethan said carefully.

Silas didn’t look up. “I felt… off.”

Ethan crouched before him, placing a hand on his cheek. “Off how?”

Silas hesitated. “Like I was being... pulled away from something. From you.”

Ethan’s blood turned cold.

Because he’d felt it too barely noticeable, like a thread fraying quietly.

The mate bond was still there. But wrong.

Muted.

Poisoned.

Nina’s POV

She sat at the far end of the healer’s compound, watching from behind a veil.

She didn’t need to get close to see the damage.

The potion had worked.

Not instantly. That would be obvious.

But slowly, subtly like a sickness that started in the soul and infected everything it touched.

She hadn’t made it herself, of course.

But she had paid in secrets to get it.

Wolfsbane laced with voidroot and crushed Luna’s leafancient, outlawed magic. It wouldn’t kill the bond. Not yet.

But it would make Silas weaker. Distant. Unable to draw strength from Ethan.

And in time… it would make Ethan question him.

Then hate him.

Then

Forget him.

Nina smiled.

Red Moon didn’t need a Luna born in Crescent filth.

Red Moon needed her.

Arden’s POV

He watched Nina from the second floor of the compound.

She didn’t see him.

But he saw everything.

The smug smile. The way she slipped something back into her cloak.

The quiet departure like someone who’d gotten what they came for.

Arden’s jaw clenched.

He didn’t have proof yet.

But his gut said it all.

She was behind Silas’s decline.

And Ethan would need to know before it was too late.

Marcus’s POV

The scroll arrived by raven.

Burnt-edged. Sealed with Red Moon’s crescent.

Marcus broke it open and read the message.

“We’ve accepted the treaty. Your spy remains Luna.

But he’s failing. You’ll know why soon.”

There was no signature.

But Marcus didn’t need one.

Nina.

And if Red Moon’s politics were collapsing from within…

Crescent had a window.

He looked at his Beta.

“Double the scouts.

And prepare for a move if their Alpha falls.”

Silas’s POV – Later that Night

He dreamt of fire.

Of wolves screaming.

Of Ethan Bloodied and alone reaching for him across a field of ash.

And when Silas awoke, gasping, drenched in sweat

The bond was nearly silent.

It hadn’t broken.

But it no longer pulsed with life.

And in that terrifying stillness, Silas whispered one word to the darkness

“Nina.”

Ethan’s POV

Ethan stood at the edge of the training field when Arden finally approached.

“You need to hear this,” Arden said, voice low.

Ethan turned.

“What now?”

Arden glanced around.

Then spoke the one name that would make Ethan’s world burn

“Nina.”

Because love wasn’t the only thing bleeding

Trust was hemorrhaging too.