Nineteen: Lucian

The world goes so quiet it’s like the whole forest has slipped into a coma.

No wind. No rustle from the pack. Not even a mouse under the snow. Just me, kneeling in the center of a blast radius, hands locked on the shoulders of a woman I am now chemically, metaphysically, permanently bound to.

My face is a battlefield—want at war with duty, every line carved deeper by the pressure of having to choose. The mate bond is not a gentle thing; it’s a violence. It splits the world into before and after, leaves you clutching the one thing you’re supposed to kill, unable to do either. I can still feel her pulse racing through my palms, in perfect sync with my own.

Wren’s body is a map of trauma. She shivers, not just from cold but from the fever that comes after a first forced shift. Every joint looks too sharp, her knees cut and caked with old blood, the fine hairs on her arms standing up against the cold. The only thing about her that isn’t afraid is her eyes. They stay fixed on mine, equal parts question and accusation.

I can’t answer either.

Around us, the pack tries to pretend they aren’t watching. I see the way they glance out of the corners of their eyes, desperate for a cue. Jace is the first to break—always is. He steps forward, baton abandoned in the snow, voice so low only I can hear it.

“Alpha?”

The word is a bullet to the temple. All at once, I remember who I am, why I’m here, the laws written in the blood of better men than me. The rules are absolute: Turned wolves are unstable. Turned wolves are a danger. Turned wolves don’t get mate bonds, because the moon has no mercy for them.

But the bond is real. So real it shoves aside years of training, centuries of precedent, the stories we tell to scare pups and keep the bloodlines clean.

I should stand. I should push away, break the link, order the pack to do what we came here to do.

But I don’t. My hands tighten on her, involuntary, and her hand slides up my arm as if she’s afraid of losing the only thing left to hold.

Her lips part. She tries to speak, but her teeth chatter too hard. Instead, she just mouths a single word: “Why?”

Why did I spare her? Why does it feel like we’re the only ones here? Why, when the law is so clear, does my whole body refuse to obey?

I want to tell her I don’t know. That I hate her for it, even as I want nothing more than to drag her away from this clearing and hide her somewhere the world can’t reach.

But I can’t say it. I just stare, face blank, heart an engine pounding smoke.

Jace hovers behind me, torn between loyalty and law. He knows what this means, what it will do to the pack, to me. But he doesn’t say a word, because there isn’t one.

Tessa is the one who finally breaks the silence. She steps to the edge of the circle, hands up in surrender, her gaze trained on the snow at her feet. “Alpha,” she says, not a question this time. “Your call.”

That’s what it comes down to. Always.

I glance at the pack. They look away, as if by not seeing, they can unmake what just happened.

I look down at Wren. She’s stopped shivering, some core of heat or willpower holding her together. Her fingers dig into my wrist, nails leaving marks that will fade fast, but for now, they hurt. It’s good to hurt. It reminds me that pain is the price of survival.

For a long, perfect second, I imagine a world where this moment doesn’t end in blood or shame. Where I pull her up, wrap her in my coat, and walk away from the laws, the pack, the weight of all those dead ancestors screaming for order.

But the second passes. The cold rushes in. My hands unclench, slow, deliberate, as if I’m letting go of the only thing keeping me tethered to the ground.

I help her sit up. The pack shifts, uncertain. The bond crackles between us, not broken, just stretched thin, like a cable drawn tight between two cliffs.

She looks at me, eyes raw and open, and I know there’s no coming back from this.

I set my jaw, face the pack, and say the words that will damn or save us both.

“Bring her in,” I tell them, voice iron.

No one moves. Not at first.

Then Jace nods, the barest tilt of his chin, and the circle breaks. He drapes his coat around Wren’s shoulders, careful not to touch her skin, as if she might bite.

She doesn’t. She just looks at me, waiting for whatever comes next.

And so do I.