All Chapters of TWICE BOUND: Chapter 21 - Chapter 27

Three days passed in a state I couldn't properly describe. I existed as fragments, scattered across hundreds of minds, experiencing the world through borrowed senses. When a wolf ate, I tasted their food. When they slept, I shared their dreams. When they mourned, I felt their grief as my own. The wolves I'd saved were changing. Small things at first, barely noticeable. A young male who'd been corrupted found he could heal minor wounds with a touch. An elderly female discovered she could sense lies the way I once had. The purification hadn't just freed them from Marcus's control. It had left pieces of my power behind, distributed among them like seeds waiting to grow. Maren noticed it first. She gathered the affected wolves in the great hall, studying them with those ancient, knowing eyes. I watched through a dozen different perspectives as she examined each one, documenting the changes. "Remarkable," she murmured, touching the young male's healed palm. "She didn't just save you. S

Two weeks after Marcus's execution, the first wolf went mad.His name was Torren, a middle-aged male from the Eastern territories who'd carried one of my fragments. He'd been normal, functioning, grateful for his salvation. Then one morning, he woke screaming about voices in his head, clawing at his own skin, claiming something dark was growing inside him.By the time Maren and I reached him, he'd shifted into a form that was wrong. Not corrupted like Marcus's wolves had been, but fractured, like he couldn't decide which shape to hold. His wolf kept flickering between forms, human features bleeding into fur, claws extending and retracting randomly."Torren," I said carefully, approaching with my hands raised. "It's Lyra. Can you hear me?"His eyes, when they focused on me, were wild with terror and something else. Recognition that went too deep, like he was seeing not just me but every version of me that existed across all the bonded wolves."Too many," he gasped, his voice shifting b

The Door That Should Never Have OpenedSera’s scream tore through the chamber, sharp and raw. She collapsed to her knees, clutching her head as if something inside her skull was clawing to escape. Kael reached for her, but she pushed him away blindly, her eyes wide and unfocused.“It is here,” she whispered. “It is watching us. It knows.”The anchor pulsed in the center of the chamber, a shifting mass of shadow and living darkness. Tendrils of inky smoke curled upward like hands reaching for the ceiling. The air felt thick, weighing on our lungs with every breath. Even the ground beneath us vibrated faintly, as though something enormous was moving just under the stone.Maren steadied herself and took a step forward, her voice quiet but firm. “No one touch it. No one get close until we understand what it is doing.”Even from a distance, I could feel the entity’s attention brushing against my mind. Not fully focused on me, but aware. Curious. Testing. Like a predator circling prey it ha

The room spun. I had an aunt. An aunt who’d done something similar to what I’d done, but wrong. And now she thought I’d stolen from her. “The fragments,” I said, understanding clicking into place. “When I scattered myself, I didn’t just use my own essence. The ability to bond wolves, it’s genetic. It came from my mother’s bloodline. Morgana’s bloodline.” “Are you saying she has a claim to the bonds?” Veronica asked. “I’m saying she thinks she does. And she’s come to take them by force.” Kael’s hand found my shoulder. “Then we fight. We’ve beaten worse.” But through the bonds, I felt doubt. The bonded wolves were tired from the entity battle. Our resources were depleted. And Morgana had an army of wolves she’d been training for years. “There might be another way,” I said slowly. “If she wants the fragments, maybe I can negotiate. Trade something else for peace.” “You can’t trust her,” Maren warned. “Morgana is brilliant but cruel. She sees wolves as experiments, nothing