All Chapters of The Binding: Chapter 61 - Chapter 70

104 Chapters

Chapter Sixty One

Ash and QuarrySaxaI’m not even going to acknowledge the fact that Kaia was in Gran’s cabin when Eirik and I showed up for Elias, she was just sitting there like she belonged.The quarry smells wrong.Not rot.Not death.The air here tastes thin, metallic, like it’s been bled one too many times and never forgiven for it. Ash ground to sotne, old rain trapped in fractures that never quite healed.This place knows me, knows my wolf. I can feel it in the way she whimpers. I stop at the tree line while the others fan out instinctively—wolves half-shifted, sense stretched taut. Jana lingers behind me, quiet as a shadow, her attention split between the wards humming faintly around the quarry and the glyph pulsing in my hand.Elias stands to my left, shoulders tight, jaw clenched like he’s holding something in with his teeth.I can feel his anxiety and anticipation the way you feel weather before it breaks.Eirik is already moving. He doesn’t ask permission, he doesn’t look back at me. He st

Chapter Sixty Two

Aftermath is Louder than BattleSaxaThe quarry doesn’t feel right, it feels stunned. Like the earth is holding its breath after realizing it couldn’t get what it wanted.Dusts hands in the air in a thin veil, drifting through shafts of pale light like ash from a fire that never fully dies. The old rusted scaffolds creak when the wind nudges against them, and every sound—every shifting boot, every swallow, every shaky exhale—lands too loud against the stone bowl around us.Soren is on his knees in the dirt next to me, alive. And that should feel like a victory, but my chest won’t accept it. Relief doesn’t settle around me cleanly, it never does anymore. It knots with fear and something worse —recognition. Because the pull is still here. Not yanking and not tearing me sideways the way it did before. It’s just… present. As if the door is standing a few inches open somewhere just behind my eyes, and something on the other side has learned how to watch without moving.I crouch down next to

Chapter Sixty Three

Wolves Don’t Name Their SinsYsabeauThe first thing I learned about prophecy is that it never arrives on time. It shows up early, bleeding into the edges of days that should’ve been simple, or it crawls out too late—after the choices are already made, after the bodies are already in the ground. It never stands politely in the doorway and introduces itself. It slinks through the cracks. Like smoke, like rot, like a voice through wood.The house is too full of breathing when they return from the quarry. I feel them before I hear them—pulses crossing the ward lines, bond threads humming, the air itself recoiling from whatever was woken up out there.Soren’s heartbeat is a ragged thing. Thready, uneven.Eirik’s is a steady thrum over all of it, heavier, sharper, Alpha whether he’s claimed it or not.Saxa is a storm center, Elias a second gravitational pull that makes the floorboards remember just how old they are.And threaded under all of them—the wrongness.The door.I’m sitting at the

Chapter Sixty Four

The Brother at the ThresholdSaxaThe first howl tears through the house like it’s trying to rip the floorboard up from underneath us.Not wolf, but not human either.It starts low, a strangled sound shoved through clenched teeth and then it breaks into a raw keening wail that claws up through the vents from the cellar and shreds the air in the kitchen.Haldor.I haven’t heard words yet, just noise, just pain. But pain is a language all on its own, and I understand every syllable. My hands tighten around the edge of the table, the wood biting into my palm. The glyph under my skin flares in answer, a hot, protesting twist, like it resent being reminded that there are other kinds of cages in this house beside it.Downstairs, something slams against stone.Ingrid is already on her feet, jaw tense, eyes flicking to the cellar door like she’s half a second from breaking it off its hinges. Jana’s grinding hand stills in the mortar. Gran’s shoulder lock. Kaia doesn’t move at all, gaze sliding

Chapter Sixty Five

The Night We Stop WhisperingSaxaThe first thing I notice is the sound. Not the distant footsteps or the low voices whispering outside, not even the creak of the porch under too many boors.It’s the way the forest goes quiet.Like it’s listening, like it remembers what happens when wolves gather at dusk with fear already sitting heavily in their lungs.I’m still kneeling in the damp grass with Elias slumped against me when Eirik’s command rolls through the territory. I don’t hear the words, not exactly—not the pack-version voice, not the way it threads through bone and instinct—but I feel it.Every wolf does. It’s a call to assemble. Not optional. Elias is breathing more evenly now. His head resting against my shoulder, sweat cooling on his temple, lashes clumped together, glyph-light under his shirt finally dimming to a low, sulking thrum.“Hey,” I murmur, giving his hand a squeeze. “Stay with me a little longer.”“Not going anywhere,” he mutters, voice sandpaper-rough. “Too tired t

Chapter Sixty Six

After the LineSaxaThe clearing doesn’t empty all at once, it unravels.Wolves break apart from the circle in slow, dragging motions, like they’re peeling themselves away from something sticky and old. Voices stay low, glances sharp and sideways. Nobody’s laughing, nobody’s relaxed. The air around us has that stunned, too bright feeling of after a lightning strike.Under our feet, the wards hum like they’re trying to remember a new tune.Eirik doesn’t move right away.He stands where he was when he drew the line—shoulders squared, jaw clenched, gaze tracking the pack as they drift back toward the trees, the houses, the routines that don’t fit right anymore.Some of them avoid looking at him, more of them avoid looking at me. My wolf is tired and wired at the same time, pacing slow circles inside my body. My throat feels raw, like I’ve been shouting for hours instead of… speaking. Just speaking. “You did well,” Gran murmurs at my shoulder.”I snort, “Apparently, it was blasphemy Gran.

Chapter Sixty Seven

The Quiet AfterSaxaThe house settles into the night like a body finally giving up on pretending it isn’t hurt.Not quiet—never quiet—but slower, softer. Doors whisper shut instead of slamming. Voices become shapes more than sounds. The kitchen stops smelling like panic coffee and burns into something gentler; broth, bread, wool, and wood smoke. Someone left a pot of soup on the stove, the ladle still propped like they meant to come back but forgot about it a thin layer of skim formed over the top.Normal, almost.I rinse my mug even though it’s already clean. Warm water, then cold, then warm again. The swirl slips down the drain, and I watch it like it might spill the secrets of life if I stare at it long enough.But, it doesn’t.I set the mug in the sink, porcelain banging against the metal.Instantly my hands feel empty—like they forgot how to be hands and want a job again. “Go to bed,” I tell myself.But I don’t, instead I wander. Past the couch piled high with blankets. Past the

Chapter Sixty Eight

The Day We BorrowSaxaI wake to cold air and absence. The kind that feels like somebody stood up carefully and tried not to wake me after carrying me through the house to bed.The pillow next to mine still holds the faint shape of his head.For a second, I lie there pretending he’s just in the bathroom, or that I dreamed of falling asleep on that bench outside and never actually made it here. But the sheets are cool where his body should be, and the house that early-morning hush that belongs to people who get up before the day has decided what it wants to be.I sit up, rubbing my eyes. The light shining through the curtains, pale and thin. The world hasn’t committed to morning, just yet.My muscles protest, slow and angry in the way exhaustion settles over everything after the body stops demanding adrenaline. I swing my legs off the bed, toes hitting the plush rug, and listen.Hushed whispers.Downstairs.Not panic, not raised voices, just steady ones.I follow the sounds. The wooden

Chapter Sixty Nine

The Edge of PeaceSaxaThe cold shouldn’t feel this far away. Eirik turns his head aside for one heartbeat, respectful, then lies back in the snow as if he refuses to let shame dictate the terms of this moment. It makes something in my chest loosen.The snow bites, my skin puckers. Every nerve feels awake, alive—and somehow, being here like this doesn’t feel exposed in the wrong way. It feels like the truth.We breathe together, steam, silence, the ache in my bones softens.His head turns toward me. “Still okay?” he whispers, voice quieter than the wind.“Yeah.” I swallow. “You?”He nods, but there’s more behind it—something cautious, hungry, held back by teeth. I roll on my side toward him, he rolls too.The world narrows.We kiss. Not soft this time, not tentative. The warmth rushes in so fast it’s dizzying—his mouth firm, deliberate, full of all the things he’s tried to say out loud. I gasp into it, my fingers sliding up his shoulders, into his dark hair, clutching because I sudden

Chapter Seventy

RunSaxaSnow blurs into streaks of white and shadow, branches whip past, the cold is only a rumor now; the only real thing is the sound.The howl.Again, closer, urgent.We crest the ridge as wolves, paws digging into the ice. Below, the house is a dark shape against the pale clearing—and movement flickers at its edges. Two wolves circle near the porch.Guards.Their hackles seemed raised.Not at us, but something else.Eirik slows first, I match him. We shift in the shelter of trees—breath hitting the air in ragged bursts.This time neither of us cares about cold or bare skin. We only care about the way the ground feels wrong. Like the air was scarped, like something brushed past.A familiar figure appears from the side of the house.Ingird.“No one’s hurt,” she says before either of us can ask. “But someone was at the boundary. Pushing, again.”My stomach drops.“Talking to it?” Eirik asks.She nods once, “we chased them off before they could finish. Kaia’s back, she says the wards

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