Updated Sep 16, 2025 • ~3 min read
The wolves had taken over by nightfall. Their presence was everywhere—guarding the village’s borders, pacing between smoldering ruins, carrying water and orders as though they had always belonged here. Mira hated it. Every breath tasted like intrusion.
And yet, every time her wrist throbbed beneath her sleeve, she remembered why they had come. The bond pulsed in time with Darius’s presence. She could feel him even when he wasn’t in sight, as though some invisible thread tied her heartbeat to his. It was maddening.
She found him near the well, speaking low to one of his lieutenants. The villagers gave them space, watching with unease. Mira didn’t wait. She marched straight toward him, her chin high, her fury sharper than fear.
“We didn’t ask for this,” she snapped. “We didn’t ask for you.”
The lieutenant bristled, but Darius raised a hand and dismissed him. Only then did his gaze settle on her, slow and unyielding, like a predator studying prey that dared to bare its teeth.
“You’d rather your people die?” His voice was calm, too calm, as though her anger amused him.
“I’d rather we fight for ourselves than bend to you,” Mira shot back. “I don’t need your pack. I don’t need your—” she hesitated, her throat tightening, “—bond.”
The golden light flickered in his eyes. “The bond doesn’t care what you need. It exists. You can feel it as much as I do.”
Heat flushed her skin, fury and truth tangled together. She clenched her fists. “Then I’ll resist it. Every second. I’ll fight until it breaks.”
Darius stepped closer, close enough that the space between them felt charged, dangerous. “You think defiance will save you? It won’t. It will only tear you apart.”
“Then let it.” Her voice cracked, but she didn’t look away. “Better broken than chained.”
For the first time, his expression faltered. Something raw flickered there—pain, regret, a shadow of a curse she didn’t yet understand. But it was gone as quickly as it came.
“You’re bound,” he said quietly, almost like a vow. “And nothing you do will change that.”
She turned on her heel before he could see the way her chest trembled, her wrist burning like fire beneath her sleeve.
Bound. Yes. But never his without a fight.
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