The moment it hit, I staggered as if lightning had punched straight through my chest.
The bond didn’t hum; it roared. A burn ripped through me—twisted, sharp, wild, wrong. It wasn’t only pain. It was Raena, and she was hurting. I felt it like a blade laid against my heart.
My knees buckled. I caught myself against a tree, breath ragged, my pulse thundering like a war drum pressed to my ribs. I couldn’t think or breathe—just one word pounding through my skull on repeat: Go.
I shifted mid-stride, faster on four legs than on two.
My paws tore at the forest floor, claws ripping through soil and moss. Branches slashed at my fur and snapped behind me. The wind howled past, but nothing moved faster than the fear clawing up my throat. Stones bit my pads; I didn’t slow. A half-remembered warning from the Seer flashed—bonds made in blood echo twice in pain—and I ran harder.
She was miles away, yet the bond collapsed that distance in seconds and pulled me like a thread wound tight through my spine. I felt the exact instant her strength dropped; something inside me fractured with it. Panic sharpened to purpose. Keep moving. Find her. Breathe for her if she cannot.
I found her at her cliffs, the place she always chose when she needed to clear her head. Her body was curled in on itself, slumped as if she’d fallen from the sky and shattered upon the earth. Moonlight bathed her in pale fire. She didn’t move.
Her scent was frantic—burnt ozone, split steel, and that impossible sweetness I had never been able to name. It poured off her like blood spilling from a cut that would not close. The air around her felt thin, stripped.
“Raena,” I whispered, already shifting back, already falling to my knees.
My hands hovered over her skin, too scared to touch and too desperate not to. “Come back. Please—just open your eyes.” My voice broke on the last word, shame and terror turning it raw.
Her lips were almost colorless. Her pulse flickered beneath my palm—faint and fragile, but there. I counted—one, two, falter, three—until numbers blurred and only the next rise mattered.
The bond wasn’t broken, yet it was wrong. It surged and then flickered out, surged again, angry and raw. My chest split open with it, and I could no longer tell where her pain ended and mine began. Every stutter in her breath echoed in my ribs.
“I’m here,” I said, my voice cracking apart. “I came back. I should’ve never—gods, I should’ve never left.”
I gathered her into my arms. She felt too light and frighteningly cold. I wrapped her in my cloak and held her close, whispering her name as if sound alone could anchor her back to me. For a heartbeat the bond steadied, like a rope catching on rock.
No one saw me as I crossed into her pack’s grounds. Or maybe they did and chose silence, smelling the bond burning between us like a brand. Shadows moved along the palisade, but no challenge came. The night itself seemed to step aside.
I brought her to the den near the hot springs—the one where she trained when she didn’t want anyone to watch. The place smelled like her: pine smoke and stubborn fight. Steam braided with cold, softening the air. I knelt, cradling her as if the ground might bruise.
I laid her down gently, tucked the cloak tighter around her shoulders, and stoked the old firepit with shaking hands until the flames rose steady. Then I fetched water, cooled a cloth against the stone lip of the spring, and brushed it over her brow. “Stay,” I begged the pulse at her throat.
“Just stay.”
Then I sat beside her and did not move.
Hours passed while the fire sank low. I listened to every breath she took—each one thin and precious, each one a victory counted in seconds. Once, she shifted in her sleep and her fingers brushed my thigh. I froze, hardly daring to inhale. She did not pull away. The bond eased, a tremor settling into a hum.
I whispered, “I’m sorry,” into the dark, unsure whether she could hear. “I didn’t know the bond would snap like that. I didn’t know it would tear through you.” Guilt tasted metallic, a coin on my tongue I could not spit out.
Her hand twitched again, a small answer that steadied me more than I wanted to admit. I pressed my palm over hers, sharing heat, sharing breath. If I could have given her my heartbeat, I would have.
I stayed through the night and through the storm rattling my own chest. Dawn cracked open like a secret kept too long. Pale light spilled into the den and laid a soft warmth across her face. Frost burned off the grasses outside; steam lifted in silver threads.
She blinked once. Then again. Her eyes found mine and held.
She stared at me like I was something she hadn’t expected to see again. I kept still, hardly breathing. The relief was violent—I had to swallow it twice to keep from shaking her with it.
Her voice came out hoarse, rough as gravel under frost. “Don’t ever do that again.”
I swallowed hard, my throat tight and aching. “I won’t,” I said softly. “I’ll stay. If you let me.” And for the first time since the pain had hit, the bond loosened its fist and settled in my chest like a vow.