"He's unraveling. But what scares me more is how much I want to be the one to break him."
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EVELYN POV;
The sun rose slow and pale through the eastern window, brushing soft gold across the stone walls of my new room. Dust motes danced in the angled light, swirling in patterns that reminded me of the silver magic now coursing through my veins.
I hadn't slept. Not a single moment.
Even though the bed was soft and the blankets warm, my body refused to relax. My muscles remained coiled tight, ready for a danger that never appeared. My thoughts twisted like smoke, endless and formless, never settling long enough for sleep to claim me. And the bond — that cursed, tattered bond — pulsed faintly in my chest like a bruise that would never heal, throbbing with every heartbeat.
Kael was still out there.
And he was suffering.
I could feel it as clearly as I could feel my own exhaustion. Perhaps more so.
The connection between us had grown thinner over the days, stretched like thread pulled too tight, but it had also become more volatile. Each wave of emotion that slipped through it felt like it had claws, raking against my insides, demanding attention. I felt his confusion as if it were a fog settling in my own mind. His rage burned like embers in my stomach. His mounting panic fluttered beneath my ribs, a frantic bird trying to escape. It echoed in my ribcage every few hours like thunder rolling through hollow bones, leaving me breathless.
And the worst part?
It didn't make me happy.
Not the way I thought it would. Not the way I had imagined during those first hours after he rejected me, when I lay broken on the forest floor, the mate bond shredding between us like paper in flames.
It made me feel dangerous.
I traced the pattern of cracks in the ceiling, wondering if they matched the fractures I felt inside. The stone room was sparse but comfortable—better accommodations than I'd expected when the Council brought me here. A bed with crisp linens. A wooden desk with a chair. A small bookshelf. A window that looked out over forests I didn't recognize.
I slid from the bed and sat cross-legged on the thick rug in the center of the room, both hands resting on my knees. The wool bristled against my skin, grounding me in sensation. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and when I opened them again, I watched silver light gather and scatter across my fingertips like stardust. It didn't hurt. It wasn't fire or lightning. It was cool. Smooth. Beautiful.
And completely alien.
Each time I exhaled, more of it shimmered across my skin. Sometimes it drifted into the air like a mist, catching the morning light, turning it to something otherworldly. Sometimes it gathered in my palms like a pool of liquid moonlight. Sometimes it surged too fast, rushing up my arms toward my heart, and I had to clench my fists to stop it, my nails leaving crescent moons in my palms.
I didn't know how to control it yet.
But it was growing stronger.
The silver energy seemed to pulse in time with my emotions—flaring when I thought of Kael, dimming when I tried to empty my mind. I wondered if this was how it had been for all the Moon Healers in the old stories. Did they struggle to contain the power at first? Did they wake up changed, marked, different in ways they never asked for?
I pressed my palms together, watching the light dance between my fingers like living mercury. When I pulled my hands apart slowly, the silver stretched between them like spun sugar, delicate threads that didn't break.
"What am I becoming?" I whispered to the empty room.
No one answered. But the silver light pulsed, as if in response.
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By midmorning, Keeper Alira arrived again—dressed in pale gray robes that whispered against the stone floor with each step, her long red hair braided down her back in an intricate pattern that spoke of hours of careful work. She offered a polite nod, then placed a thick tome on the table near the window. The leather binding was cracked with age, the pages yellowed at the edges.
"This is for you," she said, her voice measured and calm, betraying nothing of what she might think of me or my situation. "You'll want to read it soon."
"What is it?" I stood, drawing closer but not touching the book. Something about it radiated importance, and I wasn't sure I was ready for more revelations.
She tapped the leather-bound cover with one long, elegant finger. Bloodlines of the Forgotten.
My breath caught, the words hanging in the air between us like a challenge.
Alira's expression didn't change, her green eyes watching me with the patient assessment of a scholar observing a rare specimen. "It includes histories of the Moon Healers, among others. Some say they were the first wolves. Others believe they were an anomaly—divine mistakes that needed to be erased."
I frowned, not liking the implication. "And what do you believe?"
She paused, her hand lingering on the book. For a moment, something flickered across her carefully neutral expression—something that might have been sympathy. Or warning.
"I believe power tends to scare those who don't have it."
Then she turned and left, her robes sweeping behind her like mist, leaving me alone with the book and far too many questions.
I stared at the closed door long after she'd gone, wondering if I'd imagined the concern in her eyes. The Council had brought me here for observation, that much was clear. But Alira seemed different from the others—less clinical, more...human. Though she wasn't human at all. None of us were.
I approached the book cautiously, running my fingers along its spine before opening it. The binding creaked, protesting the disturbance after what must have been years of rest. The scent of old parchment and forgotten ink wafted up, tickling my nose.
⸻
The pages were filled with myths. Some I recognized from my mother's stories—tales she'd whisper by firelight when father was away, her eyes darting nervously to the door as if afraid of being caught sharing forbidden knowledge. Others were darker—twisted versions of what I thought I knew, stories that mother had sanitized for her daughter's innocent ears.
There were stories of Moon Healers who could mend flesh with a touch, knitting together wounds that should have been fatal, saving lives that the Goddess had already marked for the afterworld... or stop a heart from beating with the same gentle caress, stealing life as easily as granting it.
Wolves who could ease a soul into peace, comforting the dying with visions of beauty and light as they passed beyond the veil... or rip one from a body in rage, condemning the victim to wander eternally, forever separated from the ancestors.
Creation or destruction. Heal or harm. The choice always seemed to rest with the wielder.
I swallowed thickly, my throat suddenly dry.
The powers were said to be awakened through extreme emotional trauma—usually rejection, or death of a mate. In some cases, the magic didn't come until years later, surfacing only when the wound had scarred over but never truly healed. In others, it came instantly, a defensive response to unbearable pain.
Like mine had.
I traced my finger down one passage, the ink slightly raised on the parchment, each word feeling more ominous than the last.
"To reject a Moon Healer is to condemn oneself. The bond is not easily severed—and in some cases, it cannot be. Their magic entwines with the mate thread. When severed improperly, both suffer. But only one survives."
I sat back hard against the wall, the stone cold through my thin shirt, grounding me as the implications sank in.
Kael was feeling it now—the backlash of what he'd done. The fraying, corrupted bond was poisoning him slowly, just as his rejection had poisoned me. But while my pain had transformed into power, his was simply destroying him from within.
The thing was... I didn't want to survive him. Not like this. I didn't want to be bound to him forever—even if I lived longer, stronger, free. I didn't want his pain inside me, a constant reminder of what we'd lost, what we'd never truly had.
And yet...
I closed the book with trembling hands and hugged my knees to my chest, making myself small against the vastness of what I was learning.
What happens if I start needing him the way he's starting to need me?
The thought terrified me more than any tale of destructive Moon Healers. More than the Council's suspicious glances. More than the silver light that now lived beneath my skin.
I pressed my forehead to my knees and listened to the distant sound of birds outside my window. Normal creatures, living normal lives, unburdened by ancient magic and broken bonds. I envied them fiercely in that moment.