The Bond that shouldn't Exist

“I’ve been alone for ten years,” Bastian said, his back still turned. “I should have killed you the moment I caught your scent. I tried. My wolf wouldn’t let me.”

I lay on the cold stone, shivering and burning, my cheek pressed to the rough floor. The fire Bastian had built spat and crackled between us, and the orange light carved shadows across the scars on his shoulders. He didn’t look at me when he spoke, just stared out at the black mouth of the cave.

“What do you mean your wolf wouldn’t let you?” My voice came out cracked and thin. I swallowed and tasted ash. “You’re the alpha. You control your wolf.”

Bastian let out a sound that wasn’t a laugh. “You think that’s how it works?” He turned then, and his gold eyes pinned me to the stone. “My wolf recognized you the second your scent hit my lungs. It decided you were mine before my brain even caught up. I’ve been fighting it ever since.”

I pushed myself up onto my elbows, and the movement sent a fresh wave of heat crashing through my belly. I bit down on my lip to keep from moaning. “The mate bond,” I whispered. “That’s what this is.”

“Don’t say it.” Bastian’s jaw clenched so hard the scars along his throat pulled white. “I never wanted a mate. I never wanted anyone. I went rogue so I wouldn’t have to deal with this exact thing.”

“And you think I wanted this?” The words came out sharper than I meant, and I didn’t care. My body was a traitor, my pack had sent me to die, and this massive scarred alpha was acting like I’d cursed him. “I didn’t ask for a bond. I didn’t ask to be injected and thrown into the snow. I didn’t ask for any of it.”

Bastian stared at me for a long moment. Then he took a step closer, and I flinched before I could stop myself. He stopped. His hands hung at his sides, but his fingers twitched, like he was stopping himself from reaching for me.

“I tried to kill you,” he said, quieter now. “Out there in the trees. When I had my hand on your neck. I told myself to snap it. My hand wouldn’t close. My wolf pinned my instincts down like a pup. Every time I think about hurting you, it’s the same thing.” He sounded disgusted. With me, with himself, with everything.

The heat surged, and my back arched off the floor. A sound crawled up my throat, half whimper and half something else, and I saw Bastian’s nostrils flare. His whole body went rigid. He took one step back, then another, until his shoulders hit the far wall of the cave.

“Your scent,” he growled. “It’s getting stronger.”

“I can’t control it.” My voice broke. My hands were shaking, and I curled them into fists against the stone. “The serum. The heat. I can’t. I can’t stop it.”

Bastian pushed off the wall and crossed the cave in three strides. I tensed, but he didn’t touch me. He crouched beside me, and his hand went to the side of my neck. His fingers were rough and warm, and I felt him peel something away from my skin. The sedative patch. He held it up between us, the fabric dark with my sweat.

“This could have killed me,” he said, and his voice was flat and cold. “A dose this strong, combined with a rogue alpha’s metabolism. It would have stopped my heart. They knew that. They sent you here to die, and you were too brainwashed to see it.”

I opened my mouth. Closed it. There was no defense. I had known. Not all of it, but enough. I’d let them inject me. I’d walked into the snow. I’d told myself it was the only way to survive.

Bastian tossed the patch into the fire, and the flames ate it with a hiss. He stayed crouched beside me, and I could feel the heat of his body even through the fever. The bond hummed between us, a thread pulled tight, and I didn’t know if I wanted to cut it or wrap it around myself and never let go.

The fire burned lower. My body shook and sweated and ached, and Bastian didn’t touch me, but he didn’t leave either. He sat with his back against the stone wall, knife in his hand, watching the entrance. Watching me. I drifted in and out of something that wasn’t sleep, and every time I opened my eyes, his gold gaze was there.

A howl cut through the dark.

Not Bastian’s. Higher. Hungrier. It echoed off the cliffs outside, and I felt it in my chest like a second heartbeat. Bastian was on his feet before the echo died, his body suddenly all coiled muscle and lethal stillness.

Another howl answered the first. Closer. Then a third.

“Rogues,” Bastian said. “A pack of them. They’ve been trying to push into my territory for months.”

I tried to sit up, and my arms gave out. The heat had left me useless, a puddle of fever and need. “How many?”

“Doesn’t matter.” Bastian pulled the knife from his belt. The blade caught the firelight. “They smell you. Your heat. They’ll be here before dawn.”

I stared at the knife. I stared at Bastian’s face, hard as the cliffs outside, and I knew what he wasn’t saying. I couldn’t run. I couldn’t fight. I was dead weight.

“I’m going to have to fight,” Bastian said, and he turned those gold eyes on me one last time. “And if I die, the bond will drag you down with me.”