All Chapters of Bound To The Ruthless Alpha: Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

I had approximately thirty seconds to make a decision.Tell Patricia and risk Julian dying before anyone reaches the western ridge. Go alone and walk directly into whatever Rhoda had built out there. Neither option was good but one of them was way worse.I folded the note and put it in my pocket.Then I went to find Patricia.She was still in the training yard. I pulled her close and kept my voice at the lowest register that still counted as speech.“Listen carefully and do not react,” I said. “The eastern route was a distraction,right now Julian is on the western ridge and he is surrounded. I need you to get Ethan back from the eastern route and redirect him west. Quietly. And until Ethan is back to the pack and briefed, Nobody else moves.”Patricia’s face did not change. Not even slightly. Whatever she felt about what I had just said, she kept it entirely internal.“The note said come alone,” she said.“I know what the note said.”“You are not going alone.”“I am going now,” I said.

Nobody spoke for a moment after Ethan finished.Then Julian said, “What do you mean finished.”Ethan turned to face him fully. “The veil property in Selina’s bloodline is not just rare. It is functional. It does not sit passive inside the bond. It works. It produces something that a person with the right knowledge could collect and concentrate on.” He paused. “I always thought it was theoretical. Something written about in old texts that nobody had actually attempted.”“You are saying someone attempted it,” Julian said.“I am saying the evidence suggests someone succeeded,” Ethan said.The clearing had gone fully quiet around us. The rival wolves who had not fled were tied up at the far end. Hector stood near them with two warriors. He had the expression of a man waiting for instructions.I looked at Rhoda. “You knew about this.”“I knew they were collecting something from the bond,” she said. “I did not know what they planned to build with it.” She held my gaze steadily. “That is the

Julian turned from the door and looked at Ethan.“How fast does the pull work,” he said.“Faster on bonded pairs,” Ethan said. “Single wolves feel it like a mild draw, something they can resist without knowing they are resisting. Bonded pairs feel it as something more urgent. More compelling. The connection between them amplifies the signal.”“Like a frequency,” I said.“Exactly like that,” Ethan said. “The broken bond energy recognizes active bonds and pulls harder on them specifically.”Julian looked at me. I could feel through our bond what he was thinking. “We are a completed veil bond,” I said. “We are not just a bonded pair. We are the source of the extracted energy he used. If the pull works harder on other bonded pairs, what does it do to us specifically?”Ethan was quiet for a moment that was not a comfortable one.“You would feel it before anyone else in the pack,” he said. “And more intensely than anyone else. The veil bond is the origin point. The broken bond energy in th

The pull grew stronger the farther north we walked. It did not hit us all at once. It worked quietly, slipping under our thoughts. North started to feel like the only right direction. Any delay felt wrong. I kept catching myself wanting to speed up but Each time I noticed it, I forced myself to slow down.“Talk to me,” Julian said, keeping pace beside me.“I keep wanting to run,” I replied. “Not because I’m scared. Because something in me says speed is everything.”“Same here,” he said. “For the last ten minutes I’ve been fighting the urge to spread the warriors out farther north.”“But you haven’t done it.”“No,” Julian said. “Every time I think about it, I notice the idea points north.” He glanced at me. “Ethan was right. It feels like your own reasoning.”Ethan walked a couple of steps behind us. He had stayed quiet since we left the gate. He breathed slowly and steadily, the same way he did when teaching me to control my aura. He was keeping himself grounded, refusing to follow th

The light went out all at once.One moment the seal was blazing, every line in the earth burning bright enough to throw shadows through the trees. The next moment it was dark and the ground was just ground again, bare and slightly warm under my feet, the pattern still visible but lifeless, like something that had finished doing what it was built to do.I was on my knees. I did not remember going down.Julian was across the boundary before the light fully faded, both hands on my arms, pulling me upright. His grip was tight enough to feel and I was grateful for that because the rest of me felt like something that had been wrung out and set down without being fully straightened.“Talk to me,” he said. His voice was rough”.“I am here,” I said. “I am fine.”“You are on your knees.”“I was on my knees,” I said. “Now I am standing. That is improvement.”He studied my face closely, like he was quickly checking my condition and didn’t like what he saw. His hands slid from my arms to my face.