The Forgotten Pulse of the Bond-Chapter 15: The Unseen thread

Long before wolves ruled the territories, long before the high bloodlines carved lines through the mountains and forests, there had been something else here. The ruins of a world where shadow fed off the forgotten. And it was into that world Magnolia now walked.

Stone arched overhead, slick with dripping moisture and the weight of hundreds of years. The walls were carved with symbols even Elara hadn’t seen in her books. Some looked like teeth. Others like wounds.

And deeper in the dark, something pulsed.

She felt it in her bones.

In her blood.

In the branded flesh of her palm, where the serpent-flame sigil burned faint and steady like a second heartbeat.

Rhett walked beside her, sword drawn. Beckett flanked the rear, watching their backs, his fingers twitching against the hilt of his daggers.

Celeste had stayed behind at the estate, tasked with reinforcing the outer wards. But Magnolia had seen it in her eyes before they left fear. Not of death.

Of failure.

Because if they didn’t stop Sterling now, there would be no estate to defend. No wolves left to fight.

Just ash.

Magnolia slowed as they reached the first chamber.

It was circular, wide, the ceiling domed high above with dozens of broken chains hanging like webbing. Symbols of the old pact were scorched into the floor some still faintly glowing.

In the center, Sterling stood.

Not alone.

Around him, twelve wolves knelt, their eyes glazed black, their bodies twitching in time with an invisible rhythm. A thirteenth form stood beside Sterling.

Camille.

Or what was left of her.

Her body moved like it belonged to something else.

Her hair floated unnaturally. Her feet didn’t quite touch the ground. Her eyes were empty sockets filled with swirling shadow.

And when she turned toward Magnolia, her lips twisted into a smile that wasn’t hers.

"She’s here," Camille said. Or the thing inside her did.

Sterling turned. "You were always predictable."

Rhett growled. "Let her go."

"She came willingly," Sterling replied. "The moment she signed the pact, the moment you let her drown and forgot her she was mine."

Beckett stepped forward. "She was a child."

"She was a vessel," Sterling snapped. "The bond needed a door, and the door needed pain. Do you know what pain makes? Power."

"You were supposed to protect her," Magnolia whispered, voice shaking.

"I did," Sterling said. "From the weakness of your blood. From your guilt."

"I loved her."

"No," he said softly. "You envied her."

Magnolia’s hand curled into a fist.

The sigil flared.

Sterling smiled wider. "Yes. Let it burn. Let it speak."

Rhett lunged forward.

In a blink, Camille raised a hand and sent him flying.

He crashed into the stone wall with a sound that shattered something deep in Magnolia’s chest.

Beckett screamed and charged, but two of the kneeling wolves rose and intercepted him, claws out, eyes black.

Magnolia stepped into the center.

Everything slowed.

The chanting began.

Camille no, Ashriel lifted both hands, the air warping around her as the pact burned on the floor. The stones trembled. The light flickered. The very earth seemed to recoil.

And then Sterling stepped toward Magnolia.

"You still have a choice," he said. "You always did."

"I made it already."

She drew her dagger.

Not for him.

For herself.

Before he could react, she sliced open her palm, letting her blood spill across the burning sigil on the floor.

The reaction was instant.

The flames hissed.

The bond screamed.

Ashriel’s voice roared in her skull.

"You would bleed for her?"

"She bled for me first."

The sigil flared white.

Camille screamed high and raw and unnatural.

Sterling stepped back, eyes wide.

"No," he growled. "You don’t have the strength."

But Magnolia did.

Because the bond wasn’t just hers.

It was Camille’s.

And now, it answered both.

She dropped to her knees, placed both hands on the floor, and channeled every memory she had ever buried every scream, every silence, every moment of drowning and not being believed.

And the stone cracked.

A wave of silver-blue light erupted from her chest, tearing through the chamber like a storm.

The possessed wolves collapsed.

Beckett shielded his face as the spell ripped past him.

Sterling screamed as the light burned his skin, his soul, the shadows inside him.

Camille staggered.

Her eyes cleared for half a second.

"Maggie?"

And then she collapsed.

Magnolia crawled forward, blood dripping from her mouth, her hand, her heart.

She reached Camille’s side.

Held her.

Felt her pulse flickering.

Rhett limped over, dragging Sterling’s unconscious body behind him.

"Is she ?"

Magnolia shook her head. "She’s here."

Beckett knelt beside her, breathing hard. "We can’t stay. The ground is unstable."

The symbols beneath them had cracked, broken by the light.

The bond had been sealed.

But not destroyed.

Ashriel was retreating.

For now.

They carried Camille out together.

And behind them, the catacombs caved in.

Sealing what was left of the first war.

They returned under a blood-colored sky.

It wasn’t just the morning sun.

It was the ash.

Ash from the catacombs still drifted upward, caught in the mountain winds, mixing with fog and old power like smoke from a slow-burning curse.

Magnolia didn’t feel the cold.

Not because it wasn’t there but because something deeper had started burning under her skin.

Camille lay unconscious in a private ward beneath the eastern watchtower, wrapped in protective runes and watched over by two silent, silver-eyed Betas sworn to Rhett. She hadn’t stirred since the seal’s collapse. Her body remained fragile, but her mind...

That was the unknown.

What had been driven into her what had lived inside her had not been fully exorcised.

It had only been torn away.

And sometimes, torn things bled even when the wounds couldn’t be seen.

Magnolia stood at the glass doorway, her eyes locked on her sister’s still form. Every inch of her ached to step inside. To sit. To wait. To whisper stories from childhood that only the two of them knew.

But she didn’t move.

Because behind her, the estate was fracturing.

And she didn’t have time to grieve a sister who hadn’t fully returned.

Rhett paced in the old Luna war room, a space that hadn’t been used since his grandmother’s reign.

The council had convened again this time with no robes, no ceremony, no formal structure. Just rage and fear and too many unanswered questions.

"Half the southern warriors have pulled back to the ridge border," Grathen of Silverpine growled. "They don’t believe the bond is under control. They think the energy burst was a trap."

"It was a seal," Rhett said. "One that kept Ashriel from walking into your dens and burning your children from the inside."

"Words," Grathen snapped. "You’re asking us to trust a Luna who glows in the dark."

"She bled to close it," Beckett cut in. "I saw it."

"And I saw a girl who walked into that crypt carrying the mark of a god."

"Enough," Rhett growled, voice full Alpha now. "You want to question me. Fine. But you will not question her while you wear my colors."

Silence.

Thick. Tense.

Then Elara stepped from the corner shadows, her voice quiet but sharp.

"She’s changing."

All eyes turned.

"The bond is no longer passive," she said, looking straight at Rhett. "It’s active now. And it’s choosing her. Which means it’s feeding."

"On what?" Rhett asked.

"Pain. Memory. Power."

Rhett’s stomach twisted. "Can she control it?"

"She has until the full moon to prove that she can. Or it will take her."

Magnolia stood alone in the old healing pools that night, water still and cold around her ankles. She hadn’t shifted since the ritual. Her wolf felt... distant. Muted. As if the bond had begun to suffocate that part of her in exchange for something else.

She cupped water in her palms and splashed her face.

But it didn’t clear her head.

She hadn’t told Rhett what Ashriel whispered before the seal closed.

You carry the key. But the lock is not yours.

She didn’t know what it meant.

Only that it hadn’t felt like a threat.

It had felt like... truth.

Beckett found her an hour later, a satchel slung over his shoulder and a faded paper in his hand.

He sat beside the pool without speaking.

She waited.

Finally, he said, "I went through the southern archives. The ones Sterling tried to seal off."

Magnolia looked at him.

"I found this." ƒгeewёbnovel.com

He handed her the paper.

It was a page torn from a banned history.

And it showed two wolves one with golden eyes, the other with eyes of midnight standing in front of a flaming gate. Above them, a crown of antlers. Behind them, a forest of bone.

"The last known twin bond," Beckett said. "Two siblings. Both touched. One to open. One to close."

Magnolia read the names.

They weren’t hers and Camille’s.

But the roles were the same.

"What happened to them?" she asked.

"They fought each other," he said. "And the forest burned for nine days."

She looked down.

Her hands trembled.

"They think Camille’s still dangerous."

"They’re right."

He didn’t soften the blow.

"But so are you."

She swallowed. "If she wakes up..."

"She’ll be drawn to you. The way the bond wants. The way the gate needs."

"I’m not ready."

"You won’t get time to be."

He stood and reached into his satchel again, pulling out a slim blade wrapped in silk.

"What is that?"

"A failsafe," he said. "Forged from the first moonstone ever pulled from the riverbed."

Magnolia stared at him.

"If I fall," she whispered.

"I won’t let you."

"But if I do?"

He placed the blade beside her. "Then I’ll save you. Or I’ll stop you."

That night, the dream returned.

But it wasn’t Camille’s face she saw.

It was Ashriel’s.

He stood atop a mountain of bone, the sky behind him black with falling stars. He wore no crown, no armor. Just a cloak made of broken oaths and hands outstretched toward her.

She walked toward him in the dream.

And when she touched his chest

She saw herself.

Not as she was.

But as she would become.

Eyes black.

Fangs longer.

Power dripping from her fingertips like venom.

She awoke screaming.

And for the first time since returning...

She couldn’t tell if the voice in her throat was her own.