The Bond
1469 Words
Moonfire Ceremony
The courtyard of Highfang had never burned brighter.
Silver lanterns hung like stars, flames dancing in bowls of enchanted moon-oil, casting shifting shadows along stone and fur. Elders stood in a circle, cloaked in the ceremonial twilight-blue. Wolves lined the terraces, silent with reverence.
At the center of it all stood Averie, wrapped in a gown spun from flame silk, her mark blazing across her chest. The crescent moon hovered overhead in full glow — unnatural, as if time had bent for her.
Kaelen approached from the opposite side, his tunic simple, his scars uncovered. No masks. No pretense.
Only truth.
The True Alpha stood beside them in wolf form, larger than life, silent witness.
Averie heart raced.she had waited for this moment for long, she wanted to finally own this man in front of her without any opposition and it was finally possible.
Myrra raised the ceremonial blade.
“Do you accept the bond that was written in fire, broken by lies, and forged again in truth?”
“I do,” Averie whispered.
“Always,” Kaelen replied.
And as they pressed their palms together, magic surged through the ground like a heartbeat. Roots bloomed with light. The flame mark split in two — forming a twin crest between them.
Averie had never felt so whole.
Until—
“You defy the laws of the Old Moon!”
---
Alpha Rowen of the Cragstone Pack — once a High Council hopeful — burst into the sacred ring, flanked by guards and a scroll.
Averie did not flinch. But Kaelen growled low.
“You weren’t invited,” Averie said calmly.
Rowen sneered. “And yet I arrived. Because unlike others, I still respect the laws of mating bonds.”
He unrolled the scroll — aged parchment, burned at the edges.
“The Rite of Binding states that only those recognized by the Moon as bonded may carry the Flame of Sovereignty. You,” he pointed at Kaelen, “stole it.”
Gasps echoed.
Rowen turned to the crowd.
“She was meant for another. The bond was manipulated. Stolen. And now, others have begun mimicking her sin.”
That’s when he said it:
“Another girl was found this morning.
Her scent… taken.”
The celebration ended in chaos.everyone whispering and uncertain about what they heard
By dawn, Averie stood at the infirmary edge, staring down at a trembling girl no older than sixteen. Her clothes were torn, her eyes wild. But her scent…
There was none.
Not muted.
Not changed.
Completely erased.
Averie stepped closer.
The girl flinched.
Kaelen stood behind her, tense.
“Who did this to you?” Averie asked softly.
The girl shook her head.
“They said… I smelled like you. They said… you ruined fate. And now we all have to pay.”
Averie’s breath caught.
Rowen had said others were “mimicking” her crime.
But what if they weren’t mimicking?
What if someone was harvesting scent magic?
Weaponizing it.
And framing her.
---
That night, Averie sat beside Kaelen, eyes wide open under a sky gone cloudy.
“They’re using my name,” she whispered. “To hurt girls. To unmake bonds.”
Kaelen took her hand.
“They fear you. And now they want to turn the world against you.”
She turned to him.
“Then we turn the world upside down.”
----
Averie stood at the edge of the forest where the scentless girl had been found. The moon hung low behind a curtain of storm clouds, its light smothered — like the scent trails in the dirt.
Myrra knelt beside her, fingers brushing across dead grass and charred stone.
“There’s spell residue,” she said. “Old blood, burnt herbs, and… something else.”
Kaelen sniffed the air. “Moonbane.”
Averie’s spine stiffened.
Moonbane was forbidden. A plant that could nullify scent… and spirit. Only the Old Tribunal had access to it.
Someone wasn’t just erasing bonds.
They were rewriting reality.
Averie rose slowly. “Find the spellcaster. Follow the residue. I don’t care if it leads into the grave.”
---
By dusk, she was in the archives.
Elder Liora unlocked the sealed chamber reluctantly, her silver eyes wary.
“These scrolls haven’t been touched in decades,” she said.
Averie spread the ancient parchment on the table.
It was worse than she thought.
The Moon Decrees stated: “A bond formed outside divine design shall be called False Flame. Its bearers may not hold sovereign mark, nor pass power to blood.”
That was the law Rowen was clinging to.
But deeper in the scroll, Averie found a forgotten clause — one scratched in smaller ink.
“Unless the bond is reforged by celestial flame, before blood is shared or fate is broken.”
She whispered it aloud. “Before blood is shared…”
Kaelen stepped into the chamber.
“We haven’t completed the bond yet,” he said. “We can still do this. The right way.”
Averie touched the scroll.
“No. We’ll do it our way.”
---
A message arrived the next morning.
Sealed in glacier-wax. Frostvale’s crest stamped in obsidian.
It read:
To the Flameborn Alpha,
You are cordially invited to the Summit of Sovereigns —
where new laws shall be cast.
And justice… finally served.
Signed, Luna Selene of Frostvale.
Kaelen frowned. “That’s not a request. That’s a warning.”
Myrra entered with fresh intelligence. “Selene’s been gathering broken-bond wolves from border packs. She’s calling them ‘The Rewritten.’ She claims scent magic should be freely accessible — that fate is a prison.”
Averie went cold.
“She wants to legalize scent theft.”
Myrra nodded. “And she’s coming for your title"
That night, Averie stood beneath the moon once more, her hands glowing with emberlight.
“I was never meant to rule,” she whispered to the stars. “But I will.”
Kaelen stepped beside her, holding the ancient scroll, now marked in red.
“Then let’s burn the old world down.”
---
Held in the ancient amphitheater of Hollowmoon Crag, the Summit gathered leaders from across the territories. Old alphas in ceremonial hides. New Luna-mates crowned in polished silver. The scent of dominance and tension ran thick in the air.
Averie entered in silence.
She wore no crown, no sigil — only the twin flame marks branded on her collarbones. Kaelen flanked her. Myrra followed in battle armor.
At the summit’s center stood Luna Selene.
She was winter incarnate — ice-pale skin, long silver braids, and a dress of sapphire velvet that shimmered like frost.
“Welcome, Flameborn,” Selene purred. “I see you bring your lover instead of law.”
Murmurs echoed.
Averie smiled — slow, lethal. “And I see you brought ambition without a leash.”
Selene stepped forward.
“The Moon Decrees were written to protect fate. But you, Averie, have broken it. I propose a new law:
Let scent magic be shared — not shackled. Let bonds be chosen, not assigned.”
Rowen stood and clapped slowly.
Averie’s voice rang clear:
“You don’t want choice. You want control. You don’t free wolves — you erase them.”
Gasps.
But Selene only smiled. “Then come see for yourself. Come to Frostvale… if you dare.”
----
Two nights later, Averie and Kaelen slipped past the Frostvale border under a cloaking spell.
What they saw chilled them more than snow.
Rows of young wolves stood in training fields — scentless, bound by crystal collars that pulsed with dull blue light. Eyes blank. Emotions dulled.
Kaelen whispered, “They’re… empty.”
Myrra whispered back, “Not scentless. Suppressed.”
Averie’s hands curled into fists.
Then they saw her.
The girl from before — the first victim — standing with new confidence… and no scent.
“They call it The Rebirth,” she said to the others. “Selene saved me. My soul is clean now. No fate. No pain.”
Averie turned away, her heart fracturing.
This wasn’t freedom.
It was brainwashing.
-----
Far from Highfang, beneath the Ruins of Gravemark, two figures met under clouded moonlight.
Selene removed her hood.
Rowen offered her a vial of golden light — stolen scent essence.
“More from the girl?” she asked.
Rowen smirked. “From several. The Rewritten are spreading. We’ll have fifty by the next moon.”
She uncorked the vial. Magic shivered through the air.
“It’s almost ready,” she said. “The ritual to erase the Flameborn’s bond. To make her scent vanish like the rest.”
“And when it does?” Rowen asked.
Selene’s eyes burned silver.
“Then we crown me Alpha of Alphas.
And burn the Moon to the ground.”
- Writer
