Unclaimed Bonds

CHAPTER 10

Unclaimed No More

Two months later the rumors still swirled through both packs like smoke that refused to clear no matter how many windows were opened.

Lila heard them in fragments—overheard conversations in the pack house kitchen, careful silences when she entered a room, the occasional pointed stare from a visiting wolf who had crossed the border from Blackwood territory. The broken first bond. The stepbrother who had claimed her in secret and then lost her in the most public, painful way possible. The Alpha who had waited years in silence and then simply opened his door when she needed somewhere to land. Some called their relationship unnatural. Others called it inevitable. A few of the older wolves simply nodded and said that the moon had a way of correcting what had been broken.

Lila and Ronan stopped listening.

The decision hadn’t come all at once. It had settled slowly, the way the new bond itself had settled—quiet mornings in the kitchen, long runs through the Silver Ridge forests, evenings on the back porch when the only sound was wind in the pines and the distant call of patrol wolves. At some point the weight of other people’s opinions had simply become background noise. What mattered lived between the two of them, steady and private and real.

On a clear autumn night the full moon rose fat and silver over the treeline. Ronan found her on the porch as the last of the daylight faded, already dressed for the run in dark clothes she could shed easily. He didn’t speak. He only held out his hand. Lila took it, and together they walked into the forest until the lights of the pack house disappeared behind them.

They shifted at the edge of a wide clearing.

The change came over Lila more smoothly than it had in the early weeks. Her wolf rose eager and strong, no longer weighed down by the constant howl of a broken bond. Dark fur, quick feet, senses sharp enough to catch the faintest scent on the wind. Beside her, Ronan’s wolf was larger—deep gray, powerful, eyes the same steady green even in animal form. He nudged her shoulder once with his muzzle, then broke into a run.

They ran together under the full moon, side by side, paws finding the earth in perfect rhythm. The air was cold and clean. Leaves silvered by moonlight blurred beneath them. Lila stretched into the speed, letting her wolf take full control for the first time in months, and felt the new bond between them pulse warm and bright with every stride. It no longer felt fragile. It felt like something that had been waiting years to settle into place and had finally been allowed to root.

They ran until the moon was high and the forest began to slope toward the river. At the water’s edge they slowed, sides heaving, breath misting in the chill. Ronan shifted first, rising into human form with the easy grace of long practice. Lila followed a moment later, skin flushed from the run, the cold air sharp against her overheated body. He pulled her against him before she could fully catch her breath, one arm around her waist, the other hand cradling the back of her head.

“They’re never going to stop talking,” he said, voice warm with quiet amusement and something deeper underneath.

Lila smiled into his shoulder. “Let them.”

She tilted her face up and kissed him slowly, thoroughly, with every ounce of certainty she possessed. The new bond pulsed between them—no longer frantic, no longer desperate or edged with fear and the ghosts of old pain. Simply true. Simply theirs. When they finally parted, Ronan rested his forehead against hers and breathed her in like he still couldn’t quite believe she was real.

“I used to think I would spend the rest of my life waiting,” he said quietly. “I had accepted it. Then you walked through my door looking like the world had ended, and I realized I would have waited another decade if that was what it took.”

Lila’s throat tightened. She reached up and traced the line of his jaw with her fingertips. “I’m glad you didn’t have to.”

They stayed by the river until the cold began to sink into their skin, then shifted again and ran the long way back to the pack house. The return felt different—less urgent, more companionable. Their wolves moved in easy synchrony, occasionally brushing shoulders, the bond humming contentedly between them. By the time they reached the edge of the trees and shifted back, the pack house windows glowed with warm light and the scent of woodsmoke drifted on the air.

Most of the pack had already returned from their own runs. A few wolves called quiet greetings as Lila and Ronan crossed the grounds. No one stared. No one whispered—at least not where they could hear. The novelty of her presence had faded over the weeks into something closer to acceptance. She was no longer the broken outsider who had arrived in the middle of the night. She was simply Lila, the woman their Alpha had chosen, and the pack was slowly adjusting to the reality of it.

Inside, the kitchen was still warm. Ronan poured two mugs of tea while Lila pulled on one of his discarded shirts against the chill. They sat at the island the way they had so many nights before, knees brushing, the silence comfortable.

“I heard from my mother today,” Lila said after a while. “She’s… trying. She wants me to come back for a visit. Not to stay. Just to talk.”

Ronan looked at her over the rim of his mug. “Do you want to?”

“I don’t know yet.” She wrapped both hands around the warm ceramic. “Part of me still feels like walking back into that house would reopen everything. Another part thinks I need to see it one more time. On my terms.”

He nodded. “Whenever you decide, I’ll go with you if you want. Or I’ll wait here. Your choice.”

The easy way he offered—without pressure, without making it about him—still caught her off guard sometimes. She reached across the island and laced her fingers through his. “I’ll let you know.”

Later, in the quiet of his room, Lila lay against his chest and listened to the steady beat of his heart. The broken place where Kane’s bond had lived was still there if she looked for it, a faint scar rather than an open wound. It no longer defined her. The new bond pulsed warm and sure beneath her skin, deeper than the first one had ever been, built on choice instead of frantic recognition alone.

“I’m not unclaimed anymore,” she said into the dark.

Ronan’s arm tightened around her. “No. You’re not.”

Outside the window the full moon continued its slow arc across the sky. Somewhere in the forest a wolf called, and another answered. Lila closed her eyes and let the sound settle into her bones. Whatever the world threw at them next—rumors, politics, disapproving stares, the weight of other people’s opinions—they would hold on tighter.

And if they were ever forced apart by circumstances beyond their control, the pull would bring them home again.

Every single time.