Bleeding Bonds
987 Words
The night Sol arrived, Calla didn't sleep.
The moon passed overhead in silence, watching her with a silver eye that offered no answers. She lay in bed, curled on her side, facing the balcony doors where the forest whispered beyond the glass.
She could still feel Sol’s gaze on her skin.
Still hear the way he’d said her name without saying it.
The mark on her neck pulsed with a low, steady thrum—not pain, not quite—but pressure. Awareness. As if something tethered her to the stranger beyond the woods.
Or someone.
And it wasn’t going to let go.
---
At dawn, she left.
She didn’t tell Riven. Couldn’t. Not after the way he’d looked at her—wounded, possessive, like her choices were knives in his chest. He wouldn’t understand this pull. He couldn’t.
But Calla needed the truth.
She followed the path east, past the Spine, past the salt rings, to where the trees grew too tall and the shadows too thick.
The forest welcomed her.
The trees parted without touch. The wind quieted.
And Sol was waiting.
He sat on a mossy rock by a stream, barefoot, his boots beside him. His head was bowed, arms resting on his knees.
“You came,” he said without looking up.
“I shouldn’t have,” she replied.
“But you did.”
She stepped closer. “I need answers. Real ones. Not riddles. Not dreams.”
Sol finally met her eyes.
“Then sit, Calla. And remember with me.”
---
He held out his hand.
She hesitated—then took it.
The moment their skin met, fire licked through her veins. Golden light flared. The forest around them faded into nothing.
She was somewhere else.
Not dreaming. Not awake. A memory plane.
She stood in a palace of obsidian stone. The sky above was red with falling stars. She wore a gown of black feathers and a crown of antlers. And Sol—he stood beside her, older, hardened, dressed in armor carved with runes.
They were standing before a throne.
On it, a man with eyes like ice and a mouth full of fangs.
“You betray your kind,” the man snarled. “For her?”
“She is my kind,” Sol growled. “She is balance.”
Calla felt the weight of power hum beneath her skin. She was not just Moonblood. She was something more. A weapon. A queen. A curse.
And Sol had chosen her.
---
The memory shattered.
They were back by the stream, breathing hard.
Calla pulled her hand away, trembling. “What was that?”
“Our past,” Sol said. “One of many. We were born over and over. Each time, we find each other. Each time, we try to change fate. But each time… we fail.”
She looked at him. “Why?”
“Because the world isn’t ready for us. Because love that strong... terrifies the gods.”
Calla rose to her feet. “You’re saying we were lovers.”
“No,” Sol said quietly. “We were everything.”
She turned away. “And now?”
“Now,” he said, rising, “you belong to someone else. And your soul is splitting because of it.”
Her back stiffened.
“I made a choice,” she said. “I chose Riven.”
Sol didn’t argue.
But he didn’t move.
“When the time comes,” he said, “you’ll have to choose again. And this time, it won’t just be about love. It’ll be about the world.”
She faced him. “You expect me to walk away from my mate?”
“No,” Sol said. “I expect you to decide who you really are. And what you're willing to destroy to survive.”
A wind rushed through the trees, howling like wolves in mourning.
Calla turned and left without another word.
But as she walked, the tears on her cheeks burned like gold.
---
Back at Thornveil, Riven stood at the window, watching the forest.
He knew she was gone.
And this time, he wasn’t sure she’d come back to him the same.
The council had begun to murmur behind closed doors. Whispers of the second Moonblood, of unstable magic, of a bond that threatened to undo the Alpha’s rule.
One of the betas—Ronan—approached Riven with a scroll clenched in his hand.
“My lord,” he said, lowering his voice. “There are rumors from the southern packs. A new fire has risen in the wildlands. They say... they say it has her name on it.”
Riven snatched the scroll and read. His fists clenched.
A symbol had been carved into the heart of a sacred tree.
Calla’s symbol. The spiral of flame.
He turned to the window again. His voice was low.
“She’s being claimed by something else.”
Ronan hesitated. “What will you do?”
Riven’s voice was cold. “I’ll remind her who she belongs to.”
But even as he said it, doubt coiled inside him like a living thing.
---
Calla returned by dusk.
Her face was pale, her lips bruised from biting back what she couldn’t say. She slipped through the manor like a ghost, ignoring the way everyone stared.
She didn’t stop at her room.
She went straight to the library—the forbidden wing.
Ancient tomes lined the shelves, bound in leather that whispered when touched. She pulled out one marked in gold.
It hummed in her hand.
Inside was a single passage, handwritten in ancient script:
Moonblood is not a gift. It is a reckoning. It awakens only when the world needs correction—and it demands a price.
Calla closed the book slowly.
And for the first time, she wondered if her destiny was not to be loved—but to be feared.
- Writer
