Chapter Five: The Awakening Bond
1408 Words
As Liora ran, she felt the world whiz by her; trees and whatever else they crashed into blurred together. Kael was insensible, but she did not leave him, but kept dragging him with her utmost effort.
Her arms ached, her legs could hardly carry her, and flames were in her throat, but she was moving. The wolf pack raged after her. Their fierce barking dogged her every second making it feel like they were just behind her.
The light of the moon dispersed down to the ground through the trees, forming a broken pattern.From the place where the creature had hurt him, as an obvious sign of it, Kael was bleeding, his skin turned icier still, and there were drops of sweat all over his skin. She put down two fingers to check his pulse and although she could feel it, it was very weak.
At last, he did not let her down. Once more. As though she had been entirely through with him, he had not lost faith in her and had intervened in her favor, knowing it was Selene who had confronted her. The thought itself caused her to step on in a more perfect way.
“A little more,” she gasped, hardly louder than the wind and the sound of the breakage of some branches behind.
A mile back, she had seen an old stone marker along the ridge, one she had found in an ancient hunting map from her university library's archive. If her memory serves her right, there was a hunters' outpost far inside this forest which was left abandoned after the big fire about thirty years ago.
One more step, another one. Kael’s boots dragged behind her, but he didn’t stir.
She put her hand on his forehead and pleaded, “Please, just hold on”.
Finally, between a fallen pine and the damp and spongy earth, there was the house, if it could be called one, which was half stuck into the hill and that was also almost entirely covered with ivy.
The wooden roof was terribly in a bad condition, and one shutter was coquetry banging in the wind, yet it was the only refuge. She had found nothing else in the place. She leaned Kael against the wall and tugged the creaky door open, then she pulled him in and followed. As she went down on her knees, the dust choked her making her cough and wave the air.
In the far corner was a rusty cot. Tools, ancient traps and bags of feed that were rotting could be seen scattered against the back wall. She set him down on the cot as lightly as she was able and tore a strip off her ragged gown to compress against his bleeding torn flesh.
He moaned. Low. His fingers twitched. It was the very only evidence she had that he was actually still with her.
“Kael,” she said, and brushed a damp lock of hair from his brow. “You need to wake up. I won’t lose you. Not now.”
Her hands were shaking. No modern medical equipment. No herbs. Nothing sterile. She ripped open her satchel and discovered that it contained nothing of use but only her research notes, a flashlight, a lighter, and the first-aid kit she ever carried. Wolfsbane antidote wasn’t one of its components but eventually she could stall its effects.
Ripping open an alcohol pad, she dabbed the wound. Kael jerked and growled, eyes cracking open just a bit; his unfocused gaze met hers.
"It's all right," she whispered. "You are safe with me. I have got you."
She watched his chest rise and fall, heavy and ragged. The mate bond was pulsing--sharply now. Tingling ran down her side where her skin had touched his, and a dull throbbing pain filled in the center of her chest. It was not just fear. It was him. She was feeling his pain: his fear, and his last strength.
Yet it struck her quite severely.
Her head beat against the wall as she leaned against it, and it seemed fire was flowing through her veins. Even the world around her seemed to go soft, and she managed to glimpse, in a couple of seconds, miscellaneous fragments of remembrance unattributable to herself--blood red snow, a blazing council fire, Kael in chains before a ring of roving wolves.
“What is this?” she inquired in a whisper, since pressing her hand before her face.
The bond.
It was awakening more than just emotion. It was trying to connect their minds. Their souls.
Kael groaned again, his voice rough. “Don’t… let them… take you.”
“I won’t,” she said quickly, scooting to his side and gripping his hand. “You’re safe, but you need help.”
“No one… no one will help us,” he rasped, eyes barely open. “Selene… She's not finished. She wants the throne.”
“I know. I saw it in her eyes.”
He coughed, the sound wet and painful. “Two days… I have two days…”
Liora leaned closer. “Then we’ll make those two days count. You must fight Kael. Please.”
There was then a low growl outside. She turned her head to the window, started up with uncertain legs and looked round the c***k. Something, that moved on the far side of the clearing; a shadow. Her breathing was caught. Two yellow eyes flaming back at her glared through the gloom.
Not one of Selene’s. Not Torin.
This wolf was smaller, leaner, with a fresh wound across its shoulder than the one Kael had slashed earlier in the cave. The one that had escaped.
And now it had found her.
The wolf howled once, loud and piercing. A signal.
More were coming.
“Damn it,” she whispered, grabbing the flashlight and slamming the shack’s door closed. She shoved one of the old feed bags against it, then ran back to Kael and checked the wound. He was barely conscious again.
“We’re out of time,” she whispered.
A creak on the roof. Then another. They were surrounding the shack.
Liora clutched Kael’s dagger from his belt, the handle slick with blood. She pressed it to her chest and took a deep breath.
She would fight. If they got through, she would not go down quietly.
The door shuddered. A claw swiped across the wood.
Step by step Liora retreated, her trembling legs holding fast. The connection continued to throb inside her, murmuring words she could not make out, yet she had no time to stop and ask questions.
A second impact against the door. A third.
The latch cracked.
Then suddenly, a loud voice rang from the shadows.
“That’s enough!”
The wolves halted. There was load thick silence in the night.
Footsteps were coming toward her, and Liora felt her heart beat quicker. The door opened only an inch and then there was a face sharp, familiar, half in the shadow.
Rhydian? she sniffed, her eyes opened wide.
He entered, in clothes wet with the storm, his face impassive.
And he said calmly, I heard the howls. They walked straight to you.
She held the dagger harder. Is thou on their side?
No, he replied, shutting the door behind his back with his hand. But soon we must go, or they will rave this place to pieces.
She looked over at Kael. “He is extremely injured with Wolfsbane.”
Rhydian’s jaw tightened. “Of course Selene would use that.”
Liora hesitated, then moved aside. “Can you help him?”
He knelt beside Kael, his eyes scanning the wound. “Maybe. But not here.”
She looked at him with wide, uncertain eyes. “Why are you helping us?”
His eyes flicked to her, and for a moment, they softened. “Because I made a mistake once. And I’m not about to make another.”
Outside, the wolves had gone silent but the danger hadn’t passed.
Rhydian turned toward her, his voice low.
“We need to go. And we need to go now.”
But as he stepped forward, Kael stirred, grabbing Rhydian’s wrist with surprising strength.
His voice was weak, but the warning was clear.
“Don’t… trust him…”
Liora froze, her heart torn in two directions.
And outside, another howl echoed through the woods, this time closer. Too close.
- Writer
