A Bound That Burns
1115 Words
Chapter Three: A Bond That Burns
Elara – POV
We broke camp before the sky even lightened, the air brittle and cold enough to bite.
Kael hadn’t spoken much. Not after the fire died. Not after the bond flared between us and refused to quiet. I hadn’t slept, but I’d stopped pretending to rest. He must have noticed—I caught him watching me once, in that near-dawn stillness, his jaw tight and unreadable.
We traveled in silence, weaving through pine and frost-heavy brush. I stayed a few steps behind him, not because I trusted him to lead, but because I didn’t want to look at his back and imagine the mark mirrored there. I didn’t want to see the thread that now tethered our lives.
“How far to the next outpost?” I asked finally.
Kael didn’t stop walking. “A day. Maybe less if we move fast.”
“And what happens when we get there? You hand me over to your war council like some cursed trophy?”
“If that were the plan,” he said without looking back, “I’d have let you die last night.”
I clenched my teeth. “You’re still acting like you get to make decisions for me.”
“I don’t. But neither do you. That’s the problem.”
The bond pulsed faintly between us again, as if hearing its name.
I hated how aware I’d become of his presence. Of every step he took. Every breath. I didn’t want to feel it. Him.
But I did.
We reached the ravine just before midday. It cut a jagged line through the forest floor, wide and steep, with a crumbling wooden bridge suspended over a roaring stream far below. Kael hesitated at the edge.
“I’ve seen this before,” he said quietly.
“More bad memories?” I asked, too bitter.
He didn’t answer. He just motioned for me to cross first.
I took one step onto the bridge—then froze.
Something moved in the trees across the gorge.
“Kael,” I said slowly, “do you see—”
Arrows rained from above.
I ducked, heart hammering, just as the first one thudded into the tree behind me. Kael yanked me backward, shoving me to the ground as another arrow sliced through the air where my head had been.
“Ambush!” he snarled.
Two wolves leapt from the trees on the far side of the ravine—both Blackfang, both snarling. They shifted mid-air, landing as half-clothed warriors with blades drawn.
“This wasn’t from your pack?” I hissed, drawing the dagger I’d hidden in my boot.
Kael bared his teeth. “Not mine. Exiles. Rogues.”
They came fast.
Kael shifted in a blink, his form snapping into that monstrous silver wolf again. I didn’t wait—I rushed the first rogue before he could flank us, blade singing through the cold air. He parried fast, too fast, and I realized with a sick twist of fear that he’d trained with someone like Kael.
His blade grazed my ribs. I hissed and spun away—right into Kael’s path as he launched at the second attacker.
Our shoulders collided.
And everything lit up.
A bolt of white-hot fire tore through me from the point of contact. Kael yelped—no, roared—and veered off-course, crashing into the snow as if struck by lightning. I stumbled, vision flashing, limbs trembling with aftershock.
The bond had reacted.
Not just a burn.
An explosion.
“Dammit—stay back!” Kael growled from the ground, fur bristling, steam rising from his mark.
“I didn’t do it on purpose!”
The rogue lunged at me again. I parried, barely holding him off. My body still vibrated from the bond’s backlash.
Kael surged to his feet and tackled the second attacker, fangs sinking deep into his shoulder. Blood sprayed, hot and fast. The rogue screamed and twisted, but Kael didn’t let go.
I slammed the hilt of my blade into my opponent’s throat. He gagged, stumbled. I drove my knee into his stomach, then swept his legs from under him. He hit the ground hard.
For a second, everything was quiet but the sound of the stream below and the ragged breathing between us.
Kael stood over the mangled body of the second rogue. His muzzle was stained red. He shifted slowly, painfully, back into his human form. His shoulders were heaving, and there was blood on his side—but not his.
“You’re bleeding,” he said, pointing to my ribs.
“So are you.”
We stared at each other.
Then he said, “You felt it again. The bond.”
“Like being struck by lightning,” I muttered.
“We can’t fight side by side,” he said, voice tight.
“Or touch,” I added.
He nodded, then turned away, dragging the bodies to the ravine’s edge.
I watched him work. Watched the precision. The muscle. The blood.
Watched the weight he carried like armour.
He didn’t speak again until the corpses were gone and the trail was quiet.
“They were aiming for you,” he said. “Not me.”
My throat tightened. “How can you tell?”
“The arrows. The timing. The way they flanked. They weren’t trying to take out both of us—they wanted you dead, and me alive enough to drag back.”
“Why?”
Kael’s eyes flicked toward me. “Because if you die, the curse ends. And my people still think you’re the one who brought it.”
I sat down slowly, the chill of the snow soaking through my boots.
“So we’re trapped,” I whispered. “Running from people who want me dead, bound by something that wants us dead if we get too close.”
Kael’s gaze settled on the mark glowing faintly between my collarbone and wrist.
“We need answers,” he said. “Real ones. From someone who understands what this bond is. Who cursed it? Why did it choose us.”
“And if there are no answers?”
He was quiet for a long time. Then he said, “Then we die. One of us first. Then the other.”
I didn’t shiver.
I’d stopped feeling the cold.
But as we moved back into the forest, our steps slower, our bodies aching, I felt something else settle into my bones.
Not dread.
Resolve.
If this bond wanted to kill us, it would have to work harder.
Because I wasn’t dying for a curse.
And I sure as hell wasn’t dying for Kael Blackfang.
- Writer
