Bound by Moonlight

The Bond

Chapter 6: The Bond

Thorne’s POV

I was standing over the northern patrol maps, arguing quietly with Corin about a border expansion when it hit me.

Pain.

Not mine.

Sharp. Searing. Alive.

My breath caught mid-sentence. My fingers curled around the edge of the table. My wolf howled from within.

“Thorne?” Corin’s voice snapped to alert, hand reaching out. “What is it—?”

I didn’t answer.

Couldn’t.

The feeling tore through my spine — not physical pain, but the echo of it. It lanced across my back like fire, like—

A whip.

I staggered back a step. My heart thundered in my chest.

She’s hurting.

Not just hurting — being punished. Tortured. Somewhere far from me.

“It’s her,” I growled, voice low, guttural.

Corin stiffened. “Your mate?”

I nodded once, eyes burning. “She’s alive. She’s in pain. I can feel it.”

My wolf clawed at the inside of my skin, wild, restless.

Find her! he roared. Now!

But the bond was still new. Still weak. Only a thread — a faint tether through distance and silence. Not enough to track.

Not yet.

But it was real.

After years of searching, after silent prayers and sleepless nights — she existed. And she was suffering.

“I need silence,” I barked. Everyone backed off instantly. Even Corin.

I closed my eyes. Breathed. Reached.

Nothing but that flicker.

Faint. Flickering. Bleeding.

My jaw clenched as I opened my eyes. “Prepare the scouts. Send them north. I don’t care how wide we have to search.”

“You don’t even know what pack—”

“I’ll know when we’re close.” My voice was like steel. Final.

Because the second the bond fully snaps in place?

There won’t be a force in the world that can keep me from her.

—

I barely made it up the stairs before the second wave hit.

Not physical pain this time — but something worse.

Grief.

Raw. Bleeding. Terrifying in its depth.

I stumbled against the wall, one hand braced on the stone as the emotion tore through me like a storm. My breath came in ragged pulls. My wolf thrashed behind my ribs, howling, wild.

This wasn’t mine.

It was hers.

Fear. Shame. Rage. But above all — grief.

It was buried deep, old but never healed. Something that had broken her… and hadn’t been allowed to mend.

Images flickered in my head — too fast to see clearly. Fire. Blood. A scream.

Then—

Hands bound. Knees on stone. The sound of leather cracking against flesh.

I felt my entire body tense as the echo of her pain wrapped around my spine. I could barely breathe.

She was remembering something. Reliving it.

And I was inside it with her.

The bond had cracked wide open.

Then — faint, distant — a single thought pushed through, not words, but emotion turned shape:

Why didn’t I die with them?

My breath stopped.

She had wanted to die. After whatever happened to her... after her parents—

Goddess.

I staggered back into my room and slammed the door shut. My knees hit the floor. My hands gripped the edge of my bed hard enough to splinter the frame.

Then it came.

Her voice.

A whisper, barely a breath across the bond, broken and confused.

“…Why does it feel like someone’s listening…?”

I exhaled shakily. My chest burned.

“Because I am,” I whispered into the silence, not knowing if she could hear me yet. “I hear you. I’m coming.”

Then, like a flicker of light in endless darkness—

A name.

Soft. Thought, not spoken.

Kaia.

And I knew.

That was her.

My mate had a name.

And now that the bond had spoken it to me… no one would hide her from me again.

I sat on the edge of my bed, breathing like I’d just come off the battlefield. My hands trembled — not from fear, not from weakness, but from something I’d never felt before.

Connection.

Not fleeting.

Not imagined.

Real. Unshakable. Hers.

Kaia.

That name hadn’t come from anywhere. I hadn’t dreamed it, or made it up. The bond whispered it — threaded it into my soul like it had been waiting for the right moment.

And the wildest part?

We hadn’t even met.

No scent.

No eyes locking across a room.

No touch, no words, no stolen glances under moonlight.

And yet — she was already buried in my veins.

Her pain burned through me.

Her fear echoed in my ribcage.

And when she questioned whether someone was listening, I felt it like a whisper against my skin.

“Why does it feel like someone’s there…?”

Because I am.

Because this bond, whatever the Goddess forged between us, defied logic. It didn’t need a first meeting. It didn’t wait for timing.

It just was.

Unfiltered. Immediate. Absolute.

I clenched my fists.

What kind of hell had she been surviving in — alone — while I walked free, not knowing her name?

A low growl rumbled from my chest. My wolf pressed closer, already wanting to find her, protect her, claim what was his.

But I held him back.

Not yet.

Soon.

I looked toward the window, where the moon still hung heavy in the sky — her symbol.

“If this is what the bond feels like before we’ve even touched…” I murmured, voice low, rough,

“then the world won’t survive what happens when we finally do.”

—