Chapter 3 The Breaking

• Raelin’s POV
• The forest doesn’t care that I’ve been rejected.
• It doesn’t care about Luna ceremonies or bleeding hearts or the way silk rips on thorns when you run through the trees like your soul’s on fire.
• The moon watches, silent. The wind whispers, but doesn’t comfort.
• I should’ve stayed. Fought. Screamed.
• But I couldn’t.
• I couldn’t breathe in that place. Couldn’t look at Mira draped around him like she didn’t just steal everything I’d worked for. Couldn’t stand another pair of eyes pitying me like I was something less now.
• So I ran.
• And I haven’t stopped.
• My bare feet are numb. My lungs burn. The dress is in tatters. The silver thread meant to crown me now glints like a mockery down my arms. The only thing I feel is the bond, still straining in my chest like a thread stretched too tight—
• —and then it snaps.
• No.
• Not snapped.
• Burns.
• The pain hits fast and brutal, sharp enough to make my knees buckle. My breath rips out of me in a broken sob as I clutch my chest. It’s searing. Agonizing. Like claws inside me raking through my ribs.
• My head drops forward and I know.
• I know.
• Darius is having sex with her.
• The bond reacts like it’s being set on fire. My skin pulses with rejection. My core aches in hollow betrayal. I feel him inside her. Not physically—not quite—but spiritually. Through the tie that still binds us.
• Every thrust, every groan, every second he sinks deeper into Mira—
• It all feels like knives to the gut.
• I scream.
• It rips through the trees, raw and ragged. My hands dig into the dirt as my body shakes violently.
• I should’ve severed the bond.
• I should’ve left before the ceremony.
• I should’ve never loved him.
• Another wave of pain tears through me. I collapse onto my side, gasping, eyes blurring with tears I won’t let fall.
• But they do.
• They stream down my cheeks, hot and silent.
• He didn’t even wait.
• He wanted me to feel this.
• Another moan echoes in my chest—not mine. Mira’s. Sharp and high. The bond flares again and I cry out. I curl into myself, clutching my stomach as if it’ll stop the bleeding inside me.
• I’m dying.
• It feels like dying.
• And then something shifts.
• Not the bond.
• Not the pain.
• Me.
• A heat rises beneath the agony—not physical, but ancient. Something thick and dark and powerful begins to stir in my veins. Like a second heartbeat. Like a voice rising through bone.
• It doesn’t soothe the pain.
• It feeds on it.
• My fingers dig deeper into the soil. My nails lengthen. My pulse slows. The white wolf inside me, quiet for so long, awakens—and it does not weep.
• It growls.
• I don’t know what’s happening. My limbs tremble. My back arches. The trees blur and flicker, and the air turns thick with energy I’ve never felt before.
• Then—
• Movement.
• I freeze, heart lurching.
• A figure stands just beyond the tree line. Tall. Broad-shouldered. Cloaked in shadow and moonlight. He’s not part of my pack. I would’ve known. This man radiates something different—older, colder, and somehow… stronger.
• He steps forward once, and I see him clearly now.
• Black clothing. Storm-dark eyes. A silver ring on his thumb. A face like carved stone.
• Caelan Wolfe.
• Alpha of the Nightborn Pack.
• What the hell is he doing here?
• My breath stutters. I try to move. To rise. To shift.
• But the pain comes again—sharp and final. The last echo of Darius and Mira tangled together in my bond.
• I collapse with a ragged sound, my vision cracking like glass.
• Caelan doesn’t run to me.
• He doesn’t flinch.
• But his gaze never leaves mine.
• And then—
• Darkness.