Page 46 of To Carve A Wolf

I was alone. Bound. Still burning with the ghost of his teeth in my neck.

CHAPTER 15

Andros

I left her there for three days. Not out of cruelty, though I knew she'd scream it from the rooftops if she had the strength, but because I had to.

The last rune had broken with such violent force that even my wolf had gone still in its aftermath, ears flattened, tail low. Not in fear of her, but in pain with her. Bonds didn’t lie. I felt it deep, even with the fractures. She was unravelling, raw and flayed from the inside, caught between the woman she pretended to be and the wolf she’d spent years trying to kill.

She wasn't safe. So yes. I left her.

But I checked on her. Every night. Every morning. Quiet, unseen, watching from the shadows as the fever burned through her veins, as the flush of her skin deepened, as her breath came shallow, twitching under the blankets.

I had food sent—light meals, fruits and broth, meat onlywhen she stopped trembling. A healer came once, not to touch her, just to look. She told me what I already knew. The magic had taken its toll. Her body was fighting to readjust.

Eventually, she came back to herself. Not fully. But enough. The first time I saw her sit upright again, her wrists still red from the bindings, she glared at the guard like she wanted to kill him for breathing. That was when I gave the order to untie her.

Dain, of course, had asked about her constantly. He slipped questions into every conversation, tugged on every sleeve he passed in the halls, poked at every cook and servant with big, worried eyes.

“Where’s Lexi?”

“Why can’t I see her?”

“Did she get sick again?”

And I couldn’t let him see her. Not yet. Not like that.

So I made sure he was entertained, looked after, challenged enough to keep his mind busy and his feet too tired to go sneaking where he shouldn’t.

I even joined the pups' training one morning—something I hadn’t done in a long time. They were out in the lower yard, wooden blades and breath puffing like steam in the crisp morning air.

Dain was among them, smaller than the rest but quicker, his steps sharp, eager to learn. I stood with Garrick at the edge of the yard, watching the sparring matches unfold with half a mind while the rest of me drifted—back to her, as always.

During one of the breaks, Dain jogged over, sweat on his brow and excitement lighting his face.

“I’m gonna be the best warrior this pack’s ever seen,” he declared proudly, squaring his little shoulders like they could already carry armour.

I gave him a nod, arms crossed. “If you keep training the way you do, I don’t doubt it.”

He grinned, wide and full of something pure I rarely saw anymore. Then he ran back to his friends, picking up his sword with renewed purpose.

Beside me, Garrick exhaled through his nose. “How do you tell a human boy,” he asked quietly, “that he’ll never really be part of the pack?”

There was no venom in it. Just truth.

“Or do you think Lexa plans to turn him when he’s older?”

“Lexa?” I scoffed. “She doesn’t even want to be a wolf herself. She’d probably let herself rot before she ever turned someone else.”

Garrick looked at me sideways. “So what then? He trains. He bleeds for the crest. But he never belongs.”

“Maybe,” I said. “Maybe that’s all he’ll get.”

But my thoughts had already drifted back to her.

To the quiet pulse of the bond between us—wrong, distorted, bent under the pressure of dark magic still lingering in her blood. It didn’t behave like bonds should. It twisted. Cut in and out. Sometimes I felt her like a whisper in the back of my mind, like warmth on the skin during a storm. Other times, she vanished entirely, as if something was choking the connection at its root.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. A mark was a vow. A tether. An unshakable thread between souls. But with her, it felt like trying to hold smoke in my hand.

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