Page 47 of The Fated Hunter Wolf
My wolf rolled off his side, righting himself. To my surprise, he was getting ready to move. Forward or back, I didn’t know yet. We were still disconnected, but I felt the surface coming closer. In our current situation, being in wolf form wasn’t a bad idea.
I didn’t know where I was, but I knew it wasn’t Orion land.
The scent led me to a clearing fifty yards ahead, and my wolf pulled himself upright against my restraint, curiosity warring with caution.
As I approached the edge of the clearing, invisible threads wrapped around my legs, my chest, my throat. Magic—old andunforgiving—held me fast just inside the tree line. I couldn’t move forward, couldn’t retreat. Could barely breathe.
What the hell?—
Mariyah, that horrid shifter witch, crouched beside a small fire. Her gnarled hands hovered over flames that burned blue-white instead of orange. Not looking at me. Acting as if the forest belonged to her. As if she expected me.
“The foolish pup awakens after a good night’s sleep,” she muttered to the fire, not to me. “Running blind into Blackwood territory. Even I don’t dare linger here long.” Her eyes flicked toward the darkness beyond the clearing. “These lands hunger for wolf blood. They have for centuries.”
My hackles rose, a growl building in my chest. The magical bonds tightened, cutting off the sound.
Her hand darted into the fire, fingers closing around something I couldn’t see. The flames licked at her skin, but she didn’t flinch.
“I wouldn’t struggle,” she said without looking up, her voice gravelly, like stones grinding together. “The magic here feeds on resistance. And you’ll need your strength for what’s to come.”
My growl cut off as the threads around my throat constricted.
She withdrew her hand from the fire, unburned, clutching what looked like ash and embers. Still crouched, she turned her face to me.
“Come closer, Rhys Orion, if you’ve the stomach for truth.”
The magical bonds loosened just enough to let me move forward. Every instinct screamed danger, and yet my paws carried me into the clearing. My wolf pushed against my resistance.We need to know.
“There you are.” Mariyah’s mouth curved. Her smile was more like a slash across weathered skin. “The mighty beta of Orion, reduced to a feral pup licking his wounds in cursed lands.”
I lunged, teeth bared, fast as a striking snake.
She shot up her hand—the one covered in ash—and blew it into my face.
My body seized in mid-air, suspended, unable to move while the ash burned against my fur like acid rain. Memories ripped through me—the weight of Sable beneath me, the moment the bond shattered, the cold black hole that replaced it.
The first vision she threw struck, and I saw Sable, cradled against me in some dream-world version of our bond—eyes soft, lips parted, her touch lighting sparks along my skin. This had never existed outside the imagined. Her wolf was beside mine. Tangled. Merged. Peaceful.
The vision transformed. Moonlight now spilled over us, silver and silent. Her fingers laced through mine, her whisper a prayer to the Shadow Moon Goddess—just before my teeth found her neck and the bond sealed between us.
I knew—this was what the bond wanted.
What it was meant to be.
And I’d shattered it.
The ash dragged me deeper. Showed me things I’d never lived, but that felt more real than my own hands. Her breath on my throat as she licked the wounds on my chest back to wholeness. My voice, laughing—actually laughing and not deflecting—as I carried her over my shoulder through a rainy field. Her fingers in my hair when I kissed her like I’d never had the chance to.
The bond ruptured again, in real-time and in my memory. The sensation tore through me like ligaments ripped from bone. I saw Sable curled in the woods, blood on her lips. The scream didn’t make it out of her throat. Her wolf was clawing inward. The silver on her finger flaring. And me, I was walking away like a goddamn coward.
Another vision snapped into place—a future I would never reach. A child with dark eyes and a grin like mine. A territory watched over by both Crux and Orion, united. A home I never built.
Gone.
I thrashed against the magic. The ash gripped tighter, crawling under my skin, rooting itself in the softest parts of me.
Every instinct screamed for Sable, for the bond, for the future I’d destroyed before I let it take root.
My wolf howled, but no sound came out.
