Page 39

The enforcer said little as they moved, both of them running swiftly in wolf form through the darkening forest, their feet barely touching the earth.

Their breath came in quiet bursts, their pace steady, silent.

The deeper they went, the more the trees thickened, shadows knitting together like threads.

The air changed—colder, heavier—and Hagan could feel it in his bones.

The southern border.

They stopped at the edge of a wide clearing where the shimmer of the protective wards flickered, silver-blue and faint to the untrained eye.

The magic pulsed outward in slow waves, repelling anything that wasn't welcome.

Ever since the attack on the patrols, the oracle and Seren had set up the wards. Inside those lines, Vargrheim was safe.

Or so they believed.

The Highclaw was already there.

He stood still as stone, hands clasped behind his back, jaw tight, his face lined with tension. Veyr hovered just behind him, arms crossed, eyes sharp and unreadable. Garrik stood further off with Lia beside him, her face devoid of emotion, cool and quiet.

Dain shifted from foot to foot, visibly tense, while Vir knelt near the scene, his eyes dark with concern.

Then Hagan saw it.

Just outside the ward line—mere paces beyond the border—a body hung from the crooked branch of a dead pine. Suspended by its ankles .

The blood had long since drained, dark and crusted along his face and torso.

The body was ghastly pale and moved grotesquely in the slight breeze.

His throat was cut deep, nearly through.

His stomach was slashed wide open. Entrails spilt like a grotesque offering to the roots below.

The face had been defaced—gouged, marked, erased.

Hagan's stomach turned.

"Gods" he murmured.

Vir stood and said quietly, "Not one of ours."

"One of the Forsaken," Veyr added, his voice emotionless, but his eyes glittering with something colder than fury.

"He was placed here deliberately," Draken said. "The wards held. No one crossed them."

"These are common forest paths," Garrik said. "Neutral spaces. Who would do this?"

"It's a warning," Lia added, flatly.

Hagan felt his fists clench. The boy couldn't have been older than thirteen.

"This was a child," he said, his voice hoarse.

Draken nodded grimly.

He turned to the group, voice low and commanding. "Cut him down. We need to tighten the patrols. No one walks alone. No one steps outside the wards without permission. Not for gathering. Not for scouting. Not for anything. Get the Oracle."

Vir gave a brief nod .

No one argued.

Even Dain, who usually bristled at containment, was silent—his eyes locked on the mutilated body, jaw rigid.

And through it all, Lia remained impassive. Cold. Watching.

Hagan stood apart, his heart pounding in his chest, blood roaring in his ears. His skin still held the warmth of Seren's breath from that morning.

Now he only felt cold.

There were no clues on the boy's body. No scent markers, and no pattern in the butchery. The only fact that mattered was this: it had been a message. The nearest tribe was Starnheim.

Draken sent word to their Highclaw Steine and received a quick reply—shock, horror, a demand for a meeting. He agreed to come to neutral ground. No one believed he had done it himself, but trust was not something easily given in the borderlands.

Hagan didn't return home the next day.

Or the one after.

He was needed at the border, coordinating response teams, drafting patrol routes, and staying sharp. When he finally walked into the cottage, dirt-streaked and haunted-eyed, Seren was waiting.

She had cleaned. Quietly. The Oracle had stopped by and explained things in a concerned voice .

When Hagan finally walked through the door, there were clothes folded in tidy piles on the sofa.

A hearth with banked embers, a plate covered with a cloth, and the warm scent of crisped rice crepes filled with slow-cooked spiced mushrooms. The edges of the crepes were browned and lacy, the filling earthy and rich, with just a hint of cracked pepper and caramelized onion wafting through the air.

She had made it hours ago. Maybe longer.

He stood in the doorway longer than necessary, not looking at her. His mind was chaos. She took his arm gently and led him inside. Fed him. Pushed him to have a shower. Pulled him into bed and tucked his body around hers until his breathing slowed.

The next morning, he kissed her temple and said, "It's going to get worse before it gets better."

She nodded, already expecting it.

"I'll be working with Garrik. And... Lia. On patrol planning."

She met his hesitant eyes and answered the unspoken question between them. "I trust you."

She did. How could she not? After all their ups and downs, Hagan had chosen her .

Little did Seren know this was a sign of things to come. Hagan left early and came home late.

The days grew longer.

The easy harmony of their first days together slipped into something brittle and dry. Hagan left early, came home late, and sometimes not at all. His scent no longer lingered in their space the way it used to. And Lia was always there.

On the training grounds. In planning meetings. Walking too close to Garrik. Standing too close to Hagan.

She never spoke to Seren directly—but her words always landed exactly where she intended.

"I just hope they're managing," she'd say lightly in the hallway, close enough for Seren to hear. "Everyone knows a bond doesn't settle properly without sharing blood. It must be hard—staying that restrained."

Another time, laughing softly as she passed by with a tray of food.

"It's so rare, you know, to wait this long after the handfasting. I suppose... some connections take longer to feel real."

Seren never replied.

Not directly.

Renna and the boys had returned to the fostering tribe days after the ceremony—dragged away with tearful goodbyes and promises to write. Without them, her life felt colder. Emptier. The forest was quieter. Her laughter rarer.

She had never felt so alone.

The ache in her chest was growing. Sometimes, her bonding tattoo throbbed. She didn't know why .

The bond, still new and tender, had been meant to be nurtured—to be fed by time, touch, shared breath.

Instead, it was stretched thin. Brittle.

The space between them was too wide for too long.

And every day Hagan stayed away, that quiet thread in her chest pulled tighter, more raw—like a wound healing badly.

It was like the fibres of a rope snapping, one by one. Quietly. Invisibly. Until she didn't know how many strands were left.

One night, Seren couldn't hold it in any longer.

"You're always with her," she said, voice shaking. "You always smell like her. You never eat. You barely see me."

Hagan's face tightened. "You think I want this? You think I want to be everywhere but here?"

"Then why are you?"

"I'm under pressure you can't even imagine. I'm trying to keep the tribe safe, Seren. I don't have time or energy for anything else."

Her throat burned. "Not even for us?"

They didn't speak for a long time after that. They went to bed without touching.

Later that night, in the dark, his voice found her.

"When I touch you," he whispered, "when we're together—I'm stronger. Faster. My vision sharpens. My shifts are smoother, and quicker. It's like the bond... fuels me."

He paused, his voice rough with exhaustion and truth .

"But when I'm away from you—" He exhaled. "It hurts, Seren. It's like something in me is being pulled too tight. Like I'm running with half my breath. I feel it every hour I'm not with you. And still... I stay away."

Her breath caught, but he continued, eyes dark in the low light.

"Because I have to keep the tribe safe. I have to keep you safe. And I don't know how to be what they need and still be the mate you deserve. But there's no one—no one—more important to me than you."

She turned toward him and touched his chest lightly as if to quiet the storm beneath his skin. Her voice was barely audible.

"I love you."

But he was already asleep.

She swallowed her ache and turned away, the words hanging between them like smoke that never fully cleared.

Seren continued with her duties.

She still rose early, still walked the trails, still helped the healers and gathered herbs for the Oracle.

Still met with Astrid for Lunara training, answering questions in low, measured tones.

But her hands, once steady and sure, trembled sometimes.

And her laugh—when it came—sounded like something borrowed, not quite real.

Astrid noticed.

She didn't say anything at first, just watched. But after the third week, she pulled Seren aside and said gently, "You're not eating."

Seren only shook her head with a smile that didn't touch her dull grey eyes. "I'm just tired. "

But she was growing thinner, her face paler, her eyes dulled. Her body, once warm with energy from the bond, now seemed to carry its weight like a chain.

She watched Hagan from a distance—at the training fields, in the council circle.

He moved with effortless confidence now, stronger, faster, more sure than ever.

There was ease in his body. Vitality in his voice.

He looked like a man fulfilled by his purpose.

Veyr and Dain were never far. And neither was Lia.

He said all the right things—when he remembered to come home. He always gave her a perfunctory kiss before dropping off to sleep like the dead. The food she made with love was uneaten.

Words were not the same as presence. And presence wasn't the same as choosing.

She told herself it was just the weight of duty. The strain of leadership as Draken piled more and more on Hagan's shoulders. But still, there was a dread curling in her chest like frost.

The bond hurt. Her mating mark throbbed sometimes.

Nights were the only time they had any contact.

And not all nights. Some passed with only silence.

Some with his arm draped over her in sleep, his breath warm on her neck but his thoughts unreachable.

It was like the desire and comrade of before never existed.

A tether still held them—but it felt frayed now, slackened in her hands while his side held firm. What was happening?

She was holding on alone.

And part of her had begun to wonder if he even knew .

And one morning, she woke early. The pan hissed gently as she flattened the dough with her fingers, folding grated white radish into the soft wheat mixture.

She filled each one with a mix of crushed spices and green herbs, pressing them gently before flipping them on the hot pan.

The smell was sharp and familiar—comforting in its simplicity.

She finished the flatbreads with a dollop of hand-churned butter and a bowl of cool, tangy yoghurt streaked with crushed mint.

She left his plate covered, a soft cloth over it to hold the warmth. Hagan was still dead to the world.

Then she packed her camera. A cloth-wrapped bundle. A pouch of berries and dried honeyed roots. A treat for an old friend she hadn't visited in too long.

She slipped out the door before he woke.