DEREK
“I’ve been expecting you,” the Priestess said.
She stepped back and opened the door wide, the folds of her silver robes whispering against the stones.
The air that spilled out was cool and heavy, scented with sage and damp stone and something older that had no name- something that prickled along my skin and sank straight into my bones.
Elena traded a look with me
Expecting us?
I didn’t have time to ask before the Priestess turned and swept back into the sanctuary, trusting we would follow.
We did.
Inside the doorway, the entry narrowed into a small keep, the walls made of pale, ancient stone worn smooth with time. It felt like stepping back into a world before the modern one had ever existed.
At the center of the keep sat the sacred spring–the Moonpool.
It wasn’t large, no bigger than a small pond, but it shimmered under the filtered light from above, silver and luminous even in the dim space. Ripples lapped gently against the edges of the stone basin, though there was no wind to stir it.
The moment we stepped closer, I could feel it.
Power.
Raw and pulsing, threading through the air like a heartbeat.
Elena inhaled sharply beside me, and I knew she felt it too.
The Priestess led us past the pool without speaking, her bare feet making no sound on the stone. I had the strangest sense that we were being weighed, measured, stripped bare with every step we took deeper into the sanctuary.
She ushered us through an arched doorway into the main temple hall.
The room was round, the walls curving inward like the inside of a shell. Small niches held candles, and their flames flickered gently, casting long, dancing shadows across the domed ceiling.
At the center of the room, another smaller pool sat recessed into the stone floor, perfectly round and still.
I opened my mouth to ask the first question already burning in my gut, but the Priestess raised a hand sharply, palm outward.
We froze.
“Certain rituals must be observed,” she said, her voice soft but carrying a weight that brooked no argument. “You must be willing to be seen before you can be heard.”
She moved deliberately, lighting several candles in a precise, circular pattern around the pool. The air grew thicke match she struck, the scent of beeswax and lavender rising.
When she finished, she gestured to two woven mats placed on either side of the water.
“Sit,” she instructed.
We obeyed without hesitation, settling onto the mats, the stone cool beneath the thin weave.
The Priestess moved between us, carrying a small basket.
every
“Remove your rings,” she said. “Your weapons. Your symbols of rank. Remove the accoutrements of the modern that follow you
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everywhere.”
Elena and I traded another look–this one laced with hesitation.
But slowly, I obeyed.
I stripped the platinum ring from my finger. Unbuckled the knife dden at my waist. Tugged the chain from around my neck→→ the small golden locket thudding softly into my palm.
I hesitated over it.
The locket had once held a picture of my father.
Now it held something different. Something infinitely more precious.
A tiny photograph of Aiden. And one of Elena, laughing, her head thrown back toward the sun.
I placed it carefully into the basket.
Elena removed a delicate bracelet from her wrist, a tiny moonstone pendant winking against the skin.
She tucked her cell phone and a slim knife into the basket too, her fingers lingering on the handle for a moment before letting it
- go.
The Priestess nodded once, satisfied.
She produced a golden bowl filled with clear water and set it beside us.
“Drink,” she said.
I caught the faintest whiff of something earthy and sharp rising from the bowl.
“Star root,” the Priestess added, answering my unspoken question “So that what is hidden may come forward.”
Elena reached for the bowl first, lifting it with both hands and sipping carefully. She grimaced slightly but didn’t hesitate.
When she passed it to me, the metal warm from her touch, I drank too.
The water burned faintly on the way down, not painful, but enough to leave a strange, tingling trail in its wake.
The Priestess knelt between us, touching two fingers first to Elena’s forehead, then to mine, murmuring words in a language older than any pack.
The moment her fingertips brushed me, the world tilted slightly.
Colors brightened. Sounds sharpened.
The bond between Elena and me thrummed louder, more insistent
The Priestess withdrew to her own mat across the pool, folding her hands neatly in her lap.
She said nothing.
She only watched.
And waited.
The silence stretched.
4
Finally, when it felt like my heart might beat out of my chest from the sheer weight of it, I spoke.
“Something happened to us last night,” I said, my voice low and rough. “Something I think you warned me about.”
The Priestess inclined her head slightly, as if she had already known.
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“Your bond,” she said calmly. “Someone attempted to break it.”
Elena’s mouth parted in shock.
“Our fated bond?” she asked. “You can…do that? Break someone else’s bond?”
The Priestess’s eyes sharpened, the silver catching the candlelight like polished knives.
“It is not easily done,” she said. “And it comes at a price. What bonds the Moon Goddess forges…no wolf should put asunder.”
I felt Elena’s gaze slide toward me, the weight of it warm and uncertain.
I met it head–on, offering what little steadiness I had left.
“I…” Elena hesitated, her fingers twisting in her lap. “I rejected our bond. Many years ago.”
The Priestess smiled then–not unkindly, but with a kind of weary amusement, like a teacher watching two students finally catch up to a lesson they should have learned long ago.
“The thread may fray,” she said. “But the Moon weaves with stubborn hands.”
She looked between us.
“You were together when you felt the attack on your bond?”
Elena nodded.
“A lucky thing,” the Priestess murmured, “if you wish to honor it.
She tilted her head slightly.
“You touched?”
This time it was me who answered, my voice rougher than I intended.
“We did.”
The Priestess’s smile deepened.
“Then the bond would yield,” she said. “But not break.”
I remembered the kiss.
The desperate, searing, soul–deep kiss that had felt like the only thing holding the universe together.
The Priestess watched me carefully.
“Ah,” she said softly. “I see.”
64
Elena leaned forward, frowning.
“What do you see?”
The Priestess folded her hands again, the candles flickering behind her in a sudden rush of unseen wind.
“A Soul’s Kiss,” she said.
The words shivered down my spine.
“It is not the act itself,” she continued. “It is the surrender behind it. When two wolves kiss in truth—without pride, without fear —that is when the bond roots itself deepest. That is when the thread no longer ties to the body, but to the soul.”
I couldn’t look at Elena.
Not yet.
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Not when everything inside me was laid so bare.
Instead, I stared at the still pool between us, watching the reflec
The Priestess’s voice softened, but it carried a weight that made
“Instead of breaking your bond, the dark magic that tested it sea The memory of the bond flaring between us, almost unbearable “She ties the thread to the soul,” I whispered, remembering the
The Priestess nodded slowly.
“Whoever did this to you,” she said, “not only failed–but–sealed
Not
when everything inside me was laid
So
bare.
Instead, I
at
stared the still pool between
us,
watching
the
reflections
of the
candles dance
and twist.
The Priestess’s voice
but it carried softened,
a weight that made
chest ache.
“Instead of breaking your bond, the dark magic that tested it sealed it instead.”
The
memory of the
bond
flaring
between us, almost unbearable
in ts
strerigth,
filled
my mind.
“She ties the thread to the soul,” I whispered, remembering the words spoken into the fire so many months ago.
The
Priestess nodded slowly.
“Whoever did this to
you,”
“she
said, “not
only failed–but sealed your souls and
your bond. Forever.”
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Chapter 218
