(...continued at Kieran’s end)

What Kieran saw was darkness. All around him. Choking him, drowning him, dragging him on and on. Darkness! Utter and still darkness!

Not sleep.

Not death.

But suspended darkness.Like a clot, soaking him, taking from him, subtracting his life force.

Kieran became aware slowly...like something rising from the depths of the ocean. Still dark.

There was no sky.

No ground.

Only an endless, muted black threaded with faint pulses of red.

His pulse.

He felt it before he understood it.

Thud.

A sound without sound.

A vibration in the void.

Then he saw it.

A filament.

Black.

Thin as silk.

Coiled tightly around his heart.

Not piercing it.

Not crushing it.

But wrapped around it in deliberate loops, like a hand resting too firmly over something that was not meant to be held.

A butterfly’s wing being crushed under a child’s curious hands...yet not as innocent. There was something sinister about that touch... rotten. Like what you feel when you are walking past a room full of corpses. Their eyes are shut forever, you know it, yet you feel their gaze...

Similarly, he stared at it too.

The filament pulsed faintly with a cold sheen.

And somewhere far beyond he heard something sweet...

It pierced through the dark like a firefly’s light... not enough, yet eternal... a heavenly glint...

He heard her from a distance.

"...Kieran..."

Autumn’s voice.

Faint.

Distorted.

As though calling from behind thick glass or beneath a frozen lake.

His chest tightened instinctively.

The wolf inside him rose at once.

Low but alert.

A growl began...not from his throat, but from somewhere deeper. A vibration through marrow and his wolf instinct.The Alpha in him...

He reached towards the filament.

The moment his fingers brushed it, he winched, as if burnt, electrocuted... Pain erupted from everywhere.

Yet the pain was not sharp.

But invasive.

The thread tightened as if reflexively, constricting slightly around his heart.

His eyes darkened.

He understood...not completely, but enough to understand that he was chained.

Leash.

His wolf snarled.

Wolves do not tolerate leashes.They prefer death over shackles, that’s common knowledge.

The darkness around him shifted. 𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦

In the distance... A silhouette formed.

He could not hear Autumn’s voice anymore... he yearned to hear her, ask her if she was okay...even her voice gave him strength in the midst of utter helplessness. Was she here? Was that her?

The silhouette did not move.

" Autumn..." No voice left his lips but his soul called for her.

The silhouette was still.

Graceful.

Watching him.

Her outline was composed of dim silver and shadow, hair unmoving in the dream’s still air. She stood as though she had been waiting for him to notice her.

"Kieran," Finally the Silhouette spoke.

The voice was clean and without any echo this time.

Controlled.

Measured.

His eyes snapped to her... it did not open but he could see somehow...

"Selene??!!!What the fuck is this?" His voice did not echo...it cracked through the void like a whip.

She tilted her head slightly.

"A safeguard."

The filament pulsed once, responding to her presence.

"You were tearing yourself apart," she continued calmly. "Your wolf would have dragged you back into a body that cannot yet withstand it."

He took a step forward.

The ground beneath his feet formed reluctantly from darkness....just enough to hold him.

"You bound me,bitch?!!"

It wasn’t a question.

Selene’s silhouette did not waver.

"I anchored you,Kieran."

The difference in wording meant nothing...yet it lingered between them like a blade.

Just then another faint call echoed from far beyond.

"Kieran..."

This time closer.

The barrier trembled faintly in response.

His heart surged towards the sound instinctively.

The filament tightened sharply.

He flinched.

Anger flared.

"I am going to make you pay dearly for this," he growled.

The wolf rose higher,shoulders broadening, eyes brightening with feral gold beneath the human surface. His presence in the void expanded, pushing against the dream’s boundaries.

Selene stepped forward now.

"Pay?" she asked softly. "You think I am not paying enough trying to save your life time and again for a war that would consume you?"

"Save your breath while you can..." He was fuming.

"She chose the power,Kieran.She chose herself over you and your heirs! "

Her voice sharpened slightly.

"And you still choose her?"

The darkness around them trembled faintly.

"You were never like this. Never! Look what she dragged you into!!!"

His chest heaved.

The wolf bared its teeth beneath his skin.

"I am warning you bitch...don’t test my patience..."

The filament pulsed again...this time resisting the surge of his heartbeat.

Selene lifted one hand.

The thread responded instantly.

It glowed darker.

More solid.

"You are alive because I intervened," she said quietly. "Because I refused to let you wake too soon.I am keeping you safe whether you want it or not."

He reached for the filament again.

This time not gently.

He grabbed it.

The void fractured with a thunderous ripple.

The thread burned against his grip like ice and flame combined.

"I am not your slave," he snarled.

The wolf surged fully now—shadows peeling back from him as golden light bled through the cracks of his form.

The darkness trembled violently.

Selene’s silhouette flickered.

"You will destroy yourself," she warned.

"First I will rip your head..."

The barrier at the edge of the void cracked faintly.

Autumn’s voice slipped through clearer now...

"Kieran. Come back...."

The filament spasmed.

Selene felt it instantly.

Not from within the dream...but through the tether itself.

Her real body, kneeling beside him, stiffened.

In the dreamscape, her silhouette sharpened, eyes narrowing.

Someone was touching the thread.

Not physically but through the dreamscape itself.Impossible.That was her realm. Her very own world.

A warmth brushed against the outer coils.

Fiercely familiar.

Selene’s expression shifted subtly.

She felt it, "Autumn! That bitch!Why aren’t you dead already?!"

Her presence pressed against what she had woven.

Her voice lowered.

"She’s reaching,dammit, " she murmured.

Kieran’s wolf lunged towards the barrier instinctively.

The void shattered in jagged pulses of dim lights and shadows as he pulled harder against the filament.

The thread strained.

Not breaking.

But resisting.

In the physical world... on the other end... above the restless ocean... Autumn hovered midair, eyes closed now despite Fenric circling somewhere above her.

Her hand pressed over her sternum.

She reached inward.

Through the dimmed bond.

Through the unnatural cold.

And she found it.

A foreign thread.

Coiled around her own heartbeat...She touched it.

Light met shadow.

In the dream world... Selene felt the contact like a spark along her nerves.

Her silhouette went still.

Very still.

This woman’s presence brushed the thread she had placed so tediously, with effortless grace.

Not violently.

But deliberately.

A claiming touch.

Selene’s eyes darkened.

The void trembled between the three of them...

Wolf.

Shadow.

Storm.

And the tether pulsed once more...

Strained...

As Selene turned her full awareness towards the intrusion.