The Forgotten Pulse of the Bond-Chapter 139: The Forest’s Heartbeat

"Do you hear it?" Beckett’s voice was a rasp against the hush. He always talked low out here, as if the trees might be listening.

Magnolia didn’t turn. "No."

A soft laugh, half a curse. "Liar."

She tasted the lie on her tongue too. The hush throbbed at the edges, a pulse that wasn’t hers, wasn’t Beckett’s, but somewhere between. She pressed a gloved hand to the rough bark of a pine. Cold bit her palm. Under it, she felt it, the heartbeat. Faint, but steady. Wrong.

"It’s stronger than yesterday," Beckett said. He stepped up beside her, his broad shoulder brushing her arm. His beard was dusted white with frost, eyes narrowed against the gust that rattled the canopy overhead.

"She’s moving," Magnolia murmured. "Or it’s moving her."

Beckett’s lips curled in a humorless grin. "You think the Elder’s done playing bait?"

"I think he’s waiting for us to open the door for him."

Beckett snorted. "Then let’s not make him wait long." 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝕨𝕖𝗯𝚗𝚘𝕧𝕖𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝕞

They pressed on. The snow deepened the further they pushed into the birch stands, drifts rising to Magnolia’s knees. Her thighs burned with each step. Beckett didn’t complain. She heard him muttering under his breath sometimes, old hunter’s prayers, or maybe just curses for the way the forest never let them pass without carving a piece from their hides.

Once, she stumbled over a half-buried branch. Beckett’s hand shot out, catching her elbow before she could pitch face-first into the drift. His grip was iron, the heat of him bleeding through her cloak. He didn’t let go immediately, even when she straightened.

"You’re shaking," he said.

"It’s cold."

His hand lingered a heartbeat more before he dropped it. "Liar."

She could have snapped at him. Instead, she pushed forward, ignoring the ache that blossomed under her ribs where her wolf pressed, restless, wanting to run but knowing it had nowhere left to run to.

They reached the ridge by dusk. The trees fell away here, opening into a stretch of flat ground where the snow clung in thin sheets, wind flaying it into drifts that looked like old bones jutting from the earth.

Magnolia dropped to one knee, gloved fingers brushing the surface. Beneath the snow, the hush pulsed, thick, almost warm. It made her stomach clench. Camille’s scent was strong here, too sweet under the iron bite of pine and frost.

Beckett crouched beside her. He smelled it too; she saw the way his nostrils flared, lips curling back to show the tips of his teeth.

"Too fresh," he muttered. "She’s close."

Magnolia closed her eyes. Her pulse thudded at her throat, echoing the forest’s heartbeat under her palm. She could almost hear Camille’s laugh tangled in the wind, childish and sharp. Tag, you’re it.

"She’s toying with us," she said.

Beckett’s hand dropped onto her shoulder, heavy. "Not her. Not anymore."

She wanted to snap at him, wanted to say that she knew her sister’s scent, her sister’s hush, better than any Elder’s poison. But the truth curled bitter on her tongue. Camille’s wolf wasn’t alone in there now. And whatever piece of her sister remained was buried under the rot the Elder had pressed into her bones.

"We follow," Magnolia said.

Beckett’s fingers squeezed her shoulder once, then were gone. "We hunt."

They skirted the ridge, moving through the dark where the trees grew so close their branches tangled like broken fingers. The hush pressed thicker here, muffling the crunch of their boots, the rasp of their breath. Magnolia’s wolf clawed at her ribs every time she brushed a low-hanging branch, as if it expected teeth in the shadows.

Once, Beckett stopped so suddenly she almost crashed into him. He held up a hand, gloved fingers splayed. She stilled, breath catching in her throat.

Ahead, the hush cracked. A faint giggle drifted through the trees, Camille’s, but wrong. Warped. A child’s laugh stretched over something hollow.

Magnolia’s pulse spiked. "She’s close."

Beckett’s head turned, eyes glinting in the sliver of moonlight that pressed through the canopy. "Or he wants you to think she is."

"Same difference," she rasped. "Either way, we keep moving."

She stepped around him, ignoring the low growl he bit off behind his teeth. If he wanted to fight her on this, he could do it when Camille’s shadow wasn’t waiting to tear out her throat.

They found the first sign of her at the base of an old oak, roots twisted above the snow like knotted veins. A scrap of fabric fluttered from one gnarled branch, pale blue, torn, stained at the edge with something dark and crusted. Magnolia plucked it free, pressing it to her nose.

Camille’s scent. Twined through with the Elder’s rot. She flinched, dropping it back to the drift. It sank like a dead bird.

Beckett’s boots scuffed behind her. "What does it mean?"

"That she wants me to know she’s not hiding," Magnolia said.

"Or that she is."

She shot him a look, sharp enough to make him bare his teeth in a grin that didn’t reach his eyes.

"Keep up," she snapped.

The hush shifted as they pressed deeper. The snow thinned in places, exposing patches of frozen earth crusted black with old roots. Magnolia’s boots crunched over brittle twigs, each step echoing like a heartbeat too slow to keep her wolf satisfied.

She tasted the hush on the back of her tongue, bitter, sweet, then bitter again. Her breath rattled against her ribs. Beckett drifted to her flank, eyes never still, scanning the trees for a glimpse of movement that never came.

"Say it," she muttered.

"Say what?" His voice was a low growl.

"What you’re thinking."

He snorted. "You won’t like it."

"Say it anyway."

Beckett’s boots crunched to a stop. Magnolia turned to face him, snow drifting down around his shoulders like ash.

"You’re walking into this with your throat bare," he said. "You want her to see you coming."

Magnolia’s jaw twitched. "She’s my sister."

"Not anymore."

The words cracked like a bone under her boot. She didn’t flinch. "If I don’t walk in, she’ll never crawl out."

Beckett’s lips pulled back from his teeth. "And if you break in the process?"

Magnolia stepped in, closing the space between them until she could feel the bond between them hum like a live wire.

"Then drag me back."

Beckett’s breath ghosted across her cheek. "Always."

They moved again. The forest’s heartbeat thrummed louder now, so loud Magnolia wondered if it might drown out her own. Her wolf snarled under her skin, restless, snapping at the bond that held it tethered to Beckett’s promise.

They crested a rise just as the moon cracked free of the clouds. Below them, the trees fell away into a hollow where no snow touched the ground. Steam curled from the earth, thin wisps that carried the scent of ash and something sweeter, rotten, childlike.

Camille.

Magnolia’s pulse spiked so sharp she tasted copper on her tongue.

Beckett leaned close, his breath a rumble in her ear. "Ready?"

She didn’t answer. She didn’t need to.

She took the first step down the slope, boots crunching over old roots and frozen soil. The hush opened before her like a throat. Her wolf pressed close behind her ribs, eyes wide, teeth bared.

And somewhere in that steam-wrapped clearing, Camille waited.

Magnolia let the hush swallow her whole.