The Forgotten Pulse of the Bond-Chapter 73: The Bond That Burns

"Don’t lie to me, Rhett. I can hear it in your heartbeat. Something’s changed."

Magnolia’s voice sliced through the silence like a whip, sharp with emotion, her eyes locked on Rhett’s. Her breath puffed in the cold night air, the stars above them blinking against the velvet sky like hesitant witnesses. They stood just beyond the northern ridge, where the wind curled between the pines and the air reeked faintly of char and old blood, residue from Beckett’s attack hours ago.

Rhett didn’t move. Didn’t speak.

Because she was right.

Something had changed, something deep, primal, and terrifying.

He felt it the moment his skin brushed hers as she helped drag Beckett’s battered body from the ravine. Her scent no longer stirred mere instinct. It ignited memory, heat, longing, all the things he had buried since the bond was severed. Since he’d forced himself to look away.

Now, it clawed back through him like wildfire through dry grass.

"What is it?" she asked again, softer this time, stepping closer. The moonlight lit her cheekbones in silver, painting her in a way that made her seem almost otherworldly.

Rhett swallowed. "It’s the bond."

Her breath hitched. "You said it was broken."

"It was. Or it should have been. But something, something’s stitching it back together."

She looked down, blinking hard. The tension crackled between them. The pack was sleeping below, unaware their Alpha and the woman they still feared might unravel the very structure holding their world together.

"You’re afraid of me," she whispered.

He took a step toward her. "No. I’m afraid of what I’ll do to protect you."

The confession landed like a blow. Her hands clenched at her sides. "Is that what this is now? A threat masked as devotion?"

He flinched. "Magnolia, you know me better than that."

She turned, stalking away a few feet, her boots crunching the frost-bitten grass. When she faced him again, her eyes shimmered, not with tears, but with fury held just beneath the surface.

"No," she said. "I don’t know you. Not anymore. You keep everyone out. Even me."

Rhett inhaled sharply. The scar across his ribs throbbed, a reminder of battles fought for her, of pain etched into bone.

"You think I want this?" he snapped. "You think I enjoy waking up in cold sweats because I dreamt of your death again? Of Sterling carving your name into stone and laughing as your body burns in a pit of wolves?"

She stilled. The wind died. Even the trees seemed to listen.

"That’s why I shut you out," he whispered, voice broken now. "Because if this bond keeps growing, and I lose you again, I’ll lose everything."

Silence stretched between them.

Then, suddenly, a hand on his chest.

Her fingers were trembling, but her eyes were steady. "Then don’t lose me. Not now. Not when everything’s on fire."

He wrapped his hand around hers.

They stood that way for seconds, or centuries. Neither moved. Neither dared.

Then a voice broke the stillness.

"Alpha. You need to come. Now."

Rhett turned.

It was Elara, breathless and wide-eyed, the fur at her collar soaked with sweat.

"What is it?" Magnolia asked, stepping back.

Elara hesitated. "It’s Camille. She’s awake. And she’s saying things that don’t make sense."

Rhett’s heart sank.

Magnolia was already moving, her boots slamming the frozen earth.

Rhett followed. Whatever fragile truth they’d started to uncover would have to wait.

They found Camille curled in Celeste’s hut, the fire low, her lips cracked and fevered. She looked smaller than before, shrunken by secrets that weighed too much for one girl to carry.

"He’s coming," Camille said as they entered. "He’ll take Rhett like he took my father."

Rhett knelt beside her. "Camille, who’s coming?"

She stared at him with eyes that no longer saw him.

"Sterling doesn’t want to kill you," she whispered. "He wants to hollow you. Use you like a blade. And he’ll use me to do it."

The fire cracked. No one breathed.

Magnolia knelt. "Why you?"

Camille blinked slowly. "Because I’m the vessel."

Rhett froze.

"What does that mean?" he asked.

She looked at him, finally, the fog clearing for a breath. "I was born for this. To carry the prophecy’s final act. And if I don’t stop it, I’ll become the knife that kills you."

The flames flickered, throwing shadows like claws.

Rhett stood slowly. Behind him, Magnolia’s breath caught.

Because Camille’s hand had started to glow.

Not with magic.

With blood.

It seeped through her palm, fresh and inexplicable.

And carved across her wrist was a single word:

Sacrifice.

"You think you know him, don’t you?" Camille’s voice cut the cold mountain air, her breath sharp as broken glass.

Magnolia didn’t turn. Her boots crunched against the gravel-strewn path as she descended the jagged hill, fists clenched inside her coat. Behind her, the charred remains of their conversation still smoldered in her chest, a quiet fire licking through every fragile wall she had built.

"I don’t need to know him to recognize a monster," Magnolia said finally. Her voice didn’t rise, didn’t shake. It was low. Hollow.

Camille’s laugh was bitter and brittle, a sharp echo that didn’t belong to the girl who once braided flowers into her sleeves.

"You don’t get it," Camille called. "He made you into something. And now he’s afraid of what you might become."

That stopped Magnolia. Just for a second. She stared ahead, at the frostbitten trees and the silent pack estate far below, where the lights never went out and secrets dripped from every chandelier.

"I became this because of what he did," she said, quieter now. "Not because of what he wanted."

Camille’s footsteps came closer, slower now. There was no wind, no movement in the forest. Just the whisper of things unsaid.

"Rhett’s not the only one with secrets," Camille murmured. "You felt it, didn’t you? When your pulse locked with his during the binding. You felt the echo. The prophecy didn’t end with me."

Magnolia turned, slow and deliberate. Her gaze sharpened, jaw tense.

"What do you know?"

Camille looked tired. Not just from lack of sleep, but from carrying things too heavy for even Luna’s daughters.

"There’s a faction," she whispered. "They call themselves the Hollowfang Descendants. They’ve been waiting... for the bloodline to trigger. They think you’re it. Not me. Not Rhett. You."

Magnolia felt the air squeeze out of her lungs. The trees pressed in, tall and ominous, like witnesses.

"Trigger what?"

Camille reached into her cloak, unwrapping a small velvet bundle. Inside was a pendant, ancient, silver, warm despite the cold.

"This was my mother’s," Camille said. "And her mother’s before that. Luna-born women. It hums when it’s near you."

The pendant trembled slightly in Camille’s palm.

"They called us vessels," Camille continued, the words shaking now. "But only one of us can channel the forbidden bond. And the Circle believes it’s you."

Magnolia backed away.

"No. That’s not possible. I’m not, "

"You’re not just Rhett’s mate," Camille said, stepping forward. "You’re his weapon."

Beckett slammed open the side doors of the estate, blood caked to his ribs, eyes wide with something between fury and horror.

"Get Savannah! Now!" he roared.

The guards, stunned, watched him stagger forward, his arm dangling uselessly. The poison had spread up to his shoulder. Sweat poured down his temples.

Magnolia and Camille burst in seconds later.

"What happened?!" Magnolia shouted, running to catch him before he collapsed.

"Ambush," Beckett gasped. "Not a scout. A full unit. Syndicate mark. They knew I’d go looking. They were waiting."

Camille knelt beside him, clutching the pendant.

"Did they say anything?"

Beckett’s jaw clenched. He nodded weakly.

"The Hollowfangs want her out of the picture. Before the solstice. They said she’s... waking something. Something they can’t control."

His gaze locked on Magnolia.

"You’re not safe here anymore.

Downstairs, beneath the estate where ancient roots cracked through stone and moonlight barely touched the earth, Rhett stood alone in the chapel crypt.

Dust clung to every corner. His shadow stretched long and misshapen across Sterling’s mural. He pressed his hand to the floor, whispering the old chant Beckett taught him as boys. A click, a breath, then the floor shuddered and began to descend.

A staircase spiraled down into darkness. At the bottom, an iron gate stood open.

Inside, the scent of ancient blood and lavender rot.

Scrolls lined the walls, parchments tucked inside weathered tubes. He grabbed one at random, his name etched into the wax seal.

Rhett’s fingers trembled as he unrolled it.

"He who binds the vessel shall inherit her pulse, and she his ruin."

A cold chill slid down his spine.

Behind him, a soft voice.

"I warned you not to open what was sealed."

Rhett turned fast. Celeste stood in the archway, moonlight dancing across her silver hair.

"You knew," he whispered. "You knew all along."

Celeste didn’t flinch. "And yet, you loved her anyway."lj

Back upstairs, Camille stared into the pendant’s glowing surface. It pulsed in time with Magnolia’s breath. freewёbn૦νeɭ.com

"It’s you they fear," she whispered.

Magnolia didn’t deny it.

She couldn’t.