Chapter 4 – Shattered
POV: Seren Thorne
Pain comes in waves.
Not sharp and sudden like a blade, but slow — like drowning.
And I was drowning.
The fire inside me had gone cold.
I lay curled beneath the rough furs of my tent, every muscle aching, skin slick with sweat. The rejection had triggered something primal. Something I wasn't ready for. I felt it in my blood — thick and sickly. Like rot. Like something sacred had been broken.
Because it had.
The mate bond wasn't just a thread. It was a tether to the soul. When Kael rejected me, it didn't just hurt emotionally. It unraveled something essential.
My wolf had gone silent.
That scared me more than anything.
She had whimpered for hours after he turned his back on us. But now? Now there was nothing. No soft voice. No presence in my chest. Just silence. Empty and echoing.
I gritted my teeth as another wave of nausea slammed through me, forcing me to crawl to the edge of the tent and vomit into the grass. It came out dark. Too dark. My stomach cramped, twisting into knots. I collapsed back onto my side, breath shaking.
I was losing control.
Or maybe something else was taking it.
I didn't remember falling asleep. But I must have — because when I woke, the sky had shifted, and the blood moon was gone.
But the sickness wasn't.
Riley found me hours later.
He didn't knock. He never did.
The flap of my tent peeled open, and his broad frame crouched into the space, his russet hair tangled and face drawn with worry. He looked at me like I was something fragile.
"Seren," he whispered.
I sat up slowly, hands trembling. "You heard."
"Everyone heard." He crouched beside me, voice low. "The entire camp knows Kael Draven is your mate. And that he rejected you before the bond even settled."
I looked away. "Good. Let them talk."
He frowned. "That's not good, and you know it. You look like you're dying."
"I feel like it," I admitted.
He reached out, pressing the back of his hand to my forehead. "You're burning up."
"It's the bond sickness," I said. "It happens when a mate bond is severed too early."
"That doesn't explain why you're this bad."
I didn't answer.
Because I had a theory.
A dark, twisted, impossible theory.
The Moon Goddess hadn't just tied Kael and me together. She'd awakened something in me. Something that had been buried beneath my skin since birth. And now, with the bond broken, it was trying to claw its way to the surface.
Freya.
The voice I'd heard in my dream. Soft. Familiar.
Not my wolf — something older.
Something darker.
By nightfall, the camp was preparing for the second run of the Hunt. I should have been with the others, masked and ready to prove myself again. But I couldn't stand. My muscles locked. My skin felt wrong. Like it didn't belong to me anymore.
I stepped outside for air and stumbled toward the trees, hoping the cold might ground me. But halfway through the clearing, the world tilted. A sudden, fierce pressure exploded behind my eyes — and then everything snapped.
I fell to my knees.
The world bent sideways.
And then I heard her.
Not my wolf. Not instinct.
A voice. Ancient. Cold.
"You are more than what they made you."
I gasped as a sharp pain lanced through my chest. My eyes burned, and when I looked down at my hands — they were glowing. Faint, but real. Light danced beneath my skin, silver and wild. My veins shimmered like starlight.
The voice echoed again.
"The bond didn't die. It changed. It broke his hold… but not your power."
"Who are you?" I whispered aloud, falling back against a tree trunk.
"I am what your blood remembers."
And then — silence.
I blinked. The glow faded.
My hands were normal again. The pain was gone.
But the cold in my chest remained. Like something had opened a door… and it wasn't fully shut.
"Seren!"
I turned.
Lizzy stood at the edge of the woods, her wild blonde curls matted with sweat, her green eyes wide with fear. "You disappeared. What are you doing out here?"
"I… I don't know," I said, my voice hoarse. "I felt something. Heard something."
She stepped closer, brow furrowed. "You look different."
I shook my head. "I'm fine."
"You're not. You haven't been since he—" she stopped herself. "Since Kael."
I looked past her, toward the direction of the Nightfang ridge. I could still feel him out there. The bond was frayed, yes… but not gone.
Because bonds that deep don't vanish.
They mutate.
They haunt.
And deep inside me, something had awakened.
Something ancient.
Something with teeth.