Her body arched in his arms, their auras colliding in a storm of heat and energy. The curse twisted, broke, then bound them together instead, wolf to wolf, and soul to soul.
Her scream melted into a gasp as her mark burned into life on the curve of her neck, mirrored by his own.
This was the forbidden mating mark.
And in that moment, when death and love blurred into one, their wolves intertwined completely.
The bond was sealed and the blood pact turned sacred.
Their fates, their instincts, their very souls, irrevocably tied forever.
---
[End of Flashback]
Yueshuang jerked awake with a cry, her hand flying to her neck where the faint trace of that ancient mark still pulsed beneath her skin. Her chest heaved as tears welled up, the truth dawning like dawnlight through fog.
"You… you marked me…" she whispered, voice breaking. " We… we mated that night."
Lian's throat worked, guilt shadowing his features, "I didn't plan it. You were dying, and the curse twisted the ritual. I couldn't stop it." His eyes were lost and guilty, he also didn't want her to hate him. He had just wanted to save her that night, but everything had gone all against them.
She stared at him, her voice trembling, "And the child? What about the child?"
His eyes darkened, pain flashing like lightning, "He was the bond's consequence. The mark bound more than our souls… it created a life. You carried him before you even knew it."
She was torn between disbelief and reality, " Why didn't you tell me earlier?" She knew a few of Yueshuang's memories were missing. And now taking over this body, she felt like everything was crumbling down.
Lian looked away, the weight of years pressing on his shoulders, "Because if Father ever found out or the clan elders… he'd call it an abomination. He'd have the baby executed for breaking pack law, and me stripped of my wolf and killed... I can't choose either of those, I can sacrifice myself, but I need to make the baby have someone to take care of him."
He turned to her then, voice breaking with yearning and longing, "I swore to protect you both. Even if it meant you'd hate me for it."
She stared at him, torn between shock, fury, and grief, before whispering through trembling lips, "Then where is he now, Lian? Our son… where is he?"
Lian's breath hitched, his control cracking at last.
"Hidden," he said hoarsely. "Somewhere even Father can't find him. But he's alive, Shuang'er. And one day, when it's safe…"
He reached out, his thumb brushing a tear from her cheek. "…you'll hold him again."
Outside, the thunder rolled faintly, echoing like a heartbeat through the silence, a heartbeat that was neither his nor hers, but the ghost of the one they'd lost.
Yueshuang's original love and feelings overpowered Yueyao's thinking logic. The original Yueshuang's feelings haven't completely dissipated, and with all the sentiments, the mate bond, the new Yueshuang was truly powerless.
Probably the original Yueshuang wanted to head over to the Crimson Howl to save this man she loved, but the current Yueshuang, who was Yueyao, has to head there for revenge and for the whereabouts of the moonbeast. It was through the moonbeast that she could get rid of Lian's curse and the baby's.
What kind of a situation was this?
For a long while, neither of them spoke, they just stayed there looking at each other. The rain outside had dulled to a soft hiss, the air inside thick with the mingling of pain and scent, of what was, and what still refused to fade.
Yueshuang's breathing trembled, her gaze unfocused, drifting somewhere between this world and the memory of another. Yueyao's mind screamed for composure, but the echo of the original Yueshuang's heart kept bleeding through, raw, desperate, and still maddeningly in love with the man before her.
Her lips parted as her voice, barely her own, slipped out, trembling with a truth she didn't remember choosing to say, "Lian… you endured all that… alone?"
He laughed softly, a sound fragile and broken but laced with doting, "Endurance was easy. What nearly destroyed me was pretending you never existed. I just can't let you go there..."
His hand brushed her cheek again, slow, reverent, as though afraid she might vanish. "Every full moon, when the curse flares, I hear his cry, our son's. It's the only thing that keeps me sane. The bond between us… It never died, Shuang'er. It only sleeps."
Yueyao's heart twisted painfully.
Not mine, she thought fiercely, that bond isn't mine.
But the body she inhabited, Yueshuang's body, betrayed her. Her heartbeat stuttered, her pheromones fluttered weakly in answer to his. The instinctive part of her recognized him as mate, protector, the one her wolf had chosen.
And yet, she was not Yueshuang.