The perimeter was a line he drew in his mind, a boundary of mistrust forged from a decade of hate. Connall paced the edge of the woods ringing their makeshift shelter, a shallow, damp cave that smelled of wet stone, cold earth, and defeat. Each step he took away from the opening was a small victory, a reclamation of the solitude she had stolen from him. His thoughts were a bitter mire, cycling between the tactical weakness of their position and the simmering hatred for the she-wolf whose very presence was a desecration. A Bloodfang. Here, in his wilderness, tainting the air with the same scent that clung to his nightmares of burning pine and his mother's screams.
Without warning, the world dissolved into white-hot fire.
It was not like the first shock of the Mating Moon, the searing brand on his soul. This was a deeper, more vicious agony, a wave of torment that slammed into him with the physical force of a hammer blow. It felt as if his blood had begun to boil in his veins, a scalding poison racing toward his heart. A strangled gasp ripped from his throat and he collapsed to one knee, his hand clawing at his chest as his vision blurred into a smear of green and black. The forest floor, damp and littered with sharp pebbles, bit into his skin, but the sensation was a distant pinprick compared to the inferno within.
Through the haze of his own suffering, a phantom connection flared. It was a sickening echo, a forced empathy that was more violating than the pain itself. He didn't just feel his own torment; he felt *hers*. He knew, with an absolute and horrifying certainty, that she was experiencing the same hell back in that cave. Her agony was a discordant note playing alongside his own, a shared symphony of suffering that twisted his stomach.
The pain intensified, a nova of pure misery that burned away all thought, all reason, all hatred. All that remained was a single, primal instinct, a truth hammered into his soul by the sheer force of the agony: it was tied to their separation. Distance was the fuel for this fire.
Driven by a desperate, animalistic need to make it stop, he forced his body to obey. He lurched to his feet, every muscle screaming, and staggered back towards the cave. He was no longer a prince, no longer an avenger. He was just a creature, fleeing a pain that had no source and no end, running toward the one thing in the world he was sworn to destroy.
He stumbled into the cave's mouth, his chest heaving, his body slick with a cold sweat. The sight that greeted him was a perfect, maddening reflection of his own torment. Althea was curled on the stone floor, her body writhing, her fingers scrabbling uselessly against the rock as if trying to claw her way out of her own skin.. Her face, visible in the faint moonlight, was pale and contorted in agony. A low, guttural whimper escaped her lips with every shallow breath. To see his enemy laid so low by the very thing destroying him was disorienting, infuriating.
The air between them felt thick, a violent, invisible storm of chaotic energy. It crackled with a pressure that made the hairs on his arms stand on end. As he took a hesitant step closer, drawn by the instinct to quell his own pain, she was seized by an uncontrolled spasm. Her arm flung out, her fingers brushing against the rough leather of his trousers.
The world stopped.
The pain didn't fade. It didn't recede. It simply ceased to exist, vanishing with an impossible speed that left a vacuum in its wake. One moment, it was an inferno consuming his entire being; the next, there was only a silent, humming void where the agony had been. The sudden absence was as shocking as the pain itself. He froze, his breath catching in his throat, his heart hammering against his ribs. He stared down at her, breathing heavily, and saw his own shocked disbelief mirrored in her wide, silver eyes. They both stared at the point of contact—her hand resting limply against his leg—as if it were a venomous snake.
Suspicion, cold and sharp, cut through the relief. This had to be a trick. A Bloodfang curse designed to lure him in. He ripped his leg away as if burned.
The agony returned instantly, a punishing spike that drove a grunt of pain from his lips. She cried out at the same moment, her back arching off the floor. The connection was undeniable. Brutally simple.
His gaze locked with hers, a silent, grim challenge passing between them. With cold, deliberate intent, he knelt, his every movement radiating disgust. He placed his hand flat on her shoulder. Again, the pain vanished completely. The relief was absolute, a blessed quiet that settled over his frayed nerves. But the implication was a horror beyond reckoning.
A bitter, whispered argument erupted in the sudden silence.
"What is this?" Althea accused, her voice raspy and raw. She tried to shrink from his touch, but the fresh memory of the pain held her captive. "Some kind of Silvermoon trick? A curse to control me?"
A snarl ripped from his throat, low and feral. "I would rather burn alive than seek comfort from a Bloodfang," he growled, the words tasting like ash. "If this is a curse, it is a Bloodfang one, and it is on us both."
"Then make it stop." Her voice was a desperate plea tangled with a command.
"If I knew how, do you think I would be touching you?" he shot back, his fingers stiff on her shoulder, feeling the tremor that ran through her body.
They were trapped in a standoff, bound by a torment that only their proximity could soothe. The grim reality of their situation settled over them, as cold and damp as the cave itself. They were exhausted, weakened by the hunt and the bond's relentless assault. They needed to rest, to recover their strength if they were to travel at dawn. And they could only do so while maintaining this horrifying truce.
The debate that followed was cold and clinical, like two rival surgeons discussing a distasteful but necessary procedure. They spoke in clipped, hushed tones, their hatred a tangible thing in the air between them, warring with the sheer, animal need for relief.
"We need to sleep," she stated, her voice gaining a sliver of strength now that the pain was gone. "We can't keep watch like this."
"I will not sleep with my hand on you," he snarled, the very idea a profound violation.
"Then find another way," she challenged, her eyes flashing with defiance. "Or we can both lie here in agony until Volkov's hunters find us."
He tested it, lifting his hand a bare inch from her shoulder. A flicker of pain, sharp as a needle, lanced through his chest. She gasped, her face tightening. He pressed his hand back down, the relief immediate and infuriating. It wasn't just proximity. It was contact.
Finally, they settled on the least intimate, most practical arrangement. Sitting back-to-back. It would offer shared body heat against the cave's chill and provide a larger surface area of contact, hopefully preventing any accidental separation during sleep, all while avoiding the torment of facing each other.
With every muscle tensed, they shifted into position. The moment her back pressed against his was a fresh jolt, a new kind of violation. The warmth of her body through the thin fabric of his tunic was a sickening betrayal to the memory of his family, a profanity against his ten years of hate. He could feel the precise line of her spine against his, a rigid pole of tension. For her, he could only guess it was the same—a forced surrender to her pack's greatest enemy.
The physical agony was gone, replaced by a profound psychological torment that was somehow sharper. The silence in the cave grew heavy, suffocating, broken only by the soft drip of water from the stone ceiling. He could feel the slight movement of her breathing, the rigid set of her shoulders that mirrored his own. Exhaustion was a leaden weight, pulling at his eyelids, tempting him with the oblivion of sleep. It was a siren call from his weary body, a promise of respite he could only accept by relaxing into this intimate betrayal.
He fought it, his jaw clenched, his hands balled into fists at his sides. He would not surrender. He would not give her that. But as the minutes stretched into an hour, he felt her tense form soften almost imperceptibly, her breathing evening out as she finally succumbed to the body's desperate need for rest.
The thought that she could find peace while leaning against him, the last Silvermoon, sent a fresh wave of cold fury through him. He forced his eyes open, staring into the oppressive darkness of the cave, his rage the only thing keeping him awake. The agony of the bond had been hell. This silent, forced truce felt infinitely worse. And the sun was still hours away.