The searing agony of the bond had receded, leaving a dull, constant thrum in its wake. It was a hazy current flowing between them, a river of exhaustion and weary mistrust. On opposite sides of the crackling fire, Connall and Althea rested, the silence in the cramped cave heavier than any spoken threat. The moon-herbs had worked, but the peace they'd bought felt fragile, as thin and brittle as ice on a spring morning.
Connall's eyes were heavy, his body screaming for the oblivion of sleep. He fought it, his gaze fixed on the dancing flames, but the pull was a relentless tide. As his consciousness began to fray at the edges, the thrumming connection to the she-wolf across the fire deepened. Its current strengthened, twisting from a gentle river into a whirlpool that caught him, spun him around, and dragged him under.
He wasn't dreaming. He was gone.
The familiar weight of a leather satchel settled on his shoulder. *Her* shoulder. The scent of old parchment and the sharp, acidic bite of ink filled his nostrils, the smell of an Alpha's private study. Through her eyes, he saw a wolf he recognized from Bloodfang lore—her mentor, a grizzled warrior named Kael, his eyes kind, his smile warm and reassuring. He felt a wave of profound relief and deep, abiding trust wash over him as the older wolf approached. *Her* relief. *Her* trust.
"A gift of reconciliation for the Alpha," the mentor said, his voice a low, comforting rumble. He placed a heavy, cloth-wrapped object into the satchel. The weight felt wrong. Too dense for a scroll, too solid for a tribute.
Then the mentor's smile twisted, the warmth draining from his face as if a mask had slipped. He leaned in close, his kind eyes suddenly as cold and hard as ice chips. He pulled back the cloth just enough for her to see the glint of an ornate dagger's hilt, its blade dark and sticky with drying blood. The murder weapon.
Confusion warred with a cold, sickening dread that curdled in his—her—stomach. *Betrayal.* The word was a physical shock, a freezing wave of horror that stole the air from her lungs.
Heavy, purposeful bootfalls echoed from the stone hall. Guards. Coming for her. Panic seized her heart, a wild bird hammering against the cage of her ribs. The heavy oak door was thrown open. Guntram's elite warriors stormed in, their faces grim masks of duty. They seized her arms, their armored grips like iron bands. He felt the searing shame, the abject, soul-crushing terror of being dragged out, of hearing the words that would end her life.
"Traitor! Murderer!"
Connall jolted awake with a raw, strangled gasp. The phantom terror clung to him like a damp shroud, cold and suffocating. His heart hammered against his own ribs, a frantic echo of her panic. He stared across the dying fire at Althea, who stirred in a fitful, troubled sleep, a soft whimper escaping her lips. He no longer saw the daughter of his pack's destroyers, the symbol of his vengeance. He saw the terrified, betrayed young woman from the vision. He saw a pawn in a game far larger than her. The last Silvermoon had just lived the absolute truth of her innocence, and the foundation of his hatred had fractured.
***
Althea was woken by Connall's sharp gasp. She saw him across the fire, his face pale, his eyes wide with a look of pure, unadulterated shock she had never seen on him. Before she could form a question, the bond flared, a violent backlash of shared memory that tore through her with the force of a physical blow. The cave vanished. Her own body dissolved. She was ripped from her consciousness and plunged into his.
She was a boy again, small and powerless in a grand hall that was ablaze. The air was a choking mixture of acrid smoke and the coppery tang of fresh blood that coated her tongue. Screams and the shriek of clashing steel created a deafening, hellish symphony. Through his young eyes, she saw the proud Silvermoon banners—banners she knew only from old scrolls—torn from the walls and trampled under the muddy boots of Bloodfang warriors. *Her pack.* The realization was a shard of glass twisting in her gut.
Rage and terror, desperate and childish, warred within him. He stood frozen before his mother, a tall, elegant she-wolf who shielded his small body with her own. Althea watched, helpless, as Guntram Volkov, younger and in his brutal prime, cut down the Silvermoon Alpha. He fell without a sound, a king collapsing on his own floor. *His father.*
The memory sharpened, focusing with horrific, crystalline clarity on a single, unbearable moment. A Bloodfang warrior, his face a snarl of victory, lunged for the boy—for him. His mother moved, a blur of silver and white, her hand pushing him back with a force that sent him stumbling. A sword swung in a gleaming arc. She was struck down.
The world shattered into a million pieces. The grief that flooded through her was not her own. It was his. It was an agony so profound, so absolute, it was a physical force, a tearing of the soul that left nothing but a black, howling void. A scream of pure loss was trapped in the boy's throat, a sound that would echo unheard for a decade.
Althea was flung back into her own body as if from a great height. She landed with a silent gasp, the stone floor of the cave cold and hard beneath her. Tears she hadn't cried streamed down her face, hot against her chilled skin. The abstract history of "the coup" was gone. In its place was a visceral, personal trauma she had just lived, a nightmare she had just helped create.
She looked at Connall. The fearsome rogue was gone. The vengeful prince was gone. All she could see was the broken boy, the lone survivor of a horror she had just witnessed through his eyes.
***
They stared at each other across the dying embers. The charged silence of hatred had been obliterated, replaced by the deafening echo of shared nightmares. The cave felt smaller, the darkness outside less threatening than the raw, exposed space between them.
Connall spoke first, his voice rough, stripped of its usual venom as he struggled with the words. "Your mentor… Kael… he framed you." It wasn't a question. It was a statement of fact, spoken by a witness.
Althea could only nod, her throat tight, her eyes still wide with the horror she had seen for him. "Your family," she whispered, the words choked and inadequate. "I saw… I'm so sorry."
The apology hung in the air, a fragile, useless thing against the magnitude of the loss. But it was all she had. The physical pain of their bond was gone, but this emotional resonance was a far heavier, more complicated burden. He could no longer see her as just a Bloodfang wolf, a symbol of his loss. She could no longer see him as just an enemy prince, the face of her pack's vengeance.
The chasm between them hadn't vanished, but its nature had irrevocably changed. It was no longer a simple line drawn in blood and hatred. It was a wound they now shared.
Connall clenched his fists, the knuckles turning white. He looked away from her, staring into the last glowing coals as if seeking an answer in the flames. The war against her had been simple, a clean line of fire that had fueled him for a decade. It had given him purpose. This war, the one now raging inside himself, was a tangled, unwinnable mess.
"The bond is supposed to hurt," he said, his voice low and strained with a new kind of pain.
He finally met her gaze. His eyes were not filled with hatred, but with a raw, terrifying confusion that mirrored her own.
"This is worse. How am I supposed to hate you now?"