Bonds & Hearts Broken

Quinn

The morning meal was a quiet affair.

You’d think that after everything we’d been through, a group of six friends would have plenty to talk about.

But we were all silent, the only sound being the crunching and gnawing of the pheasant Jax had managed to hunt down that morning.

Jax had gotten up before the sun to join Alex in the hunt for food.

We hadn’t spoken a word to each other since we found out that the bond between us had weakened.

It was strange.

Like we’d run out of things to say to each other.

There was just this emptiness: a frustrating void that couldn’t be filled.

Looking around the worn, wooden breakfast table, I could see the same feeling mirrored on everyone’s faces.

A kind of hopeless indifference.

But none of us knew how to put into words what had happened.

I don’t think any of us really understood the how and why.

All we knew was that it was definitely Matheius’ doing.

Finally, Sky tried to break the silence.

“This pheasant is…good, Jax. Thanks for finding it.”

Jax just nodded as he tore into the small bird’s thigh.

I could hear the heartbreak in her voice.

Harper joined in, “If we’re going to be here a while, you should show me where you found it. I’ll set some traps and see if we can’t catch more of the flock. Food is scarce around here.”

“Funny,” Zara laughed without humor, “we wolves thought we’d evolved so far beyond foraging and hunting.”

“Not me,” Harper said with her usual dark confidence, “Once a hunter, always a hunter.”

“We should all try to do our own hunting,” I suggested. “With so little to go around, we’ll stand a better chance of survival if we can all put something on the table.”

“Me? Hunt?” said Sky, shocked. “I’ve never tracked a single thing in my life…except maybe a boy or two.”

We all looked over to Harper, expecting Sky’s joke to get a sarcastic response from her.

But there was just a brief flicker of sadness across her face.

None of the drive and passion we’d all come to know she had.

“What the hell are you all staring at?” she snapped, getting up from the table.

“I’m gonna get a start on tracking down dinner. If you’re smart, you’ll all come join me.”

Harper grabbed her bow and quiver and walked toward the dining hall door, navigating through the mess of broken flatware and scattered cutlery.

Her stride was long and proud.

Alex picked at the little meat left on the bone while staring across the table at Zara.

Their pupils seemed to dilate as if adjusting to the light.

Then, Zara reached her hand across the table and held his gently.

“You look thin,” she said, tears in her eyes. “Are you okay?”

Alex smiled back at her warmly. “I’m good. Did you get enough?”

She nodded and pulled her hand back.

Clearly, there was still some spark between them.

But why had it survived such a new, budding romance and died in a tested relationship like mine and Jax’s.

“Tell us more about what you saw around the Vulpes camp before you left,” I said, wanting to break the silence again.

The thin Beta sighed and shook his head. “Death. Decay. Destruction,” he said seriously. “Anthony’s army was broken into several smaller groups scattered throughout the valleys. I could see their tracks.”

“How many survivors of our former pack do you think there are?”

Alex stared down at his plate. “If I had to guess, cubs included, a little more than two dozen.”

Jax’s face went pale as the news hit him.

It was sickening to think that that crazy swamp rat Anthony had led our wolves straight into needless death.

My blood boiled just thinking about it.

Alex continued, “As we journeyed back here, I came across what I expected. Wolves licking their wounds in any safe place.

“But last night, when I was tracking food, something really strange happened. Something I can’t explain. I didn’t want to mention it until after breakfast because it’s just—it’s horrible.”

“Go on, Alex,” Jax urged, “please at least try to explain.”

“It happened late last night, during the first hours of twilight,” he said, forgetting manners to talk with his mouth full.

“I had just found a place to sleep for the night in a hollow log. But then, on the hillside next to me, I heard a chorus of strange, deranged howling.”

“Deranged? How?” asked Zara.

“It sounded like some strange mix of a human sob and a wounded wolf. I crawled out of the log and made my way near the top of the hill, staying hidden in the brush. And there I saw them: Oron and Hephesta.”

“The werewolf king and queen? Out in the carnage of battle?” Zara interrupted. “That doesn’t make sense.”

“That was my first thought,” said Alex, “but things only seemed to get stranger from there. I watched them howl desperately back and forth, as if they couldn’t understand each other or were searching for some kind of recognition.”

Jax looked up toward me.

The situation Alex described sounded familiar.

“And what I saw next…”

Alex’s voice cracked. His hands began to shake, rattling the pheasant bones in his hand.

Jax placed a comforting hand on his Beta’s shoulder.

“It’s okay, friend, what is it you saw?”

“A flash of rage in the king’s eyes,” he said, horrified. “It was as if all reason had left him. As though he had become pure animal.

“He jumped on his queen of over a century and… tore out her throat with his teeth, killing her instantly. Spat her insides out like they were just pieces of bad meat.”

Everyone’s eyes widened.

Oron and Hephesta, the revered leaders of the werewolf race, were known for their legendary love. Their bond was so strong that it influenced the prosperity of their reign.

The thought of such a love, brutally shattered in a moment of uncontrolled rage…

It was enough to make your soul ache.

“I can’t wrap my head around it!” Alex exclaimed, his voice thick with emotion. “He was like a different person. Like he didn’t even pause to consider his actions. I just don’t get it.”

Jax let out a sigh and gave his friend a comforting pat on the shoulder, “I think we might.”

“You felt it too?” Sky asked Zara.

“I did,” Zara admitted softly.

“Me too,” I confessed, my voice heavy with sadness.

“Felt what?” Alex asked, his brow furrowed in confusion.

He looked at Zara, who simply shook her head.

“Last night,” I began, “something shifted between Jax and me. And we both knew it instantly.”

“That’s right,” Jax agreed. “It was as if she and I were suddenly disconnected. Like a link between us had been severed. Not violently, just…”

“Indifferently,” Sky finished for him.

“Yes, that’s exactly it. Like our bond as mates didn’t matter anymore. Like we’d reverted back to how things were before.”

“Your mating bonds—gone?” Alex looked at each of us, his face filled with shock.

We all nodded in confirmation.

“But how could this happen?”

“Matheius,” I said simply.

“Quinn and I saw him rise to power. We believe this is his strategy. The first step in the downfall of our kind.”

Alex’s face paled, “What can we do? If the mating bond is broken, our kind will fall into chaos. We’ll become a violent race of lone wolves, each fighting for themselves.”

“There is one way,” a frail, old voice called out.

We all turned to look at the doorway, where a hunched, elderly woman stood.

“Who are you?” Jax asked, his voice laced with suspicion.

She was a stranger to me.

A stranger with a face that told a thousand stories.

Then, two more figures stepped out from the shadows of the doorway.

Theodore and Isabelle.

~They’re alive!~

“You found us!” I exclaimed.

“You’re the only family she has left, Quinn. That makes you her only hope against Matheius.”

“What? Family?”

I slowly approached the twins and the old woman.

As I got closer, I noticed the old woman’s eyes.

They were a metallic silver.

I gasped.

“Selena? Is that really you?”