A private chamber hidden behind the Obsidian Hall. Dim and sacred. The air is thick with old magic, the kind that breathes. Only one light source—a single enchanted flame suspended above a black stone bowl known only as the bond basin. It hovers, silver and faint, flickering like it remembers pain.
The room was silent, but the shadows creeping on the walls were like watchful eyes.
Kiera stood still.
She didn't sit down.
She didn't take a deep breath.
She let the silence consume her because she knew what was about to happen wasn't just about her.
This was a matter of blood.
And soul.
Across the room, Asher Navarro stood just as still.
Under his cloak, his hand was clenched.
Not out of nervousness, but out of control.
He looked like a man waiting for a verdict or a weapon.
Between them, the bond bowl the silver flame floating.
Silent.
As if waiting.
No ceremony.
No prayer.
Kiera moved first.
She approached.
Each step was like the stone beneath her crying.
When she was in front of the basin, she slowly reached out and let her hand dip into the silver light.
The fire suddenly flared.
It rose.
It soared.
It leaped.
A second passed.
Then…it died.
As if erased by the wind.
The world stopped.
Kiera jerked her hand back, as if burned, but not by heat.
She was burned by rejection.
Beside her, Asher spoke.
Cold.
Firm.
Sharp.
"No bond. Just fire and smoke."
His tone wasn't anger.
Nor was it pleasure.
Curious. Dangerous. Suspicious.
Kiera looked at him, her eyes as hard as steel.
"Then we're free," she said emotionlessly.
But inside her, something was weeping, she didn't know who.
Asher didn't blink.
Or curse.
Silent again.
But around them, the air crackled.
Something was wrong.
This wasn't the absence of a bond.
This wasn't simply that they had no destiny together.
This was a severance.
As if something was crying at the very root of their fate.
Suddenly, something inside Kiera snapped
like a flame lit behind her eyes.
One breath.
One heartbeat.
A black flame coiled in the edges of her dream.
A silver thread, slowly tearing.
A scream beneath a full moon
distant, but familiar.
And a name.
Not spoken in years.
But once sacred—whispered like a vow,
broken like a curse.
She returned to the present, her fingers trembling.
"What was that?" she whispered to herself.
But Asher was staring at her.
He walked closer, slowly, as if smelling something.
It wasn't lust.
Not even desire.
It felt like... absence.
Like something once mine had gone missing.
"The gods don't make mistakes, Kiera," Asher said, his voice low, "But they do punish those who defy fate."
Lightning flashed outside.
No thunder, but the air in the room seemed to shake.
She stared at him.
He stared back.
Two Alphas.
Two severed.
A secret older than them.
Asher was the first to turn away.
He walked towards the shadowed doorway.
His footsteps were silent, but each step was heavy not because of the weight of his body, but because of the weight of the question.
At the very threshold, he stopped.
He didn't turn around.
But Asher's voice returned, like a knife with a smile.
"If you were ever meant to be mine,
then something shattered us.
And I need to know—was it fate… or someone's hands."
After he left, the room fell silent again.
But the bond bowl in the center
Suddenly flared again.
A silver scream that immediately died out.
The Moon Cavern.
An old sacred temple underground, as if carved from the very flesh of a mountain. Each stone in the wall was etched with runes that shimmered blue and silver.
Thousands of spirit flames floated around, tiny, burning souls guiding the ceremony.
In the center, an altar made of moonstone and white stone. Here, the Alphas of destiny were bound if their connection was true.
The entire cavern was silent, but you could feel the heartbeat of the world.
This is not a wedding.
This is not a celebration.
This is judgment.
Kiera stood tall at the altar, dressed not in a bridal gown, but in battle armor.
Silver plates over white wolfhide, etched with her sigil.
Like a queen in war, not a woman at a wedding.
But even the steel on her chest was not enough protection against the chains binding her wrists, blessed iron vines like golden plants and chains, enchanted to stop a rejection or escape.
Chains for the unwilling.
Proof of obedience.
Every movement of hers was controlled, but beneath her skin, her wolf clawed, screamed.
To her right, Asher Navarro stood still.
Calm. Poised. Unreadable.
But from the corner of Kiera's eye, she noticed a twitch of a finger.
Tension.
The flames around them danced in their own wind.
And before them stood the High Priest, dressed in a black and blue robe.
In its hand, the scroll of the oath, written on the skin of the last burned Alpha who refused destiny.
"In the name of the first moon, in the shadow of the gods who bind blood to flame…" the old man began, his voice like an echo whispered by the dead.
"We call upon the bond that fate has chosen."
The runes on the wall quivered.
The spirit flames turned blue.
As if hesitant.
Kiera closed her eyes.
Not to pray for the oath, but to stifle a scream.
This is not a choice.
This is a sentence.
She didn't move the chains but felt their weight.
Not just the iron but the chaining of her own power.
When it was time for her to speak, everyone waited.
No sound.
The High Priest looked at her.
Gave a signal.
But nothing came out of her mouth.
Still not.
Inside her, a scream. Outside, silence.
Asher spoke first.
His voice was smooth.
Cool as obsidian.
"By the flame of the Veil and the will of the gods, I vow to stand bound to this Alpha, through trial, through war, through silence and fire."
After he spoke, a silvery flame leaped from the altar.
It struck the center of their hands, hot, alive, clinging.
And in that moment, light settled on their skin, a mark not of ink, but a burning sigil.
Kiera gasped, not in pain, but in something that seeped into her blood.
As if something entered her that she hadn't allowed.
A voice.
A memory.
A rage.
The silver mark on her palm pulsed.
Heating up.
As if writing a story that wasn't hers.
She clenched her fist.
Looked at the High Priest, but he wasn't the enemy.
It's Asher.
Him.
He was destiny.
He was also the chain.
And in the middle of the entire temple, in the middle of the fire and oath, in the middle of the screams she didn't utter.
Kiera whispered, her teeth biting into her own anger:
"If this bond needs chains...then it's already a prison."
The Moon Cavern — still sacred, still shimmering, but no longer still. The very air has changed. It hums now. Thrums. The moment the bond sealed, the ground beneath the altar cracked—just a thin fracture at first, but widening, bleeding silver light from the earth's old heart. The spirit flames above begin to flicker violently, reacting not just to the bond—but to something older waking up.
Suddenly, the ground beneath the altar undulated.
Not an earthquake.
Not a simple rumble.
This was the explosion of a power long contained—and now, wanting to escape.
A long crack snaked across the moonstone floor of the cavern, passing right under the altar where Kiera and Asher stood, their hands clasped, forcibly bound by the curse.
Kiera's grip tightened.
She felt the magic swirling around.
The air, like water, became sticky, heavy, drowning them even though they were standing.
And the silver fire that had been quietly burning between their palms was slowly changing shape.
Blazing.
Heating up.
As if alive.
Asher still didn't let go, but his eyes were fixed on the fire.
Not on the priest.
Not on Kiera.
On the fire itself.
As if he had been waiting for this exact moment for a long time.
The High Priest, who should have been leading the ceremony, froze.
He no longer spoke.
Nor did he move.
He seemed to have become a statue in the middle of a ritual he no longer controlled.
Everyone felt it.
All the Elders, all the personnel inside the Moon Cavern, something tore between the mortal and the divine.
"What is this…" whispered an old omega on the side. "The bond fire shouldn't be like this…"
The spirit flames on the ceiling blazed blue, and some began to turn red or black.
Fire like blood.
Fire like clouds.
Fire that was gone.
"Wolves turning on each other..." an Elder whispered, trembling.
But where did he get that image? Who saw?
In the midst of the chaos, the priest fell to their knees.
Gasping for breath.
Eyes closed.
But there was already blood under his nose.
Kiera's gaze snapped to him.
"Why…?" she whispered, almost inaudible, but full of tension.
She noticed the priest's trembling shoulders.
As if bound by something they couldn't see.
"Kiera.." Asher hissed, moving slightly.
But he didn't help.
He approach.
He just looked.
As if watching a scene he had long known would happen.
The priest looked up.
His eyes were red.
"Two alphas…" he gasped, his voice trembling, a voice like broken glass in the middle of a storm. "…bound in fire…"
He stared at Kiera.
And then at Asher.
And as if in that simple glance, he saw their end.
"…only one will survive the eclipse."
He suddenly fell.
Without warning.
Without a last prayer.
Without explanation.
The high priest who was no longer breathing.
A deafening silence enveloped the surroundings.
This was the kind of silence as if a God had left.
Then the ceremonial flame turned black.
Not gray.
Not dark silver.
Not black fire.
It was black nothingness.
No light.
No heat.
A fire that didn't burn the body but the truth.
Screams.
The spirit flames around them all disappeared—simultaneously.
The whole area darkened.
Chaos erupted.
Some Alphas ran outside.
Some Elders knelt on the floor, crying.
Some guards covered their eyes, struggling against the spread of magic that was now not only on the ground, but in the air itself.
But Asher Navarro — didn't move.
He simply turned toward the altar flame.
And while everyone was writhing in fear, in vision, in death.
He whispered.
Quietly.
Dangerously.
Emotionless.
"It's begun."