The Forgotten Pulse of the Bond
Chapter 122: Threads of Betrayal

Chapter 122: Threads of Betrayal

"He’s gone," Elder Rhys barked, pounding the table with his thick fist. "How many more do we lose before you admit this is madness?"

"We don’t know that," Beckett said, voice calm but taut. His dark hair was slicked back from the rain, his shoulders broad, posture unmoving. "Sterling’s alive. We’d feel the break if he were dead."

"Feel it?" sneered Rhys. "Your bond magic is worth less than these walls if it can’t find him!"

Magnolia’s jaw tightened. She wanted to slap the old wolf across the mouth. Instead, she kept her voice low. "Bickering won’t find him either."

Across from her, Talia Vance shifted her weight, worry knotting her delicate features. "We’re not bickering, Magnolia. We’re desperate. Gabriel’s scouts are in our forests. Our gates are fractured. Camille is gone, "

"Camille didn’t abandon us," Magnolia snapped. The words bit the air like frost. "She left to protect us. Sterling went after her because none of you would."

Rhys snorted. "Romantic drivel. He’s captured, if not worse. And you stand here feeding us fairy tales about sacrifice and bonds, "

A low growl rolled across the room. Beckett leaned forward, his voice like a blade sheathed in velvet. "Watch your tongue, Elder."

Rhys stood, chair scraping back on the stone. "You’d threaten your own council now?"

Magnolia’s voice rose above them both, low, steady, terrifying in its calm. "Sit. Down."

Rhys hesitated. The younger wolves watched with baited breath, loyal eyes darting between the Alpha’s mate and the old guard. Finally, with a huff, Rhys sat. His scowl lingered like rot.

Magnolia ran her fingers along the map spread across the table. Red pins marked breaches. Black pins marked known enemy scouts. A single silver pin glinted at the forest’s edge: Sterling’s last known position.

She pressed her fingertip to that silver pin. Hold on, she thought. Just hold on.

"I won’t let Sterling’s sacrifice go to waste," she said. Her voice trembled at the word ’sacrifice,’ but she didn’t let it crack. "We’ll pull back the outer patrols. Double the watch on the western ridge. And we won’t chase Gabriel into his own trap."

"And if they come for the inner walls next?" asked Talia softly. "The villagers are scared, Magnolia. They’re talking about leaving the estate altogether."

"They won’t survive outside these walls," Beckett snapped. "Gabriel wants them panicked. Scattered. Weak. The forest devours strays."

Rhys drummed his thick fingers on the table. "Maybe it’s time to make him an offer. The Elder wants Camille, "

Magnolia slammed her palm onto the map. "If you finish that sentence, I’ll rip your tongue out myself."

Silence. Heavy. Beckett looked at her, surprised, he had never heard her voice so cold.

Magnolia’s vision blurred for a heartbeat. In her mind, Sterling’s eyes flashed, bruised, battered, but unbroken. Camille’s laughter echoed, ghostlike, from that last morning in the garden. Rhett’s voice whispered in her head, You are my voice when I have none.

She drew a deep breath. "No more talk of surrender. We’ve survived worse than this. We are Callahan blood. We are wolves. We do not bend. And we do not bargain with monsters."

The words struck the walls like hammer blows. A murmury rose, a ripple of pride or doubt, Magnolia couldn’t tell. She didn’t care.

"Meeting adjourned," she said. "If anyone wants to desert, go now. Otherwise, be ready. Tonight we fortify. Tomorrow we plan. And when the time comes, we tear the Elder apart from the inside out."

She turned to Beckett. "I need you. Now."

Beckett nodded. As they stepped into the hall, the murmurs behind them swelled, splitting the room like a hairline crack in glass.

The rain fell harder outside, drumming on the slate roof as Magnolia and Beckett moved through the narrow corridor. They passed wounded sentries, shivering under thin blankets, children huddled near hearths that barely burned.

When they reached the war library, Magnolia slammed the door behind them.

Beckett raised an eyebrow. "You’re bleeding."

Magnolia glanced down. Blood seeped through her sleeve where she’d gripped the map so hard she’d broken skin. She ignored it.

"Rhys is stirring the others against me," she said. "If he breathes another word about handing Camille over, I’ll gut him myself."

Beckett crossed his arms. "We should watch him. He’s old blood, old loyalties. Some of the younger ones are restless too. They see you as an interloper, still."

"Let them."

She pressed her fists against the table, every muscle screaming for rest. "Sterling’s gone. Camille’s gone. Rhett is..."

Her voice broke. Beckett’s eyes softened.

"Say it."

She looked up, tears burning. "He’s dying, Beckett. And I can’t hold this alone."

Beckett stepped forward, his hands warm on her shoulders. "You’re not alone."

"Look at them," she whispered. "They’re ready to turn on each other. I can smell the fear in their fur. It clings to the walls."

"Fear makes them human," Beckett said. "What you do next makes them wolves."

She let out a shaky laugh. "You sound like Rhett."

Beckett’s mouth twitched. "Then he taught me well."

She leaned into his hands, just for a moment. No warmth. No romance. Just the quiet bond of soldiers who had bled together too many times to need words.

When she stepped back, her eyes were clear. "I want eyes on Rhys. And his lieutenants. If they move to betray us, "

"They won’t get the chance," Beckett finished.

Magnolia turned to the great black cabinet at the back of the room. She pulled out a thin book bound in dark leather. It smelled of old ash and secrets. Camille’s journal. She flipped it open to the last page.

A single line scrawled in her sister’s delicate hand: It’s not a prophecy. It’s a choice.

Her throat closed. She traced the words with her fingertip. Hold on, Sterling. Hold on, Camille.

Beckett moved to the window, peering through the rain into the courtyard below. His sharp eyes caught something, a flash of fur, a figure slipping between the trees at the edge of the grounds.

"Magnolia," he said. "You need to see this."

She crossed to his side, heart hammering. A pair of wolves moved in the shadows, too small to be scouts, too fast to be villagers. Smugglers? Deserters?

Or spies.

Her pulse roared in her ears. "Wake the guards. Find them."

Beckett grabbed his dagger, nodding once before vanishing into the hall.

Magnolia stood at the window, the storm lashing the glass. Far beyond the walls, she felt the pull of something dark and patient, a thread winding through Sterling’s agony, Camille’s running footsteps, Rhett’s ragged heartbeat. It coiled around her own ribs now, whispering:

This is not the end.

But she knew, deep down, that something had already broken.