The Forgotten Pulse of the Bond
Chapter 127: Beckett’s Doubt

Chapter 127: Beckett’s Doubt

It was nearly midnight when Beckett found her. The corridor outside her chamber smelled of old herbs and damp stone , the scent of restless ghosts that never slept in the Callahan estate. Magnolia had wedged a chair under the latch, though anyone who knew her knew locks did little to keep nightmares out.

She sat at the edge of her narrow bed, boots still on, cloak still wrapped around her shoulders. Her hair lay in a dark braid over one shoulder, the end frayed where her fingers had pulled at it over and over. A single candle flickered on the small table by the bed, casting shadows over her hollowed cheeks and the tight line of her mouth.

Beckett rapped once , a soft warning , then nudged the door open. The chair scraped against the floor. Magnolia didn’t flinch.

"Get out," she said without looking up.

He ignored her. He kicked the chair aside, shut the door with his boot, and leaned against it. He smelled like the courtyard , snow, wet leather, and the ghost of blood he hadn’t bothered to scrub from his knuckles yet.

"You think you’re ready to stare him down alone?" he asked. His voice was calm, but underneath it ran a current that could split stone.

Magnolia kept her gaze fixed on the candle. "He won’t believe me if he smells you behind my back."

Beckett barked a low, humorless laugh. "You think he’s not already five steps ahead? You think you’re the only one playing a hand?"

She looked at him then, eyes sharp as a blade drawn too many times. "What would you have me do, Beckett? Chain him? Burn him alive? Put a wolf down because he’s sick with something we can’t name?"

"Maybe." Beckett pushed off the door. He crossed the small room in three strides, standing so close that the candlelight trembled between them. "I’d rather bury him now than see him gut you while you sleep."

She didn’t move back. Her chin lifted a fraction , enough to look him dead in the eyes.

"That’s not your call."

"It is if Rhett can’t make it," Beckett snarled. He leaned in, breath hot, words quiet enough that only the walls would remember them. "You think he doesn’t feel you drifting? He’s half dead, Magnolia. And you , you’re giving pieces of yourself away to ghosts."

"I’m trying to hold this pack together," she hissed.

"And you’re splitting yourself down the middle to do it." Beckett’s fingers twitched, as if fighting the urge to grab her shoulders, to shake sense back into the stubborn bones he’d carried through snow and blood more times than he could count.

Magnolia looked at him , really looked. She took in the fresh cut above his brow, the bruise blooming purple under the edge of his jaw. The little things she always noticed, tucked away for nights like this when her anger slipped and something softer tried to crawl through.

"If you don’t trust me, Beck, then go."

His mouth twisted. "Don’t you dare."

"Don’t I dare what?"

"Don’t you dare throw me out like I’m another problem to solve. I’ve given you my throat, my hands, my wolf. You want me gone? Say it. And mean it."

She couldn’t. The words wouldn’t form. They sat behind her teeth, bitter and useless.

Beckett saw the crack. He pressed in, voice lower, softer now , but that only made it more dangerous. "What happens if he asks you to prove it, Magnolia? You’ll stand there, steel in your spine, and say you’ll carve out your soul for him. What happens if he calls your bluff?"

"Then I gut him first," she snapped. Her hands clenched in her lap. She could feel her wolf pacing inside her chest , restless, uncertain, hungry for something it didn’t trust.

"You can’t kill what you still mourn," Beckett said. He crouched in front of her, big hands braced on his knees. His eyes glowed in the flicker of the candle , that impossible color between gray and wolf-silver.

Magnolia’s laugh was sharp, edged with something that almost broke. "You think I mourn him?"

Beckett’s fingers twitched. He lifted one hand, brushing a thumb over the braid slipping down her shoulder. "You mourn what he was. You mourn who you were when he stood at your side."

She jerked away from his touch. "Don’t."

He let his hand fall, but his eyes never left hers. "He’s not coming back, Magnolia. Whatever Gabriel did in that pit, he didn’t crawl out alone. There’s something else wearing Sterling’s skin now. You see it."

She pressed her fist to her mouth. "I see it."

Beckett exhaled. "Then don’t let it fool you."

She dropped her hand. The candle flame guttered as her breath caught. "I have to fool him first."

"Then let me stand at your back."

"He’ll smell you."

"Then let him."

A spark flared in her chest , not anger, not quite hope either. "You’d kill him if I told you to."

"I’d kill him if you didn’t." Beckett’s voice was steady as stone. "I’d do it for you. For Rhett. For this pack."

A sharp laugh slipped from her throat. "Rhett would never forgive you."

"Rhett’s half a ghost already." Beckett’s mouth twisted, bitter. "He’d thank me when he woke up and saw you still breathing."

The silence that followed was too soft, too sharp. Magnolia looked down at her boots, the dried salt of old snow flaking off the leather. She’d worn these same boots the night they stormed Gabriel’s southern outpost. The same boots Sterling had teased her about , New boots, Alpha? Planning to run for once?

That memory stabbed deeper than any blade.

"I can’t do this if I’m looking over my shoulder for you," she said finally.

"You won’t see me," Beckett promised.

She looked up. His eyes didn’t flicker. His word was iron.

"You’d kill him," she said again, softer now, testing him.

His mouth curved , not quite a smile, more a promise. "I’d bury him so deep Gabriel wouldn’t find the bones."

She almost laughed. Almost.

Instead, she reached out, brushing her fingertips over the raw edge of the cut above his brow. The wound oozed a thin line of fresh red.

"You need to clean that."

He caught her wrist before she could pull back. His thumb traced her pulse, slow and deliberate. "So do you."

She didn’t have the strength to argue. Not tonight.

They stood like that until the candle guttered low. When Beckett finally pulled back, he turned for the door but paused, one hand braced against the frame.

"He’ll push tomorrow," he said. "He’ll want to taste how deep you’ll bleed for him."

Magnolia’s mouth tasted like iron. "Then let him."

"Magnolia."

She looked up. The wolf in him looked out through his eyes , savage, loyal, tired.

"If he snaps your spine, I’ll snap his."

She nodded once. "Don’t wait."

When Beckett left, she stayed seated on the bed, her fingers toying with the frayed end of her braid. She could feel her wolf pacing in her chest, teeth bared, fur bristling. It wanted to run, to fight, to tear down the thin walls that kept the Elder’s poison at bay.

But she had to wait.

She blew out the candle and lay back against the thin mattress. Cold seeped through the blankets, but she didn’t shiver.

Outside the shutter, snow drifted down in lazy, patient swirls. Somewhere, Sterling prowled the halls, footsteps too soft for the sentries to catch. She could almost hear him at her door, nose pressed to the wood, breathing in the fear she fought so hard to bury.

She whispered into the darkness, voice so small it almost didn’t belong to her: "I won’t break for you."

The wolf inside her answered, low and hungry.

But you’ll bleed.