The Forgotten Pulse of the Bond
Chapter 137: The Throat of Winter

Chapter 137: The Throat of Winter

"You hear her?" Beckett asked. His voice was a hush that belonged to the trees more than to him.

Magnolia didn’t turn. "She’s closer now."

Beckett huffed a sound that might’ve been a laugh if it weren’t so full of teeth. "She’s the bait."

"No," Magnolia said. Her boots crunched over a half-buried root, the frost biting through her soles. "I am."

The trees thickened the deeper they went. Old pines gave way to birch stands that creaked in the wind, trunks bent like crooked spines under the weight of centuries. Magnolia touched her palm to one as they passed, the bark cold and slick with meltwater.

The hush behind it pressed close , too close. Her wolf bristled, pacing the edge of her mind. Beckett stepped up beside her, his shadow bleeding into hers on the snow.

"Why here?" he asked.

Magnolia closed her eyes. Camille’s echo drifted just ahead , laughter that caught on the wind like smoke from a pyre that never burned clean.

"Because it’s where the pack can’t follow," she said.

Beckett’s lip curled. "Convenient for the Elder."

She cut him a look, a flick of teeth that made his grin show through the beard he hadn’t bothered to trim in days. "You think he’s waiting here?"

"I think he’s always waiting here."

By midday, the hush had turned the forest into a throat they couldn’t see beyond. The snow muffled their boots. Beckett’s hand brushed hers when the path narrowed to nothing , the bond between them humming under the weight of frost and ghosts.

They stopped where the birches broke into a small clearing, the snow draped so thick it looked untouched by claw or boot. Magnolia crouched, gloved fingers brushing the crusted surface. A faint heat pulsed underneath, unnatural for the depth of winter.

Beckett’s growl rumbled. "A ward."

"No," Magnolia murmured. "A door."

She sliced her glove open with the tip of her knife, pressing her bare palm to the snow. The warmth under her skin felt wrong , like blood pooling where it shouldn’t.

Camille’s echo slipped around her skull again: Ash in the vein. Bone in the throat. He’s here.

Beckett braced a hand on her shoulder. His grip was iron. "Say the word."

She didn’t answer. She just pressed harder. The snow melted under her touch, steam coiling up into the hush. Beneath it, a lattice of black veins pulsed in the frozen earth , roots or scars or something older that refused to die.

Magnolia’s wolf lunged, snapping at the bond that kept her tethered to Beckett. The sigil carved into her arm itched like a brand that wanted to split wide.

"Magnolia, " Beckett’s voice cracked.

She snarled under her breath, pressing her forehead to the snowmelt. The cold hissed against her skin. The hush closed around her throat.

"I see you," she whispered.

A flicker , not a vision, but a crack in her skull that let the rot seep through. Camille’s face, half-ash, half-child, eyes wide and black where they should’ve been pale and shining with mischief. Behind her, a shape flickered , taller than any wolf she’d ever known, ribs arching out like spires, eyes that burned without flame.

Run, Mags.

The echo wasn’t Camille’s voice this time. It was her mother’s. Her father’s. Rhett’s. A chorus of every lie she’d ever told herself about what a pack was supposed to be.

Magnolia jerked back, ice stuck to her cheek, skin red and raw. Beckett caught her before she hit the snow, his arms wrapping around her ribs like an iron band.

"What did you see?" he rasped.

She shivered against him. "The door’s open."

Beckett’s mouth brushed her ear, words hot enough to burn the frost in her hair. "Then we go in."

They found the path that wasn’t there a heartbeat later , a line through the birches where the snow didn’t fall, where the hush tasted sweet like rot in a wolf’s throat. Magnolia led, boots sinking into mud that shouldn’t have thawed in winter’s mouth.

The forest bent overhead, branches knitting together until the sky vanished in a weave of bone and frost. The hush pressed closer, so heavy her ears rang with the sound of her own breath.

Beckett’s fingers brushed hers every third step , not touching, but close enough to remind her the bond was still alive, still ready to yank her back if the Ash Child cracked her open and crawled inside.

They paused at dusk. Beckett forced her to eat a strip of dried venison, though neither of them tasted it. The forest was too thick to let a fire burn , every spark they tried guttered out, as if the hush itself sucked the breath from the flame.

Magnolia sat with her back to a tree, knees drawn up, knife resting across her thighs. Beckett leaned against her side, one boot pressed over the path so nothing could slip up behind them.

"You’re shaking," he murmured.

"I’m not."

"You are."

She huffed. "You’re a bad liar."

Beckett’s laugh rumbled low, not unkind. "So are you."

The bond pulsed under her ribs. She could feel his heartbeat , steady where hers stuttered. She wondered if he felt hers like a blade pressed against his breastbone.

When the hush cracked , a branch snapping somewhere deeper in the trees , Magnolia’s hand shot to the knife hilt. Beckett’s fingers brushed her wrist, grounding her.

"It’s not time," he said.

She swallowed the taste of iron on her tongue. "It will be."

When the night came alive, it didn’t howl. It didn’t snarl. It breathed.

A slow, steady exhale that brushed the backs of their necks like fingers made of shadow and frost. Magnolia pressed her spine to the tree, eyes flicking to the space between the trunks where the hush was thicker than the snow.

Camille’s echo slipped through the branches: Not yet, Mags. Not yet.

Beckett’s hand found hers, their fingers tangling just long enough for the bond to flare hot and bright in the hush.

He leaned close, mouth at her temple. "You pull back if it’s wrong."

Magnolia’s laugh cracked. "It’s already wrong."

Beckett’s teeth scraped her ear. "Then we break it anyway."

They slept in turns, but the hush didn’t sleep with them. It circled the clearing like a wolf too hungry to care about the pack’s rules. Magnolia’s dreams cracked open , ash drifting through her veins, Camille’s face pressed to hers, lips moving without sound.

When she woke, Beckett’s arms were tight around her ribs. His breath hissed at the crown of her head.

"I’ve got you," he said.

She didn’t believe him.

But she let him say it anyway.

At dawn, they stood at the throat of the forest, the path splitting into shadows that smelled of blood and old secrets. Magnolia’s wolf scraped its claws at the base of her spine, pacing, snarling at the taste of the Ash Child’s poison trickling through her mind.

Beckett checked the blade at his hip, then the smaller one tucked into the back of his boot. He caught her eyes, his grin all teeth and threat.

"Last chance to run."

Magnolia bared her teeth right back. "Not this time."

The hush cracked open , a branch snapping somewhere ahead. Camille’s echo drifted through the hush, sweet as poison.

Come find me.

Magnolia stepped into the shadows. Beckett followed , the bond tight between them, a wire pulled taut.