BONDED CURSE

The marble floor was so cold it felt like it was trying to bite straight through her skin, the kind of cold that makes your knees forget how to hinge, the kind of cold that makes memories ache. Sariah kept kneeling because that was what the ritual wanted, because everyone else stayed still and silence thickened like fog, and when the Moon Summit temple held its breath, you could hear your lungs loud as thunder.

The priest lifted his hand, and the motion was small and deliberate, palms like weathered pages. “Step forward, Alpha Kaien Thorn.”

Boots answered him, boots that sounded like the whole world landing right there. Kaien filled the circle before her like a shadow with edges, black armor swallowing the light, silver eyes level, unblinking. He didn’t give her the courtesy of looking soft or even curious. He looked like someone used to breaking things and walking away.

“I, Kaien Thorn, reject this bond.” His voice was flat, clean, a cut that didn’t tremble. It landed on her and kept going, like the rest of the room was some other place where the thing had never happened.

The priest mouthed the old words after him, and each syllable felt like a nail. The crowd breathed in unison, and for a beat she heard nothing but that sound, the way a building inhales before it collapses.

A laugh cracked the silence, sharp and small like a thrown stone. “Did you hear that? The Bloodfang Alpha’s fated mate, rejected like a stray.” Voices folded over each other, small cruel things making space between stone and skin.

Sariah lifted her head slowly, searching faces like someone scanning for an exit. Some looked away, some smirked, others tried for pity and failed. Her pulse hammered against her throat and her voice surprised her because it came out low and steady. “Say that to my face,” she told him.

Kaien just turned his head, his silver eyes grazing hers like cold metal. “I just did.”

She pushed up to her feet. Her knees screamed in protest, but she didn’t listen. “You think this makes you stronger?”

“It makes me free.”

Murmurs spread through the hall like spilled salt. Someone near the front hissed, “Her mark’s wrong; look at it,” and hands went to shoulders as if fingers could verify destiny.

Her hand moved of its own accord to the crescent on her skin, faint and pale, the moon carved into her shoulder like an accusation. “Free from what?” she asked, and the answer she wanted wasn’t in his face.

He didn’t answer. Instead he said, cool and small, “Remove her name from every bonded record.”

“Done, Alpha,” the priest said, like erasing ink.

Her voice tightened, angrier than she expected. “You’ll regret this.”

“No,” Kaien said without looking back, “you will.”

Commander Thale’s laugh came from the steps, a low sound like flint. Red cloak, scar that cut through her cheek and never closed, she leaned into the open doors like