Chapter Six: The Bond

Luna didn’t think. She acted.

Her hand shot out, palm slamming flat against the dirt, and the healer’s gift inside her the same gift that mended broken bones and knitted torn skin surged up through her arm with a force she’d never called on before. It wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t controlled. It ripped out of her like a scream given shape, and the ground beneath the attacking wolf erupted in a shockwave of raw energy that sent the creature flying sideways into a tree trunk with a sickening crack.

The clearing went silent for one suspended heartbeat. Every wolf, friend and enemy alike, turned toward her.

Luna stared at her own glowing hands, chest heaving, utterly stunned by what had just come out of her.

Magnus was on his feet in an instant bleeding, favoring one shoulder, but alive, moving toward her before she’d even processed what she’d done. He shifted back mid-stride, human again, blood streaking down his bare chest from the bite wound at his shoulder, and dropped to his knees in front of her like the fight around them had simply ceased to exist.

“What did you just do?” he breathed.

“I don’t know.” Her voice shook. “I’ve never that’s never happened before.”

Around them, the remaining Cole wolves were retreating, dragging their downed comrade with them, the tide of battle turning now that their strongest fighter had been thrown twenty feet by a healer nobody had thought to be afraid of. Kane, blood-streaked and wild-eyed, watched Luna with an expression she couldn’t read somewhere between awe and something darker.

“Elena.” Luna’s attention snapped back, hands already glowing again, this time gentler, focused, pressing into her sister’s shoulder wound. The bleeding slowed, then stopped, torn muscle knitting beneath her palms. Elena’s eyes fluttered open, confused but alive.

“Lu,” Elena rasped. “What was that?”

“Later,” Luna said, voice tight. “Just breathe.”

Magnus’s hand found the back of Luna’s neck, careful, grounding, blood from his own wound smearing against her skin. “That surge,” he said quietly, only for her. “That was pack magic. Alpha-strength pack magic. Do you understand what that means?”

Luna did understand, and the understanding terrified her more than the attack had.

A bond couldn’t grant that kind of power unless it was already forming. Unless something between her and Magnus had already taken root, deeper than words, deeper than the deal they’d made in the woods three nights ago.

“That’s not possible,” she whispered. “We haven’t you haven’t claimed me. There’s no bond yet.”

Magnus’s amber eyes held hers, dead serious. “Apparently,” he said, “my wolf disagrees.”

Damon Ashford arrived at a run, taking in the carnage downed wolves, blood-soaked earth, his brother kneeling half-shifted in front of Luna with a hand at the back of her neck and his expression shifted from battle-focus to something far more complicated.

“We need to talk,” Damon said grimly. “Now. All of us. Because Victor Cole didn’t send a raiding party for territory, Magnus. He sent it for her.”