Page 65 of The Bound Blood
Distance didn’t quiet the bond. It amplified it. After that, I still felt her in every breath.
“Do you think I didn’t notice?” he asks, turning slowly. His expression is flat. Masked. But there’s rage burning cold behind his eyes. “You disobeyed.”
“I tried,” I admit. “But it only got stronger when I put distance between us.”
“No bond is unbreakable,” he growls, stepping closer. “If you won’t do it, I will.”
I tense, ready to fight back. “You don’t know what that will do to her?—”
He raises a hand, murmuring something ancient under his breath. Glyphs shimmer in the air, slicing through the space between us like silver knives. The bond hums, thenshrieks—not audibly, but deep in my bones.
Pain explodes behind my eyes. My knees nearly buckle. But it doesn’t break. His expression twists. He speaks louder now, pushing power into the next set of words, trying to force it and bend it to his will.
But the bond doesn’t unravel—itdefends against it like it’s an attack. A flare of heat punches outward, blinding white and pulsing with what I’m starting to realize is Veil-magic, lashing toward him like a warning. He stumbles back two steps, blinking hard.
I feel it through every nerve ending: She will know what my father is trying to do. Even from a distance, so I clamp tight on our link, making sure she doesn’t have time to feel any fear, because she has nothing to fear.
He wipes sweat from his brow, jaw clenched. “It’s too late.”
“You think I didn’t try?” I snap. “You told me to cut her out. I did everything short of carving her from my spine. And it didn’t work. Because she’s in my blood now. She is my soulmate, Father, and that can’t be undone.”
My father studies me like I’m something broken. “You were supposed to carry the Kitsune name forward. Lead the eastern line when I stepped down. Protect what we’ve built.”
I shake my head. “No. You wanted me to protect whatyoucontrol.”
“And I will not have you tethered to a girl who could bring the whole system down,” he seethes. “She is not one of us. She is notworthyof you.”
“She’s more worthy than anyone I’ve ever known,” I say without flinching.
His hands curl into fists. “Then hear this and hear it well: if you will not sever the bond, you will be severed instead.”
The words drop between us like a lead weight, and I suck in a breath, blinking rapidly.
“You will be cut off from the clan,” he says coldly. “From the strength of the ancestral pack. From our shared power. You will walk as one without a tether, and your strength will wither. You will face the consequences of choosing something wild and broken over blood and legacy.”
The air in my lungs freezes. He’s not wrong.
Shifters without clan ties lose more than status. The ancestral threads feed our power—quiet, constant strength from those who came before. Without that anchor, it’s like walking into battle without armor. Like bleeding slowly and invisible over time.
I was raised on that truth.
But when I close my eyes… I don’t see my father’s crest.
I seeher.
The girl who stood in front of the Council like a firestorm, wild and half-broken and still stronger than anyone in the room. The way she looked at me as if I wasn’t just a weapon or a duty to uphold—but someone she trusted.
Someone shechose.
I take a breath. And I speak. “Then cut me off.”
My father stills.
“I choose her,” I say. “Even if it weakens me. Even if it leaves me packless. Even if it kills me.”
The words are like fire on my tongue, but they don’t burn, not the way they would have a month ago when my pack was everything.
They cleanse.
