hapter 49


    I couldn’t breathe.


    The moment <b>Max’s </b>teeth sank into my neck, something in me shattered.


    I felt it–the snap. The severing.


    The breaking of something that wasn’t meant to be touched.


    The pain didn’t just stay in my shoulder. It erupted. It bled–hot and scalding through every inch of my body like wildfire under my skin. My heart clenched so hard I swore I felt it fracture. My wolf screamed–no, she howled–so violently inside me I couldn’t tell if it was real or only inside my head.


    And then Max stepped back.


    His mouth <b>was </b>still tinged red from my blood. My blood. From me.


    And I


    I couldn’t move,


    I stood there, trembling, my mind spiraling


    His face- the way he looked at me right after. He seemed shocked. Regretful, even. But it was toote. So far past toote. My legs stumbled backward without warning. My hands fumbled to brace myself against the wall, but even the touch of cold stone did nothing to ground me.


    My head started spinning.


    The corridor tilted and twisted. My vision blurred as the edges darkened and a high–pitched ringing exploded in my ears. I couldn’t hear anything–couldn’t see clearly. All I could feel was the pain, the betrayal, the emptiness that now carved itself deep into my soul.


    Max’s mouth was moving, I could tell. His lips were forming words. But I couldn’t hear them.


    Violently


    I couldn’t hear anything but the screaming in my head. The frantic, blood–curdling scream of my wolf, thrashing in a cage she never asked to be locked in.


    The walls closed in around me. I turned blindly, stumbling down the hall, my shoulder mming into the wall as I pushed myself forward, away from him, away from that room.


    “Jiselle!” Max’s voice finally broke through the ringing. Distant. Muffled. But real.


    I didn’t stop


    I couldn’t.


    I shoved the doors open and stumbled outside, into the courtyard.


    Night had fallen. The sky was painted in hues of indigo and silver, stars blinking down like disapproving gods. The air was sharp and cold–biting–but it wasn’t enough. Not enough to numb what I felt.


    I weed it anyway


    I weed the sting of the wind, the way it sliced across my skin, made the tears streaming down my cheeks feel like ice. Because my body was <b>on </b>fire. From the inside out.


    My legs gave out just as I made it to the center of the courtyard. I crumpled to the frozen ground, my knees mming into the hard stone with a jolt. My hands braced against the cobblestones, fingers digging in as if they could w the pain out of me


    But it was inside.


    So deep inside, nothing <b>could </b>reach it.


    Max’s scent followed me secondster, I felt him before I saw him–rushing up behind me, breathing hard, frantic


    T


    “Get the hell away from me I shrieked, my voice raw and broken as I shoved him back with thest ounce of strength I had He froze, stunned. His expression was full of g How could he stand there–dare to look at me


    “You” My voice cracked. “You marked me


    Sessfully unlocked<b>! </b>


    care. I didn’t care.


    <b>Jone</b>?


    He opened his mouth, but I didn’t let him speak. I couldn’t bear to hear whatever excuses he thought he had. Because there was no justification. Not for this


    Chapter


    Did he not know what he had done?


    Or worse did he know, and do it anyway?


    The fire that had taken root in my body only grew. My chest tightened, a searing burn spreading from my shoulder across my spine. My lungs feltpressed, like they were copsing in on themselves, and I suddenly couldn’t draw in air.


    My heart–my heart felt like it was dying.


    “Jiselle?” Max whispered, stepping closer.


    “Don’t!” I hissed, mming my palm into the ground. My ws had unsheathed without my permission, scraping against the stone as I convulsed.


    He paused, his face paling.


    And then he realized.


    His eyes widened–panic filling every line of his face.


    “No,” he breathed, shaking his head. “No<b>, </b><b>no</b>, no–this isn’t-”


    But it was.


    The bond was rejecting the mark.


    Because a forceful mark… it wasn’t just betrayal.


    It was vition.


    ust punishable–it was unforgivable. It was


    In the werewolf world, it was a crime worse than death. A sin so deep, it wasn’t just more than the human equivalent of being sexually assaulted. It was just… wrong. A wolf couldn’t survive a mark they didn’t want. Not fully.


    And my wolf?


    She was refusing it.


    She was rejecting the bond, rejecting Max. Which meant that I wasn’t just in pain


    I was dying


    My eyes rolled back in my head as I copsed onto my side, barely registering the frantic curse Max shouted as he knelt beside me. I was distantly aware of his hands trying to lift me, trying to turn me over, trying to-


    “Don’t you touch me!” I snarled, my voice warped by agony and rage.


    He dropped his hands immediately, his breathing ragged. “Jiselle–Moon, I didn’t mean for- I thought-


    But I couldn’t listen. The pain drowned out everything


    And then-


    “JISELLE!


    The shout rang out across the courtyard like thunder, slicing through my haze.


    A blur dropped to its knees beside me. Warm hands cupped my face. Familiar hands<b>. </b>


    “Ethan,” I gasped, eyes fluttering open.


    “What the fuck happened?” he demanded, turning on Max with a growl so vicious it barely sounded human. “What did you do to her?<b>” </b>


    Max was pacing again now, running a hand through his hair, clearly losing hisposure.


    “What did you do<b>?</b>” Ethan shouted again, louder this time.


    I tried to speak, to answer, to say anything–but my body gave up. My voice choked out in a soft wheeze as another wave of pain rolled through me, worse than thest.


    1-1 marked her, Max admitted


    Ethan froze. His expression nked for all of one heartbeat. At first, I saw the confusion. Max was my boyfriend. It shouldn‘ t have been this bad if I had done it willingly<b>. </b>


    “Did she agree?” <b>Ethan </b>demanded, and when he didn’t respond, his face twisted into something I’d never seen on my brother before.


    Rage Fury Unfiltered, uncontroble wrath


    “You forcefully marked her?” he whispered<b>. </b>


    Max held his hands up. “It wasn’t–I didn’t mean for this to happen-


    <b>“</b><b>You </b>forcefully marked her,” Ethan said again, slowly, like he couldn’t evenprehend the words leaving his mouth. “You


    Chapter do


    forcefully marked my sister”


    “She–she couldn’t do it,” Max said, gesturing helplessly. “She wasn’t strong enough to reject the bond. She kissed him. She didn’t mean to


    “You had no right. Ethan stood slowly, towering now. “No one has that right.”


    “She was suffering. I was trying to free her-”


    “You were trying to own her!”


    Their voices faded.


    I couldn’t hear them anymore.


    Everything was fading.


    The stars blurred above me. The cold seeped into my skin. The fire inside burned hotter and hotter until there was nothing but heat and ice and dark


    Thest thing I <b>saw</b>–the veryst thing before the shadows swallowed me whole–was Nate walking towards us.


    A man of fury and fire.


    And he wasing for Max.


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