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Chapter 4: The Beast Within
Terakhir Diperbarui:
2025-02-18 20:02:22The world still spun with golden light when she broke our kiss, but the howls outside were too near. The fires on the hills threw writhing shadows across the windows and I could feel the baby reacting to the surge of power, moving restlessly in my arms.
“We have to go,” Maxwell said hoarsely. “They’re going to be coming to get you with the bond awakening.”
"The bond...” I touched my lips, tingling still from his kiss. New memories were rushing back — stolen moments in the treehouse, whispered promises beneath moonlight, the gut-wrenching agony when he’d vanished. "You knew all along. Even when I married David..."
"I wanted to stop you." His jaw clenched. “But if Id interfered, it would have all come out early. You didn’t know what your power even was back then. That shock could have killed you.”
"So you watched." The words came out bitter. “While he was abusing me, while he — ”
“While he attempted to subvert what was meant to be ours. (Maxwell’s eyes flashed dangerously.) “He knew how we were to one another. That's why he chose you. Broken mate bond's is powerful magic, especially between Guardians.”
Mom came to the doorway, her face taut with worry. “They’ve broken through the outer wards. James is keeping them back, but—”
A crash toward the front of the house interrupted her. And David’s voice, distorted with fury and power, poured through the walls: “Come out, little mate! 'Let’s see if your new protector can handle a pack alpha!’
The baby kicked hard enough that I gasped. Maxwell’s hand moved to my stomach, that warm golden light pouring from his palm.
“The child knows the real connection,” he said quietly. “It’s battling against David’s power.”
"How touching." With a snarl, partially in wolf form, Sophie stepped through the kitchen door. “But that abomination is our pack’s now. The ritual requires it."
Maxwell galloped faster than I was able to follow, moving into position between us. But before he could make such a move, power rushed through me — primal, instinctive. Sophie was blasted backward, crashing into the wall hard enough to crack plaster.
“The baby,” I spat, my eyes flicking to gold, “is mine and mine alone.”
“Lena,” Maxwell called aloud, sounding worried. “Get you to the sanctuary we need.” The full moon rises and as the bond awakens—“
The pain coursing through my body was different this time. It felt as if every nerve were on fire. "What's happening to me?"
"Your first change." He caught me just as my legs buckled. “The pregnancy is speeding everything up. We need to—"
The wall of the kitchen exploded toward inside. David silhouetted in the wreckage, halfway between man and wolf. At least twenty pack members snarled and paced behind him.
“You thought you could get away with this? Did you really think I wouldn’t have a backup plan?” he chortled, the tone inhuman. “The ritual doesn’t require you to be alive, Lena. Only your blood and the child.”
“Over my dead body,” Maxwell growled, his own shape beginning to change.
"That's the idea." David’s smile revealed too many teeth. “Kill the Guardian, claim his mate, finish the ritual. The old ways fall tonight."
My bones shifting beneath my skin like an earthquake, and the blood that pumped between my temples was electric with ancient power. But this time I didn’t argue. This time I let the beast out of its cage.
“You wanna see a monster, David? My voice came out a growl as golden light flared around me. “Let me show you what a Weber can do.”
The change I experienced, however, was not the vicious, savage metamorphosis of the wolves. This was something more primal, older. Light streamed from my skin as my body reformed, grotesque features of both wolf and some other thing taking shape and causing the members of the pack to back away in fear.
When it finished, I stood on four legs, my coat glittering with golden symbols hovering within it, just like what I’d projected before. I was bigger than any wolf, my eyes aglow with ancient power. Maxwell hadn’t been idle himself – he sat beside me, midnight black fur laced with silver runes, his shape now an exact match for mine.
I felt his fierce joy through our newly awakened bond. Together, he mind-melded with me. As it always should have been.
David's pack attacked.
And in that mad flurry of tooth and claw, with magic lighting the night, at last I comprehend what I really was — something other than Guardian, something other than Weber. Born of love and betrayal, of ancient power and modern strength.
The monster inside me was not a curse to be feared. It was a birthright to be welcomed.
And when Maxwell and I fought back to back, our powers mixing, the bond that kept us as mates, I knew nothing would ever be the same again.
The world was changing. And so was I.
Bab terkait
The Blood Bound Legacy Chapter 5: The Weight of Blood
The battlefield was silent. The panting of wolves, the taste of blood between her teeth, the low growls echoing off the walls of the night — was it enough to remind her the fight wasn’t over? My muscles buzzed from the change, and my skin tingled where the last remnants of power coursed through me just moments before. But now, the rush was gone, leaving in its wake something more profound, something chillier — reality.David was gone. Disappeared into the night the second he knew he was outgunned. His pack had blown apart like rats, those who survived, anyway. But his absence had not offered relief. If anything, it left an emptiness, a sickening pit in my stomach, because I knew this wasn’t over. He would return. Stronger. Angrier. More prepared.Maxwell transformed first, the black wolf vanishing into the man in front of me. His breathing was shallow, his chest rising and falling fitfully. He was bleeding — a gash along his ribs, claw marks streaking his arms — but his eyes were on m
Terakhir Diperbarui : 2025-03-02The Blood Bound Legacy Chapter 6: Into the Unknown
It was so suffocating, the drive to the sanctuary.Each mile between the estate added another layer of unsaid words and suffocating tension, another hell to the jungle. My fingers sunk into the leather seat of Maxwell’s car, knuckles turned white, stomach roiling with anxiety. My father had handed us coordinates – no address, no map, just a string of numbers that pointed us to a spot I could not remember being in, a spot that would allegedly remake me.Or break me.Maxwell hadn’t said anything since we’d left. His knuckles were white driving the steering wheel, jaw clenched, and there was tension in his muscles under his shirt. Moonlight slashed across his face, angular stripes that fell shadowy and stark in the fight he held within himself. He hated this. Loathed that I was walking into something he couldn’t control.But he wasn’t the only one.In truth, I wasn’t prepared. Not for this. Not for the weight of who I was becoming, what I was carrying. But good form had left the building
Terakhir Diperbarui : 2025-03-02The Blood Bound Legacy Chapter 7: Blood & Betrayal
The forest hissed with life.Figures streaked between the trees, their eyes glimmering like liquid gold in the darkness. Deep growls traveled the air, resonating, a cruel chorus of the chase. They weren’t just here to capture me — they were here to break me. To remind me that I was still their prey, no matter how much power coursed through my veins.But they had underestimated me.Maxwell rocketed forward, a streak of speed and rage, crashing into the first wolf as it leaped. Their bodies hit the ground with a resounding snap as they wrestled in a bloody tangle. Another wolf lunged for me, baring its fangs, and instinct kicked in.I ran faster than I’d ever run in my life. One moment, I was crouched next to the wreckage of the car; the next, I was twisting out of the way, my blade cleaving through muscle and fur. A tortured howl tore through the night, but there was no time to contemplate. More were coming.Maxwell fought like a force of nature, morphing between the human and wolf lik
Terakhir Diperbarui : 2025-03-02The Blood Bound Legacy Chapter 8: A Blood Price
The darkness enveloped me in gauze, dense and cloying. I was in an emptiness, weightless, where time folded in on itself. Whispers filled the void — familiar, some strange echoes of a past I didn’t recall. My limbs felt heavy, movable only in the realm of dreams, as if I were detached from the world.Then, pain.A sudden, searing pain shot through my body, pulling me back up to the surface. My lungs burned as I struggled to breathe; my perception returned in a rush. What I first felt was warmth — arms wrapped around me, strong and steady. A scent I knew. Safe. Familiar.Maxwell.“Lena.” His voice was gravelly, age raw with desperation. “Come back to me.”I attempted to get up, but my body was slow and weighted with fatigue and something more. Something wrong. My stomach roiled, and I pressed my hands on it as that deep, foreign emptiness began taking root in my gut.And then I remembered.The baby. The power. David’s spell sliced through me like a blade.No, I whispered, my voice so l
Terakhir Diperbarui : 2025-03-03The Blood Bound Legacy Chapter 9: The Deep Inside Us
I was lost in the dark — engulfed and gasping.I was falling — plunging into an endless abyss, my screams torn away by the vacuum. The shadows danced around me whispering in voices I nearly recognized words falling through my fingers like sand. I didn’t know how long I was falling — seconds, minutes, years? Time didn’t exist here. Only weightless descent.And, just as suddenly as it started, it ended.I wasn’t falling anymore. My feet were on solid ground, but everything around me was…off. The heavens roared above, a mass of twisting black clouds going too quickly, too wrong. The land was sparse and cracked in all directions; the air was thick with the smell of ash. There was no sun. No moon. Just the crushing pressure of nothingness crushing down on me.I swallowed hard, my throat like dust in the desert. “Where am I?”A smooth-as-silk voice replied from behind me. “Somewhere between what was and what will be.”I whipped around, my body poised for a fight.And froze.David loomed bef
Terakhir Diperbarui : 2025-03-03The Blood Bound Legacy Chapter 10: The Gathering Storm
The world wasn’t standing still, but I was.Maxwell had not released me, his grip firm, steady, as if he were afraid I might vanish again. The sanctuary walls, though still pounding with the echoes of the power I had unleashed, cocoons of bone and muscle and bone, loomed in my periphery, my mind somewhere else, stuck between darkness and light, between what I had seen and what had yet to pass.I had chosen power.Now, I had to live with it.Maxwell’s voice interrupted my thoughts. “Lena… you’re scaring me.”I met his gaze, and for the first time in ages, I wasn’t afraid of what he might see. “Good.”His brows knitted together; concern and another, too-complex-to-read emotion danced across his face. “You’re different.”I took a deep breath, pressing my palm to my chest. I was steady of heartbeat, but everything else inside me turned and roiled. “I feel different.”“Different how?”I hesitated. How could I describe the feeling of standing at the brink of an abyss, looking down into it,
Terakhir Diperbarui : 2025-03-03The Blood Bound Legacy Chapter 11: The Reckoning
Their breath was warm, feeding the air with blood and magic. Behind us was the sanctuary, an ancient monument to the power I was only beginning to comprehend. But the evening was charged with danger — David’s pack was close. I could sense them, their presence nagging at the back of my mind, their hunger curling in the air.Maxwell stood next to me, his body stiff, his breathing calm. He was ready for battle. We both were.My father stepped out from the shadows, his face stone. “They’ll be here soon.”I nodded, flexing my fingers. Power throbbed inside my skin, but it was no longer magic—it was something deeper, something primal. I had been spending my life repressing what I was. That was over.Maxwell exhaled slowly. “Lena, before this starts—”I looked back at him, hearing the hesitance in his voice. “What?”His jaw tensed. “You don’t need to do this by yourself.”I shook my head. “I do. You know I do.”“You think this is only about power?” His voice was sharp, but there was more—a t
Terakhir Diperbarui : 2025-03-03The Blood Bound Legacy Chapter 12 : And The Snows Of War
The battle was over.David was gone. That sanctuary became a battlefield, just as it should have been a sanctuary, and instead, it lay silent beneath the weight of all we had lost. The war — the one that had shaped my life, the one that had molded me — was over.And yet, I felt no peace.I was on the balcony of my childhood house, looking out at the city that used to be my world. The skyline loomed ahead of me, twinkling lights blinking in the distance, cars moving like veins pumping life into the streets. To them, nothing had changed. They had no knowledge of the war waged in the shadows, the lives lost, the blood spilled.”They didn’t know me.The wind was pulling my hair, and it was cold against my skin, but I hardly felt it. My hands lay on my stomach — a habit, now, an unconscious need to shield the life inside me. My child. The sole piece of this ground that really mattered now.The door behind me creaked open, and I didn’t need to turn around to know it was Maxwell. His presenc
Terakhir Diperbarui : 2025-03-03
Bab terbaru
The Blood Bound Legacy Chapter 99: No Turning Back
The night air was thick with tension as I stepped into the courtyard. Maxwell stood waiting, his expression set in grim determination. Behind him, a handful of trusted allies—faces I had fought beside, bled with—stood in the shadows, waiting for my word.I exhaled slowly, steadying myself. “Tell me everything.”Maxwell nodded. “We’re going to the vault beneath the Blackwood estate. That’s where they kept her body, sealed away so no one could reach her. The Council thinks they’re the only ones who know how to break the enchantments surrounding it, but they’re wrong.”I narrowed my eyes. “How?”Maxwell smirked, but there was no humor in it. “Because I stole the key.”I blinked. “You what?”He pulled a small, ancient-looking talisman from his coat pocket. The sigils carved into it pulsed faintly, reacting to the magic in the air.“Wasn’t easy,” he admitted. “But let’s just say the Council isn’t as careful as they think they are.”I ran a hand through my hair. “You’re insane.”“Probably.”
The Blood Bound Legacy Chapter 98: Treason's Call
I raked a hand through my hair, attempting to corral my thoughts onto some sort of a line. “Then we need a plan.”Maxwell grinned, but there was nothing funny about it. “Good. Because I already have one.”I crossed my arms, eyes narrowing at Maxwell. “Of course you do. Let’s hear it.”Maxwell let out a breath and looked at my mother, then closer. His voice fell to a near whisper, as if the walls had ears. “The Council expects you to obey their laws, to deliver her back into their watchful gaze. That’s where they have all the power. “We don’t allow them that opportunity.”I frowned. “And how do we avoid that exactly?”“We do it on our terms.”I gave a small laugh, without humor. “You make it seem so easy.”“It is.” Maxwell leaned closer, his eyes keen. “They want control of this, Lena. That’s their leverage. So we take it from them.”My mother’s expression was inscrutable, and her silence held as she processed what Maxwell had said. Then, finally, she spoke. “What you’re suggesting is
The Blood Bound Legacy Chapter 97: The Hour of No Mercy
It was a quiet night, but inside me, a storm was raging. Sleep would not come, and with it, I was alone with my thoughts and the horror of what was to come. It was a momentary resort to my senses in the dimly lit study, a candle flickered on the desk, casting long shadows around the wide room.The house was silent. Everyone had either gone to bed or was pretending to be. I knew better. Maxwell was probably pacing in his room, his annoyance barely held in check. My father was awake, too, though he’d never say so. He never slept when things were in flux, and nothing was in greater flux right now than what tomorrow might hold.A knock on the door interrupted my thoughts. I looked back, expecting to see Maxwell or my father; it was my mother. Her gaze was sharp but unreadable, and she entered without asking.“You need to be resting,” she replied.“So should you.”She closed the door behind her with a sigh. “I know what you’re thinking.“Do you?”She didn’t reply right away. Instead, she c
The Blood Bound Legacy Chapter 96: Shadows of the past
Outside, the wind was howling, rattling the wooden beams of the old safehouse, but inside it was suffocatingly quiet. We were supposed to have a plan — or at least the beginnings of one — but the weight of it lay heavy in my chest.”My mother, an enforcer. My mother, shattered and stitched back together into something else. That thought turned my stomach.I gazed around the faces around me—my father, Maxwell, Lilith, Jameson, and Bastian. Each came with a different flavor of wariness. Maxwell’s was the split and the gentle, the one that came accompanied by worry. Lilith was harsh, full of skepticism. Jameson was calculating, always on the lookout for the next move. Bastian just looked tired.And my father…He looked like a man who’d already mourned my mother once and was getting ready to do it all over again.I wouldn’t let that happen.I stood my ground and cleared my throat. “We move at dawn.”Lilith raised an eyebrow. “That’s it? That’s the grand plan?”I exhaled through my nose. “
The Blood Bound Legacy Chapter 95: A Stranger with Her Face
The world around me blurred. The room, the firelight dancing in the stone walls, the heavy weight of my father’s words like a stifling fog spreading over me — none of it felt real anymore.She’s not your mother anymore.They broke her.They made her a weapon.I heard the words, but couldn’t process them. I didn’t want to.She was alive. I had seen her. I had touched her. Her voice had broken when she said my name, and her body had quaked when I held her. That wasn’t a mindless puppet’s response. That was real. That was her.And yet…My father had never been a liar, A survivor, a man who always kept an eye on the bigger picture, but not a liar.So , which truth was I meant to believe?“No, you’re wrong,” I whispered, my throat raw.My father didn’t react. He just stood there, shoulders squared, expression grim, as if he’d been waiting for me to say that.“Lena — ” Maxwell began, and I shook my head.“No.” I looked at my father, my hands balling into fists. “You don’t know her the way I
The Blood Bound Legacy Chapter 94: The Lies Between Us
The torches flickered against the towering stone walls of my father’s estate, casting long, shifting shadows across the ground. The place looked the same as when I left—cold, imposing, untouched by time. But I wasn’t the same.I didn’t belong here anymore.Maxwell rode beside me in silence, his presence grounding me as we approached the front gates. Two guards stiffened at the sight of us, their hands twitching toward their weapons. But when their gazes landed on me, something in their postures shifted.Recognition. Uncertainty. Fear.One of them cleared his throat. “Miss Weber.”I reined in my horse, leveling him with a steady gaze. “Open the gates.”The other guard hesitated. “Your father—”“Will want to see me.”There was no room for argument in my voice.They exchanged a look before one of them finally turned and signaled the sentries above. The great iron gates creaked open, revealing the long stone pathway that led to the grand estate at the heart of the compound.Maxwell leaned
The Blood Bound Legacy Chapter 93 : Shattering the Illusion
This was a matter of destroying them.I turned to the people standing before me—my people. Each of them had put everything on the line to stand with me and fight a fight that was no longer mine. And yet I could see it in their faces. The gravity of what we were about to do. The reality of it sinking in.Bastian blew out a breath and rubbed a hand over his face. “So you mean to tell me. Our objective is to infiltrate one of the most secure vaults ever built, steal their secrets, and then... what? Pray they don’t just kill us right away?”Jameson smiled, raising his arms behind his head. “I mean, that’s probably about right.”Soraya shot him a glare. “That’s not a plan. That’s suicide.”Maxwell moved next to me, his golden eyes fixed on the flames. “The Council’s greatest weapon isn’t their army. It’s the illusion of control. People don’t rebel against them, because they think it can’t be done. They think the Council is omnipotent, above all.”I nodded, my throat tight. “But if we can p
The Blood Bound Legacy Chapter 92: The Weight of War
The atmosphere in the ruins was dense, cloaked in thoughts unsaid, expressions unread, and an unbreakable tension. We had decided, we had jumped, but the weight of it was sinking in like a rock pulling us under water.We weren’t simply in it for our lives anymore.We were declaring war.And war meant losses.Maxwell leaned against the broken window, arms crossed, gazing out at the dark horizon. His golden eyes had gone distant, his jaw set. He wasn’t speaking, but I could sense his thoughts. The way I could feel my heartbeat hammering on the other side of my ribs.I took a breath. “We need to start planning.”No one moved at first.Then Jameson scoffed. “You don’t waste time, huh?”I met his gaze. “We’re moving fast and not wasting time.”Lilith grinned and flicked a knife between her fingers as she reclined against the wall. “She’s right. The Council is regrouping already. We can’t just wait around and hope they’ll waver.”For the last few minutes, Bastian had been silent, and now he
The Blood Bound Legacy Chapter 91 : A Storm We Cannot Escape
The evening continued, weighed down by smoke and fatigue. None of us talked as we trudged more profoundly into the woods, deep breaths audible in the stillness. The fight was over, but the heaviness, the weight of it clung to me like a hand on my ribs, a fist.We had gotten away, but not because we were stronger. Not because we had won.We were free because he set us free.That idea was seared into my brain, repeating over and over again, only to contort into something that made me nauseous.Maxwell walked next to me, trudging slower than normal, his hand shoved against his injured side. He winced every couple of steps, but he would pretend he was fine when I looked.“Stop glaring,” he muttered.“I’m not glaring.”He huffed a laugh. “You have that look. The one in which you’re blaming yourself for things that aren’t your fault.”I was blaming myself. How could I not?I had led them into this. I had thought we were ready. That we could fight. That we had a chance.Instead, I had only b
