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Chapter 4: The Beast Within
최신 업데이트:
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.
관련 챕터
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
최신 업데이트 : 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
최신 업데이트 : 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
최신 업데이트 : 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
최신 업데이트 : 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
최신 업데이트 : 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,
최신 업데이트 : 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
최신 업데이트 : 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
최신 업데이트 : 2025-03-03
최신 챕터
The Blood Bound Legacy Chapter 146: The Ash Beneath
The words that hung in the air settled heavily. I looked at Lior, and then at the others in the tent. They were all waiting, no longer with mere curiosity but with the weight of their expectations. What would I do now? Would I continue to walk this fragile line alone, or would I listen?I exhaled sharply, feeling a mix of frustration and understanding in equal measure. He was right in some ways, but the urgency of the hour didn’t leave room for hesitation or second-guessing. Yet, this wasn’t just about me anymore. This was about all of us. About the future we were building—together, or not at all.“I never intended to be the only one making decisions,” I said, my voice more controlled now. “The sanctity of this place was never meant to be mine alone.”Lior raised an eyebrow. “Then why are we here? Why are we sitting here while you lay the foundation with the very hands that will one day destroy it?”“Because I was trying to protect us all,” I responded, my eyes flicking to the others
The Blood Bound Legacy Chapter 145: The Word Burned
The word LIAR still smoldered on the earth.Not from magic, but from intention. The burn was too crude, too human. There was no sigil or mystical flair to hide behind. No illusion. Just a raw accusation, left like a scar on sacred ground.Someone hadn’t just defaced the stone—they’d made a statement. And they’d made it here, at the heart of everything we were trying to build.I stood over it for a long time. Too long. I could feel the others watching me—Barin, Maxwell, Elara, even some of the apprentices who had come to help reinforce the foundation wards. They waited for a command, a reaction, anything to show them what I would do now.I didn’t give it to them.Not yet.Because inside me, there was a storm I couldn't afford to unleash—not until I knew where the crack had started.Maxwell stepped closer, voice low. “You think it’s someone inside?”I didn’t look at him. “If it were an outsider, the outer wards would have flared.”He swore under his breath. “Then we’ve been infiltrated.
The Blood Bound Legacy Chapter 144: A Covenant of Fire
“You called me reckless,” I continued. “You sent dreams and threats and doppelgängers to test my integrity. And I passed. Not by your standards—but by surviving, intact, through the kind of grief most of you would’ve buried. I faced my worst self and didn’t break.”A pause.“Can any of you say the same?”Silence.Then Elias spoke again, quieter. “And what do you propose, then? A Council of one?”“No,” I said. “A new covenant. Shared authority. A seat at the table for those you’ve excluded. A place where power isn’t feared—but shaped, taught, and trusted.”He didn’t move. “You’re asking us to rewrite centuries.”“I’m telling you,” I said, “they’re already rewriting themselves. You can participate—or you can be left behind.”The room held its breath.Then Elias smiled.It was small. But real.“You’ve grown,” he said. “Far more than we expected.”“I’m just getting started.”The chamber stayed silent for a moment after I spoke those words, but it wasn’t the silence of resistance—it was th
The Blood Bound Legacy Chapter 143: The Right to Rise
We didn’t wait for permission.By the next morning, the word was already spreading—not as a rumor, but as a declaration. The sanctuary would rise.No more retreating. No more hiding our power behind broken seals and inherited shame. We would build a space tethered to the ley lines, reinforced with intention, rooted in the truth of who we were becoming. And more than that, anyone with power, hunted or not, would be welcome. Not just Guardians. Not just wolves.Everyone.The response was immediate.Some sent their support—ancient names I barely recognized, offering blood, stone, and spell to help raise the walls. Others sent silence. The kind that carried the weight of a thousand threats.But it was the Council that answered first.I had barely finished marking the boundary runes when a crow landed on the stone in front of me. No scroll, no flare of magic. Just a voice—projected, cold and clear—from the bird’s beak."Lena Weber. The Council calls you to stand before the Elders within th
The Blood Bound Legacy Chapter 142: The Sanctuary We Shape
The circle dimmed. The night resumed its breath.Maxwell appeared at the edge of the trees, his eyes wild with concern. He didn’t speak. Just waited.“I’m okay,” I said, voice hoarse.He walked up to me slowly. “You don’t look okay.”“No,” I said, leaning into his chest. “But I know what I’m doing now.”He held me for a long moment. Then asked, “And what’s that?”I looked toward the stars, toward the seal humming faintly in my chest.“I’m going to stop surviving,” I said. “And start building.”Maxwell didn't speak right away. He studied me like he was seeing something different—something unfamiliar but necessary. The kind of change you don't celebrate with cheers, but with silence, because you know it’s real.“Building what?” he asked finally.I let the question hang in the air for a moment. “Something that doesn’t depend on fear. On reaction. On waiting for the next attack. Something rooted in intention. In choice. We keep surviving crisis after crisis, and we forget to imagine what
The Blood Bound Legacy Chapter 141: The Path Not Promised
She stood there—older, wiser, with a weight in her gaze that I hadn’t yet earned but could already feel settling in my bones. She didn’t move like someone who wanted to be revered. She moved like someone who had been forged—bent, shaped, nearly broken—and survived because no one else knew how to carry what she carried.The silence between us stretched longer than it should have, but she didn’t rush me. That was something else I recognized in her—patience. Not passive, but deliberate. A discipline I hadn’t yet mastered.“I didn’t think I’d ever meet you,” I finally said.She gave a small smile. “You don’t. Not in the way you’re thinking. I’m not a memory or a ghost. I’m not even truly real. Just an echo from one potential. One of millions.”“And yet,” I said, stepping toward her, “you’re here.”“Because the seal responded,” she said. “It recognized your convergence. The self that faced grief, the self that faced guilt, the self that faced truth. And now it offers a glimpse of what’s wa
The Blood Bound Legacy Chapter 140: The Pulse Beyond
The nights had been still lately—too still. Even after the encounter with my doppelgänger, even after the fire and the whispered threats in ash, the silence that followed felt wrong. It wasn’t peace. It was the pause before an avalanche, the long breath held before a scream.And then the seal pulsed.Not like before—not a flare of warning or fear. This was different. It was deep, rhythmic, almost like a heartbeat. It throbbed through my chest, echoed in my bones, and I knew—whatever had awakened within me during the merge with my other self, it had reached the other side.Something had seen it.Something had responded.The pulse spread through the ley lines like a ripple, invisible to most, but I could feel its journey. It traveled through roots and rock, through the thin air above mountaintops, through the marrow of the oldest bones buried beneath our feet. And everywhere it went, it left doors ajar.By morning, the world had changed.The first signs came quietly—messages from nearby
The Blood Bound Legacy Chapter 139: The Conversation Within
I stood alone in the center of the circle we had carved days ago, the ley lines still raw from recent shifts. The ash from the eastern watchtower had long since scattered into the wind, but its message still pulsed behind my eyes. You will break. Or you will become.Tonight, I wasn’t going to run from that. Tonight, I would invite it in.I had told the others to stay back—something I knew Maxwell hated. He’d argued for hours. Not with words, but with silence, pacing, the set of his jaw, the way he stood near the doorway like he could stop a god with his bare hands if it came to that. But in the end, he let me go. Because he knew I had to.The fire crackled low. The ley stones hummed beneath my bare feet.And I called her.Not with words. With intent. With the shape of my memories, my regrets, the pieces of myself I had never forgiven.She came like a ripple. A subtle distortion in the air, like heat rising off pavement. Then she was there. Not a projection. Not a monster.Just… me.“I
The Blood Bound Legacy Chapter 138: The Self Divided
We stood in the wake of that light, hearts pounding, silence clinging to the air like fog. The figure that had worn my face—my perfect mirror—was gone, but its presence lingered. Not just as memory. Not just as a threat. As residue. The ley lines around us had twisted, not fractured but reformed. Like the very pattern of reality had shifted to accommodate that presence.No one spoke for a while. Even Maxwell, always the first to break tense silences, had nothing. Maybe because there were no words big enough to contain what we’d seen.Finally, Nima said quietly, “It didn’t disappear. It just… stepped back.”I looked at her, not answering. Because she was right. That version of me hadn’t been defeated or banished. It had retreated. Like it had learned something. Like it was waiting.Barin exhaled hard, pacing. “That thing—— whatever it was—— it wasn’t just a projection. It carried intention. It believed what it said.”“And it felt,” Maxwell added, his voice low and rough. “That’s what s
