Moon Bound

(16) Breaking Bonds |Scarlet's POV|

Harsh wind bit on my skin. My body was still in front of the metal pole. The device brought out memories I didn't need surfacing. What I had to do was going to leave me more of these horrid reminders.

My moon was going to see it all tonight.

A week since I met them – Hunter, Jaz, Adam and Cole, two weeks since I met Micah, my life appeared to have settled into a comfort I never knew before. That comfort would die tonight. Was I going to die right along with it?

Would I be reborn tomorrow?

Anticipating the worse, I hoped for the best – to be free to live. At last. It felt unreal that I had now the chance to start a new life, to rebuild it from scratch. Alpha was nothing but a distant echo inside my mind of swirling memories. Did he know what I was going to do tonight? Could he feel my resolve to break free from the pack? Could he guess that I was standing in front of a metal pole and waiting for the Moon to pour down her light on me?

He was alive. That was for sure. Breathing, fighting and fucking, he would never allow himself to lose any battle, be it in the field or the bedroom. This battle was not his to fight. The final piece of paradise he'd been given by the Moon, for as long as I lived I would deny him that.

Looking down at my bare flesh I could see the first traces of the cold surfacing on my skin. It was paling slowly, the color fading under the unforgiving chill of the early evening.

The sun was dipping in the horizon, leaving purple and orange trails as dusk crept over. Indigo was starting to cover the darkening sky. The trees around were whispering, the branches protesting loudly under the wind's caress as it picked the last leaves they had left and buried them in their earthly grave.

It had to be done before it was too late. Nature needed that act of sacrifice to be resurrected to life later. To cut the bond I needed to be cut off from life. For a brief while, just a moment long enough for the connection to rupture and break.

I must be broken before I am rebuilt. Like a whisper of a promise, that voice floated inside my mind while we all waited for the Moon to join us and witness the thread binding me to my past be broken too.

Far away from my Alpha, I could now deny the pull of the packbond. The distance between the master and the subject proved to be greater than his capacity to enslave me. Yet, enslave me he would try. I had no doubt of that. But first he'd have to find me and, with the matebond just a sparkle between us, it could take him years.

The chill crept up my spine, making my awareness flare up. She started her slow ascent to the sky. I wished to cover my nudity during the long minutes we waited but I knew I couldn't. The others were watching my every move and shying away in front of the Moon was something you just didn't do.

She had to see and she had to see it all – from the flawless skin before it began to the bleeding wounds when it ended.

The fever came moments after her first rays glinted in the darkness. Cole stepped toward me, holding a silver chalice to my lips.

It was time.

"Here, drink this. It will lessen the pain," he breathed out in a hushed voice.

I glanced at him, wondering if the taste of metal against his fingertips burned his skin. Not a trace of pain showed on his moonlit face. It portrayed such calm, tranquility even that he looked like a sentinel placed at the edge of a cliff – never to be displaced from his guarding stand.

I took the chalice with trembling hands, nearly spilling its contents. My eyes darted down at the liquid, making sure no drop of it was wasted, then returned to Cole's face. He watched me warily, almost like he was expecting me to throw away his offering and flee this place.