CHAPTER 208: IT ALL FELL DOWN

[ Old World - Greater Woods... somewhere not very far from the cave ]

The forest pressed in.

Kieran was bent over his horse, chest heaving, one hand clutching at the horse’s mane...the other clamped to his sternum.

He was desperately trying to hold himself together, unsure of what suddenly struck him!

And then...it hit again.

It was the bond... his mate bond with Autumn... Kieran smiled... he could finally feel it... but the next moment his smile vanished... it was the moment that he realised the mate bond was shattering.

It was like a soundless explosion.

It cracked through his ribs...bone deep...and like a jagged mountain sprouting from within him, it was tearing that wasn’t made of flesh but of something far worse...soul, blood, spirit... Kieran’s existence.

His head snapped back with a roar that tore the woods open.

"AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

The horse reared violently, startled...screaming, nearly throwing him to the ground...but Kieran barely felt it.

His body convulsed, spine arching, his hand clawing bloody grooves into his own chest as if he could rip the pain out.

"Fuck...! FUCK!" His voice was broken, splintered, swallowed by the dying daylight!"No... no... Autumn...don’t...Baby,don’t you fucking dare..."

Another wave slammed into him, doubling him over in the saddle, vision swimming red. His wolf howled inside his skull, a guttural, endless scream, battering against the walls of his mind.

"You promised us we would get her back!" His wolf roared inside his head. "You promised we would keep her. That she was ours...OURS! What... what the hell... "

Kieran’s breath shredded in his throat. "I didn’t...I didn’t let her go! I swear...I didn’t.."

But the bond was ripping.

His wolf thrashed harder, claws tearing into the inside of his soul, shredding everything in reach.

"STOP! STOP IT!" He slammed his fist into his temple, trying to cage the madness, but it was like trying to stop a storm with bare hands.

His body seized, sliding sideways from the horse. He hit the ground hard, his knees buckling, palms sinking into the dirt as the agony ripped through him again.

"Autumn...! AUTUMN!" His howl ripped out, half man, half wolf, shaking the trees. "Don’t fucking do this! Please...Baby, don’t leave me...don’t leave me like this...what the fuck are you even doing...Autumn..."

Another rupture.

His back arched, muscles spasming, foam gathering at the edge of his lips. His wolf was tearing itself apart inside him.

"She said it. She said the words. It’s done... we are done for... "

"NOOOOO!!!"

"She rejected us. She was in no condition to do this!!! She chose death over us."

"SHUT UP!" Kieran’s throat tore with the scream, his nails digging into the dirt until they split and bled.

The pain didn’t stop.

It only worsened.

Each second was like molten wire threaded through his veins. His heart stuttered violently, skipping beats, then hammering too fast,then forgetting to beat at all...his vision flashing in and out.

He felt it. The bond that had been the marrow of his existence...his anchor, his blood, his redemption...his ray of hope, his tether with life...their happy memories...fracturing into dust.

"Goddess...please...no... Not like this... not her...don’t take her from me...Autumn...what have you done..." His voice cracked into sobs he hadn’t made since childhood. " She isn’t strong enough...Not Autumn. Take me instead... take me instead..."

His wolf’s howl flooded his skull, deafening, collapsing into broken words.

"She is gone. She left us. She is no longer ours. We are nothing to her now. NOTHING."

Kieran slammed his head into the earth, once, twice, blood mixing with the dirt. "No...don’t...don’t say that...she is mine...just mine...all mine...only mine..."

But the tearing hit again...this time like a hot blade through his sternum, and he coughed blood onto the roots beneath him.

"AAAAARGH!" His cry shook the forest...raw...feral...like an animal caught in its death throes.

His wolf clawed at him from the inside, desperate, frantic, breaking bones as his body tried to force a shift... he needed to sprint... head straight towards Autumn... he couldn’t take it... this rejection... it was maddening...

Fur split his skin, his jaw cracked wide...then snapped back. His form convulsed between man and wolf, his body rejecting itself as violently as Autumn had rejected him.

"Kieran..." His own wolf voice was barely a rasp...and now, it was wet with blood. "Don’t... let go. Don’t let her go...get her back...get her back to us..."

The wolf was broken...hollow.

But then,they both felt it... the last thread of the bond snapped.

It felt like his entire rib cage collapsed. His howl choked halfway, cut short, leaving only silence.

Kieran’s wolf form fell face first into the dirt.

His paws trembled, bloody...broken. His body was wrecked. His wolf was wrecked. His soul was splintered like glass.

He lay there, chest heaving shallow, staring blankly into the dark earth beneath him.

The air around was silent again. Too silent.

And for the first time in his life...Kieran Blackmoon wished he hadn’t outlived his twin brother...he wished he had perished before knowing this pain...he wished it was him six feet under the ground...

Kieran lay sprawled in the dirt, his wolf form ragged and broken, chest barely lifting. Every breath was a rasp of gravel, every beat of his heart a betrayal.

It was over.

Autumn had cut him out of her soul.

But why?! Why now!!! Where was she? What was happening to her?!

For a long moment, he just lay there. Staring blankly into the earth. Wishing it would swallow him whole.

But then...something shifted.

Kieran’s ears twitched. His wolf’s spine went rigid, fur bristling in sharp awareness. His chest, still heavy with grief, froze as something faint... something impossibly small yet undeniable... brushed against him.

Thump!!!

A beat.

Thump...thump...

Another.

His eyes snapped open, glowing wild in the shadows. His body lurched upright, dirt clinging to his blood soaked fur, ears straining, nostrils flaring wide.

The space where Autumn’s bond had been was a hollow crater, an abyss carved clean through him... yet out of that emptiness, there was something. Flickering. Fragile. Pulsing.

Tiny heartbeats.

Not hers.

No...smaller. Softer.

His own wolf stilled, stunned, then let out a low, guttural rumble in disbelief.

"...What... the fuck..." Kieran’s voice was a rasp.His jaws hung open, breath catching. "No... no, this isn’t real... I am fucking losing my mind..."

But then it struck again...clearer this time. Not just a sound, not just a phantom pulse. A feeling.The faint, tender, trembling warmth of his own blood.

His unborns.

Kieran staggered to his feet, his body swaying, torn between agony and adrenaline. His snout lifted, scenting the air...desperate.

And there it was.

Faint, so faint he almost thought it a dream. But it was undeniable. The scent of them. Of the lives he had put inside her.

His wolf froze, then pressed hard against him from the inside, whispering through a broken growl.

Kieran’s eyes widened, glowing amber like fire in the darkness. His chest thundered with a manic, disbelieving laugh that broke into a sob.

"By the Goddess... I can feel them...fuck...fuck...I can feel our babies...!"