BloodMoon: Captivated by the Forbidden Lycan Alpha
Chapter 158: THE MATING LINK POWER

Chapter 158: THE MATING LINK POWER

{ "To me, a forever love is a bond that can’t be broken." }

TOR’S POV

I woke to the sound of a roar, and not just any roar. But Frery Kayne. It wasn’t in my ears but in my chest, thrumming down the bond like a lightning strike splitting me wide open.

"Kayne?" My voice rasped out in the darkness, raw and sleep-rough, but there was no mistaking it. That was him. The room was quiet, but inside me, the echo of his fury still reverberated like distant thunder caught in bone. I sat up, my sheets tangled around my legs, my heart hammering against my ribs. The bond between us pulsed, hot, electric, and alive. Something had set him off. No, not just set him off. Unleashed him.

My blood turned to ice and fire at once, and I wondered what could make Kayne, cold, controlled, brutal Kayne, roar like that.? A growl built in my own throat, unbidden. Instinct clawed its way up through my spine, a feral urge to protect, to defend, to find him. My wolf, long silent, snarled beneath my skin, pacing.

"Talk to me," I whispered through the link, reaching for him with my mind, but all I got was a wall of rage, pure, blinding, and blood-soaked. It flooded the bond like a storm surge, knocking the breath from my lungs.

"Kayne!" I tried again, louder this time, pushing back with my energy. "What happened?" We last parted at Paradise Bay borders; they left for Bloodstone Mountain with Elder Dante.

I listened in, and then my breath caught. My mate was in a rage because something or someone had threatened our existence and our mating link. The mating bond surged in response, ancient and sacred, latching on with claws of fire and steel. My muscles tightened, veins alight with power. Every part of me shifted into alpha mode, ready to run, to fight, to destroy anything that dared stand between me and him. I got out of bed and stood, the floor cold beneath my feet, but I barely felt it. The only thing I could feel was Kayne. His fury and power and the mood gods help whoever caused it.

I had been pacing the length of the room like a caged animal. Every creak of the floorboard, every whisper of wind outside the window had felt like it might be him. But it never was, and Kayne’s fury had gone quiet through the bond, replaced by a seething silence that felt somehow worse. It hadn’t just been the unknown; it was the waiting, and I hated waiting.

I ran a hand over my face and dropped into the armchair by the fire, jaw clenched, heart pounding in that sick, slow rhythm that only came when everything felt like it might be about to break.

"Patience," I muttered to myself. "Our mate is no fragile thing. He can handle himself." But even as I said it, my eyes drifted to the door. Toward the darkness beyond the walls. Toward the silence.

Reach for me, Kayne, I thought, sending it across the bond like a prayer, and I closed my eyes in waiting.

I must have fallen asleep in the chair because when I woke, the fire had long since died, and the first light of dawn was spilling through the windows. The sky was pale with morning, birds already stirring in the distance. For a moment, I just sat there, head heavy, body stiff, the silence pressing in around me like a second skin.

I exhaled sharply and dragged myself to the shower, hoping the sting of hot water would wash off the weight clinging to me. By the time I left my home and made my way toward the royal gardens, the sun had fully risen, casting long golden beams over the dew-soaked grass. The air was still cool, but the sky was clear, bright, and mockingly peaceful.

I walked quickly, each step fueled by a restless urgency. My thoughts kept drifting to Kayne, looping back in circles, always ending in the same cold silence. Talk to me, I pushed again through the bond, narrowing my focus like I had so many times before. I poured my energy into it, calling to him not with panic this time, but with need. I bit down on the inside of my cheek hard enough to taste blood and kept walking. My boots crunched over the stone path, the scent of roses and nightshade thick around me, but none of it reached me. All I felt was that heavy emptiness in the space where he should have been.

"Dammit, Kayne," I muttered under my breath. "Just... give me something."

And then—something stirred. Not in the regular bond. Not through the mating link I’d been pushing against for hours now. A thin thread of power shimmered in my chest, delicate as spider silk but sharp as a blade. I knew that feeling. Knew it as intimately as my blood.

Mira’s bond. The Vampire Blood Mira that Frery’s mother had used to seal and stabilize our union, binding our souls in something deeper than any wolf ritual. It stirred, once. Like a whisper. A breath. There it was again. A flicker in the back of my mind. Barely there, but there.

"Kayne," I breathed, no longer calling out with power, but reaching with reverence.

The Mira bond didn’t hum like the mating one, it pulsed in cold fire, ancient and eerie, tied to blood and shadows. But it moved. Like something waking up. The bond trembled again, subtle at first, like a breath caught on the edge of the wind. Not Freyr exactly, but the voice of Kayne, his vampire beast, deeper and rougher, laced with power that carried more than words. It rolled through the Mira bond, low and steady, brushing over my mind like cold silk and ancient fire.

"We are safe for now."

My breath hitched. I closed my eyes, grounding myself with a hand against the nearest tree in the royal garden, as if the words might vanish if I moved too quickly.

Kayne’s voice came again, slightly clearer this time, pulsing gently through the link.

"Once we are back in Kayne’s land, he will alert you. We are still in the Bloodstone Mountain Forest.

Before I could respond, Gale rose inside me, his presence steady and warm. I could feel his claws retracting, his posture no longer coiled for battle. "We have been worried," Gale answered, voice more composed than it had been in days. "It is good to know our mate is safe."

There was a pause, a flicker of shared breath through the bond, and then Kayne’s voice pressed through one last time.

"We escaped Blood Stone Mountain. Dante is injured but alive. We found Rou’s brother, Rolan. He is with us."

Gale listened, quiet and reverent, as though bowing his head in acknowledgment. There were no more questions. Just that deep, wordless bond between us and them, one that didn’t need explanations anymore. I stood there in the hush of the garden, sunlight warm on my shoulders, surrounded by life blooming in every direction. The anxiety, the restlessness, the ache in my chest all slipped away like fog lifting from a valley with the fact that our mate was safe.

An hour passed before I finally left the garden. The quiet had helped, somewhat. But it was the kind of stillness that only dulled the edge, not erased it. I walked the familiar path to the estate offices, shoulders squared, steps steady, doing my best to look like I hadn’t spent the night wrapped in silence and panic. Inside, I found Spark already at his desk, completely immersed in paperwork and three different comm-scrolls open at once. Efficient as always.

He glanced up the moment I stepped in and immediately scowled. "Storms, Tor," he said, setting his pen down with a soft click. "You look like hell."

I let out a humorless huff, more of an exhale than a laugh. "Feel like it, too."

Spark didn’t press. He never did when it mattered. Just nodded to himself and stood, brushing imaginary dust from his sleeves. "I’ll order you something. Hot food. And a lot of it."

"Thanks," I muttered, giving him a tired nod as I walked past.

The moment I stepped into my office and shut the door behind me, a quiet fell over the space like a blanket. My desk was just as I had left it yesterday: organized chaos, half-signed papers, intelligence reports stacked high, a cracked mug still sitting on the edge from when I’d been too distracted to notice it tipping. I dropped into my chair with a soft grunt and stared at the stack in front of me.

It wasn’t peace. But it was something to do. And right now, doing was all I had to keep myself from sinking into the echo of Kayne’s voice and everything that had come with it. I grabbed the top file and cracked it open, forcing my mind into the lines of text, pushing back the memories like sandbags against a rising tide. Gale curled quietly inside me, not asleep, just watchful. Steady. And though the day had only just begun, I was already counting the hours until I heard Kayne’s voice again.