A Bond Worth Breaking

by Lyra Thorne

Heat 3 / 5Novella · 12 chapters33,565 words2h 26m read~3h 44m listen

Under the Cascades moon, the law is written in scent — and Thalia Ellery knows exactly how badly a single misfiled line can ruin lives. As Moonveil Pack’s scent-ritual registrar, she keeps her world small, her ledgers spotless, and her own desires locked somewhere beneath the frost. Then a cream exile writ appears nailed to the lodge porch with boundary enforcer Wilder Ives’s name on it, and Thalia’s careful neutrality begins to crack.

Wilder refused a politically convenient bond with a council heir, and now he has until the next moonrise to submit or vanish into the Cascades without pack protection. He expects to go quietly. What he does not expect is Thalia pressing a buried legal clause against his chest like a blade — one that could suspend the writ entirely, if they are both brave enough to use it.

The bargain is simple and impossible: stand together on the porch, invoke the loophole, and publicly refuse the pull between them. Except the pull is fated, mutual, and growing harder to perform away with every rehearsal in the mist-wrapped dark.

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