Moonbound: A Dark Mate's Curse

~Karla's Pov~

It happened just before dawn, when the world still pretended to be asleep.

I'd risen early to walk the forest paths behind Nyssa's warded circle. The earth felt different lately, more awake. The roots pulsed like veins, and the wind sang names I didn't remember teaching it.

I felt the hum of power under every footstep. Not calm, not threatening. Just… waiting. Like something underneath the soil knew what I was becoming.

I was only a few yards from the cliffside when the air shifted. One moment, it was just cool mist and moonlight. The next one,it burned. My magic coiled inside me without warning, sparking in my fingertips, crackling along my bones. Something was wrong.

I turned and he was there.

Tall. Pale. Robed in black leather stitched with silver thread that shimmered like spider silk in the half-light. The mark of the Tribunal carved into the skin of his left cheek,three slashes, one for each ruling faction.

A Blood Enforcer.

He didn't speak. He didn't need to.

His silver blade came up in a flash of moonlight.

My instincts didn't think. They reacted.

I raised both hands, and the magic poured out of me like a scream I couldn't hold in.

The wind around us howled as black fire erupted from my palms, wild, consuming and unshaped. It struck the enforcer dead-on and threw him into a tree with such force the bark splintered. He didn't rise.

But he wasn't dead.

Not yet.

The flames continued to pour from me, uncontrolled, licking across the forest floor like a living thing. Trees groaned. The air thinned. My vision blurred with violet light, and the runes from the summoning circle two nights before, Sariah's runes, glowed again beneath my skin.

The fire wouldn't stop.

And neither would I.

"Elara!"

Kade's voice cut through the storm, rough and raw, like it had ripped something out of him to get to me. He crashed through the underbrush, golden eyes blazing. When he saw the flames, he didn't hesitate. He ran through them.

"Let it go!" he shouted, grabbing my wrists.

"I—I can't!" My voice cracked. "It's in me; she's in me!"

Kade looked straight into my eyes and whatever he saw there made his grip tighten.

"You are not her," he growled. "You're stronger. You're still you."

But the magic didn't agree. It roared inside me, a thousand screaming voices burning through my veins, clawing to be free.

"She wants out," I choked. "Sariah, she's waking."

Kade didn't flinch. He stepped closer until our foreheads touched.

"Then burn through me if you have to," he whispered. "But come back."

For a breathless moment, I almost did. The flames curled tighter, clawing at his coat, curling around his throat. But he didn't move. Didn't run.

And that was what saved me.

Because somewhere inside the storm of voices, I heard one whisper different from the rest.

It wasn't ancient.

It was mine.

Stop.

And so I did.

The fire flickered once, then died.

The silence afterward was absolute. Even the forest seemed afraid to breathe.

The Tribunal enforcer groaned as he tried to rise. His robes were scorched, silver blade glowing faintly in his shaking hand. But his eyes were wide with something close to… fear.

"She is not meant to live," he rasped. "You know what she is—what she'll become."

Kade stepped between us. "She's already more than any of you could ever understand."

"She is the gate," the enforcer hissed. "And the Tribunal will see it closed."

Kade didn't argue. He moved faster than I could blink.

The enforcer's neck snapped with a single motion.

He dropped like dead weight onto the earth, eyes still open, mouth frozen mid-curse.

I stared, heart pounding.

"You killed him."

"He would've killed you," Kade said simply, wiping blood from his hand with a cloth he didn't bother to burn.

"There could've been answers,"

"There will be more," he said. "They always send scouts first. Trial assassins. The Tribunal never declares war without warning. This… this was their warning."

I sank to the forest floor, hands trembling.

Kade crouched beside me. "You controlled it," he said, his voice gentler now. "That's what matters."

"No," I whispered. "I didn't. It stopped because of you. Because you were willing to die."

He met my gaze. "I was willing to die because I know what losing control feels like. And I know what it means when someone still sees you beneath it."

The bond pulsed between us. Not demanding. Not overwhelming. Just there.

Heavy.

Undeniable.

He touched my cheek, slow and careful, like he was waiting for me to break the spell. I didn't.

His voice dropped. "You scare the Tribunal. That's why they want you dead."

"I scare myself," I admitted.

"Then we'll learn to control it. Together."

"I don't know if I can trust you."

"I don't blame you," he said. "But you're the only thing I've ever wanted to protect without being ordered to."

That did something dangerous to my chest.

But before I could answer, Nyssa arrived, out of breath and furious. Her eyes landed on the enforcer's corpse, then on us. Her jaw clenched.

"It's begun," she said.

"What has?" I asked.

"The Tribunal's blood rite," Nyssa replied. "They've declared silent war. And they'll keep coming until your heart is in a jar at the foot of the Citadel."

I stood, brushing ash from my arms.

"Then they'd better send more than one next time."