Chapter 3:The man in the dark

At some point the sobs just ran out. Like a storm that burns through everything it has and then goes quiet. I was still on the ground, still in my white ceremony dress, still in the middle of the Ashwood forest with dirt on my knees and bark scraping my back where I had slumped against a tree.

The blood moon was still up there.

Still red. Still watching.

I hated it.

I had prayed to that moon. I had stood in that circle with my whole heart open and I had prayed, and it had answered me, and the answer had been Damien Voss looking me in the eye and deciding I was not enough.

I closed my eyes.

My scar was still burning. Low now, like an ember instead of a flame, but steady ,Pulsing ,Reminding me it was there.

*Not one,* that strange voice had whispered. *Two.*

I didn't know what that meant. I was too tired to think about it. I was too tired to think about anything except the fact that somewhere behind me, back in the warmth and the firelight, Damien was probably already celebrating. Probably already standing next to Nadia Storme with his hand at her back, looking every bit the powerful Alpha he had always been.

While I sat in the dirt.

Alone.

Like always.

I let out a long, slow breath.

*Get up, Lyra.*

I pressed my palm flat against the ground to push myself up.

And that was when I heard the footsteps.

My whole body went rigid.

I was deep in the Ashwood. Deeper than any Ironveil wolf normally came, especially at night. The forest this far in was old , and every wolf in the pack had grown up being told to stay out of it after sundown.

I had been too upset to care.

Now I care.

I scrambled to my feet, pressing my back against the tree, my heart hammering all over again. My wolf, still raw and wounded from the rejection, tried to rise. She was weak. The broken bond had taken something out of her. Out of both of us.

The footsteps were slow,deliberate ,not trying to be quiet. Whatever was coming through those trees was not afraid of being heard.

That was either very reassuring or very terrifying.

I grabbed the nearest branch off the ground. It was thin and probably useless but it was something and something was better than nothing.

The footsteps stopped.

Silence.

Then a voice came out of the dark.

"You can put the stick down." "I've faced worse."

It was a deep voice. Low and calm and almost amused. Not a voice I recognized. Not an Ironveil wolf.

I won't put the stick down.

"Who are you?" I called out. My voice only shook a little. "This is Ironveil territory. You're trespassing."

"I know." Another pause. "I was passing through when I heard someone crying."

My face went hot.

"I wasn't crying," I said immediately.

A beat of silence.

"Alright," the voice said, in a tone that meant the opposite.

I gripped the branch tighter. "Show yourself, Step into the light."

There wasn't much light. Just the red glow of the moon filtering through the branches. But it was enough.

He stepped forward.

And my stick almost dropped.

He was almost as tall as Damien,  light  skin, close-cut hair . He was dressed simply dark clothes, a worn leather jacket and he had his hands raised slightly at his sides, palms out, in a gesture that said clearly and without words: *I am not a threat.*

His eyes were brown like wood in a firelight.

He was looking at me with an expression I was not used to seeing on a stranger's face.

Not pity, Not curiosity ,Not the particular look people gave the omega girl when they were trying to figure out if she was worth their time.

He was looking at me like I was a person.

Like that was just the obvious starting point.

"You're hurt," he said.

I blinked. "What?"

He nodded toward my hands. I looked down. My palms were scraped from where I had hit the ground after the rejection. I had even felt it. There was dried blood along my left knuckle.

"I'm fine," I said automatically.

"You're bleeding and sitting alone in the Ashwood in the middle of the night in a ceremonial dress." He tilted his head slightly. "So. Not entirely fine."

I opened my mouth. I closed it.

He had a point.

"Who are you?" I asked again, quieter this time.

He lowered his hands slowly, making sure I could see the movement. Then he reached up and pushed back the collar of his jacket, exposing the mark at the side of his neck, the alpha mark. The brand that every pack leader carried. I recognized the shape of it even if I didn't recognize the crest.

Not Ironveil.

Not any of the five northern packs I knew.

"Kael Dawnridge," he said. "Alpha of the Dawnridge Pack." He paused. "Eastern territory. We border your land on the far side of Ashwood."

I stared at him.

An Alpha.

An Alpha.

A foreign Alpha, alone, in the middle of our forest, in the middle of the night.

Every instinct I had said this should be alarming.

But my wolf, wounded and exhausted and raw, had gone very, very still.

Not the stillness of fear.

The stillness of something paying attention.

Why are you alone?" I asked. "Alphas don't travel without their guard."

"Mine are camped at the eastern tree line." He nodded back over his shoulder. "I walk alone at night. 

" Something moved in his expression, something old and private that he didn't explain. "I heard the ceremony from the ridge. The Blood Moon reaches our territory too.

He looked at me carefully. Not intrusively. More the way someone looks when they are trying to understand something without pushing.

"Did something happen tonight?" he asked.

A laugh came out of me before I could stop it. Not a happy laugh. The kind that comes out when the alternative is falling apart again.

"You could say that," I said.

He waited. He didn't push. Didn't fill the silence with assumptions or suggestions or uncomfortable sympathy. He just waited, with his hands loose at his sides and his warm brown eyes steady on my face, and something about that the sheer patient stillness of him made my throat tighten.

I was not used to people waiting for me.

"I got rejected," I said. The words tasted like ash. "My fated mate. He felt the bond. I know he did. I saw it on his face." I stopped. Swallowed. "And then he rejected me anyway. In front of everyone."

The words landed in the quiet of the forest.

Kael's expression didn't shift into pity. It shifted into something else.

"He saw the bond," Kael said slowly. "And he still rejected you."

"Yes."

A muscle tightened in his jaw. "Then he's a fool."

I blinked.

I had expected sympathy. Maybe awkwardness. I had not expected the flat, certain conviction in his voice. Like it wasn't even a complicated conclusion. Like it was just obvious and my chest did something strange.