Beneath the Pines

Liora didn’t flinch when Elias announced the patrol pairings.

She’d felt it coming the moment she stepped into the longhouse that morning. The air was thick with anticipation. And Elias’s voice was a shade too calm, too deliberate, when he said her name.

“Liora will accompany Alpha Cael on today’s northern ridge sweep.”

Her fingers tightened around the strap of her quiver. She didn’t protest. Wouldn’t give Cael the satisfaction of thinking she was afraid of being near him.

She wasn’t afraid.

She was furious.

And fury, she could use.

They set off at midday, skirting the perimeter of Crescent Moon’s northern edge where rogue sightings had been reported. The trees thickened as they climbed, pines stretching tall and silent overhead. The mist clung to the forest floor like a second skin.

They didn’t speak.

For nearly a mile, the only sound was the crunch of boots on damp soil and the rustle of low branches as they moved through.

Cael walked a few paces ahead. His posture was rigid, shoulders squared, as if being near her was some kind of punishment.

Liora rolled her eyes.

So be it.

Finally, Cael stopped.

He knelt near a patch of disturbed ground, pressing his palm to a faint trail of claw marks in the mud. His voice was low when he spoke, more to the dirt than to her.

“Rogue passed through here. Not long ago. Maybe a day.”

“Too light to be male,” Liora said, crouching beside him. “Female. Alone.”

His eyes flicked to her, startled—not at her presence, but her observation.

“Good,” he muttered.

“You sound surprised.”

“I’m not.”

“Liar,” she said, rising.

He stood too. Towered over her, just barely. She met his gaze anyway.

The bond crackled like dry lightning between them—hot and electric.

Cael looked away first.

“Stay alert.”

“I always do,” she said coldly. “Especially when I’m near someone who might stab me in the back.”

His jaw flexed. “Is that what you think?”

“You rejected me,” she snapped. “Not just the bond. Me. In front of both packs. What else am I supposed to think?”

“I was protecting you.”

Liora laughed, sharp and humorless. “Don’t insult me, Cael. You weren’t protecting anyone. You were running.”

He stepped toward her before he could stop himself.

She didn’t back away.

“You don’t know me,” he said, voice low, controlled.

“No,” she said, “but I felt you. When the bond formed. I felt you.”

Silence stretched between them like pulled thread.

“I still do,” she added quietly.

He looked down then, as if that truth hurt more than anything she’d thrown at him.

“I didn’t want this,” he admitted. “I didn’t expect this.”

“Neither did I.”

He met her gaze again. “And I don’t know how to be what you want.”

“I don’t want anything from you,” she lied.

The bond pulsed, protesting the falsehood.

Cael stepped back, breathing hard like he’d just survived a battle.

A moment later, a rustle in the trees broke the tension.

Liora turned sharply, arrow nocked in her bow before Cael had fully drawn his blade.

Movement—quick, darting.

She loosed the arrow. It thudded into the dirt near the edge of a clearing.

A rogue wolf—a lean, pale female—snarled and took off.

Cael shifted.

The sound of bone and sinew cracked through the air, and in a blink, he was fur and muscle, darting through the trees like shadow.

Liora followed on foot, fast and sharp-eyed, cutting the rogue off at the ridge’s edge.

The rogue turned on her, snapping.

Liora ducked, rolled, and came up with her dagger drawn—only for Cael to barrel into the rogue from the side, slamming her down.

He stood over the rogue, growling low in his throat, until the female whined and slunk off, retreating into the woods.

Liora stood, panting, heart pounding from the run.

Cael shifted back.

Naked, bruised, breathless.

She averted her eyes, tossing him the cloak from her satchel. He caught it, wrapped it around himself without speaking.

“You didn’t hesitate,” he said after a beat.

“I didn’t need to.”

He nodded once. “You’re a better hunter than some of my pack.”

She blinked. A compliment.

Unforced.

True.

She didn’t answer.

They walked back to camp in silence.

But this time… it wasn’t cold.

The silence had weight now. Gravity. A new kind of tension neither of them quite knew what to do with.

The bond wasn’t gone.

And neither of them were running—at least, not at that moment.

That night, as Liora sat by the fire sharpening her blade, she felt a shift in the air.

She looked up.

Cael stood across the flames, eyes shadowed, unreadable.

And then he spoke, quiet but clear.

“Thank you. For not letting me fall apart out there.”

Liora swallowed hard.

“Don’t mistake me for your crutch, Cael.”

“I don’t,” he said. “But maybe you’re something I don’t have to hold up alone.”

And before she could answer, he turned and walked into the dark.

The thread between them hummed like a wire in a storm.

And it was pulling.