The Wolves That Don’t Obey

The first snowfall of the season blanketed the Kaelith mountains by dawn.

Elaria silently watched the white flakes drift from her chamber's small window. With shadowy figures moving around courtyards, guards honing their weapons, and Elders whispering behind closed doors, the fortress below shifted like a living beast.

Draven hadn’t come back.

Not since that kiss. That confession.

The specter of his mouth on hers was still there. Despite all neither of them had said, I could still taste the frantic desperation between them.

She turned her back on the window and threw her arms around herself. Nothing had changed in the healer's chambers since the night she came. Clean linen. Dry herbs. An untouched water basin.

A cage dressed in silence.

The knock came shortly after the sixth bell.

Not him.

Athissa.

Elaria opened the door slowly, expecting venom.

Instead, the other woman looked strangely... serene. Her usually sharp face softened, her hair swept back in ceremonial braids. Her eyes flickered to Elaria’s collarbone, where a thin shadow of Draven’s mark still pulsed faintly.

“You’re to come with me,” Athissa said.

Elaria didn’t move. “Where?”

“The chambers below the fortress. The Elders are waiting.”

“For what?”

But Athissa didn’t answer. She merely stepped aside, waiting like a priestess preparing a sacrifice.

Elaria didn’t have a choice.

The Blood Hall

They went down a stone staircase that twisted around the mountain's spine indefinitely. A solitary iron door, twice her height and marked with claw marks and partially erased runes, stood at the base.

It opened by itself.

Inside: a round room with walls covered in obsidian wolves and a domed ceiling. A stone dais in the middle. And three Elders cloaked in gray.

One of them was the same who had tested her blood.

“Elaria Veyne,” he intoned. “You have been summoned not as prisoner, but as... witness.”

“Witness to what?”

“To blood memory.”

The Elder reached into a small silver box and pulled out a shard of what looked like crystal—pulsing faintly.

“This belongs to your Alpha,” he said. “Draven Kaelith’s blood was poured into this shard the day he was born. It carries his ancestral memory. His origin. His truth.”

Elaria’s breath caught.

“You want me to see it?”

“No,” the Elder said. “You already have.”

She stared. “What?”

“His blood has recognized yours. You’ve shared it. In body. In bond. Now it awakens in you, too.”

Elaria felt something cold and sharp crawl through her chest.

“What are you trying to prove?”

“That what lies inside him is not just Kaelith... but something older. Forgotten. And you, girl, may be the key to controlling it.”

The crystal flared—and then the chamber shattered into visions.

Flashback: The Alpha Before

Snow. Fire. Screams.

She saw a child born in silence, not breath. A woman dying on blood-soaked stone. A man watching from the edge of the chamber—eyes like ink, with horns curling from his head like a beast from myth.

Not Kaelith.

Not wolf.

But something darker.

He touched the newborn’s brow—and a sigil flared into the infant’s skin.

Then—blackness.

When Elaria gasped back into her body, the Elders were watching her closely.

She staggered back, heart pounding.

“That’s not possible,” she whispered. “Draven doesn’t know. He can’t—”

“He’s beginning to remember,” the Elder said. “And when he does, he will choose.”

“Choose what?”

“Whether to rule this world… or destroy it.”

Back Above – The Fortress in Motion

Draven, meantime, was standing in the battle room with his fists clinched on the stone table's edge.

Maps. Patrol logs. Rogue movement.

It didn't matter, though.

The thrill in his blood, as if something inside him had woken up and wanted to come out, was what counted.

Sharply, he questioned, "What did they do to her?”

Riven stood across from him, arms folded.

“They summoned her to the Blood Hall. I tried to stop it.”

“And?”

“They locked the door.”

Draven snarled. The stone under his fingers cracked.

The door burst open moments later, and Weyric stepped inside like a storm.

“You’re not in control of this pack anymore,” Draven said without turning.

“Then take it back,” Weyric replied.

Draven blinked.

Weyric stepped closer. “You’ve been playing defense since the day she arrived. Waiting. Hiding. That’s not the Alpha I trained.”

“She’s not a threat.”

“No,” Weyric said, voice suddenly soft. “But what’s inside you might be.”

Draven turned, golden eyes flaring. “You know something.”

“I know what your mother begged before she died. I was there.”

Draven stepped forward, growling low. “Say it.”

“She said—don’t let him wake.”

Later That Night – The Bond Weakens

Elaria returned to her room in silence.

She said nothing.

Not even when Draven came for her.

Not even when he said her name like it hurt.

Not even when he touched her hand and felt her shaking.

“You saw something,” he whispered.

She nodded.

He put his face on her neck and encircled her with his arms from behind.

“You still feel like mine.”

But the word mine felt heavy now.

She turned to face him, looking up. “Draven. If everything they say is true… if there’s something darker in you—something that might hurt people…”

He didn’t answer.

“Would you let it?” she asked.

His silence told her everything.

Outside the Fortress – In the Snow

Rhyven crouched behind the far cliff wall, soaked in frost and fury.

He’d seen them.

Elaria and Draven.

Close. Too close.

No.

With whitened fingers, he held the dagger at his side.

Then he headed for the secret room beneath the mountain, the one he had used as a kid.

Back into Kaelith territory.

Back to where she was being held.

Back to take her home.