Kael’s POV“Choose, Kael Aeson, your oath or your mate.”Elder Cyril’s voice carried across the shattered Moon Cells like a blade dragged over glass. The firelight flickered against the blood-slick floor, and for a moment, the silence afterward felt like suffocation. Wolves pressed in on every side, some snarling, while some wide-eyed, all waiting.Lyra stood at my back, her claws dripping with vampire ash, her shadow still flickering with Hollow fire. The pack had seen too much. I could feel her trembling through the bond, her breath ragged and the Hollow whispering beneath her skin like venom.My wolf, Veylor, surged inside me, growling. "Protect her and claim her. She's ours."I stepped forward, my hand still wrapped around my blade and locked eyes with Cyril. His silver hair gleamed in the light, his gaze cold and merciless.“She is mine,” I said, my voice low but carrying. “Which means this pack belongs to her as well.”Gasps rippled. Some wolves lowered their heads instinctively
Lyra’s POVThe Hollow whispered through my veins like fire as Kael carried me. My claws scraped against his chest, nicking through fabric and skin, but his arms didn’t loosen. His jaw was set, every line of his body taut with strain, but his voice cut through the roaring in my head like steel through fog.“Stay with me, Lyra. I won’t let you go.”I thrashed once more, shadows writhing at the edges of my vision, but his wolf, Veylor, growled deep in his chest, steady and grounding. The sound pressed into me, pulling me back from the brink. I shuddered, the Hollow retreating for now, though its laugh lingered like smoke in my skull.The forest fell behind us, replaced by cliffs rising against the night sky. Kael carried me to Blackthorn land. The air here was colder, heavier, and laced with iron and salt from the sea crashing against jagged stone. The moonlight cut across towers that rose sharp and glittering, glass panes catching every shard of silver. It was a fortress and a crown, bo
Kael Aeson’s POV“Tell me, Kael… Do you want me alive, or do you just want me contained?”Her voice cut through the night like a blade, soft and ragged, yet sharp enough to pierce bone. The point of my sword still hovered at her throat, the silver edge catching the last light of the moon. My hand shook, not from weakness, but from the war tearing me apart inside.The vow I’d carried since boyhood screamed in my blood: "End it. Kill her. The Hollow must never rise."But the bond, the curse and the tether that tied me to her dragged me closer. It didn’t whisper. It roared, "Protect her, claim her and choose her, even if the world burns for it."Her hollow-lit eyes locked on mine and for a heartbeat, I didn’t see the monster, didn’t see the cage and didn’t see the curse. I saw the girl who had laughed too sharply at a rival’s taunts, the one who stood unbowed before her father’s wrath, and the one who whispered my name like it meant something more than fate, and then she whispered again,
Lyra’s POV“Put me down, Kael… before I stop pretending I can still control this.”The words rasped out of me before I could catch them. My throat was dry, my lips cracked, but the warning was real.My claws were too close to his throat, my breath too hot against his skin. I could feel his pulse where my cheek brushed his collarbone, steady, relentless, tempting.Kael didn’t slow. His arms were iron bands around me, holding me against his chest as he tore through the forest. The trees blurred past us, their branches clawing at the night like skeletal fingers.His boots struck the earth in a hard, deliberate rhythm, his body straining with every step.“You can hate me later,” he growled, his voice low and jagged, “but if I drop you now, you’ll collapse and the Hollow will have you.”The Hollow stirred at its name, as if he had summoned it. Laughter slithered through my veins, a hiss curling around my ribs, pressing into my lungs. My body twitched against Kael’s hold. My shadow rippled
Kael Aeson’s POV“Touch her again, Vale and you’ll have to kill me first.”The words ripped out of me before I could stop them and before my mind caught up with my mouth, but once spoken, they were iron.Alpha Dorian Vale didn’t flinch. His silver-etched blade, the Oathblade, still hung in the air, shimmering with runes that glowed like fire veins. His gray eyes cut through me, cold and merciless, the eyes of a wolf who had spent his life ruling with teeth.“You think to stand between me and my own blood?” He growled.I did more than I thought. I moved.Steel slammed against steel as my sword rose to catch his strike. Sparks spat across the circle. The force of the blow rattled my bones to the marrow, but I held. The Oathblade hissed as though alive. For a heartbeat, I swore it recognized me.Then fire shot up my arm.I staggered, biting down a snarl as glowing runes seared into my skin where the Oathblade had touched. They pulsed, hot and alive, threading pain through my veins. The sc
Lyra’s POV“Tell me the truth, Father, did you ever want me to live?”The words tumbled out of me like broken glass, slicing my throat on the way up. For a moment, the world was quiet. Even the howling wind through the trees stilled, as if it wanted to hear his answer.The Oathblade gleamed in my father’s grip, its silver edge shimmering with runes that pulsed like veins full of fire. His gray eyes cut into me, sharp, cold and merciless. They were not the eyes of a father. They were the eyes of a judge delivering a sentence already written long before tonight.“You should never have been born.”The ground ripped out beneath me. Those seven words did more damage than Kael’s blade, more than the claws and teeth of my pack. My chest constricted, my body aching with a hollow pain that had nothing to do with wounds.Gasps spread through the circle of wolves surrounding us. Some flinched, some muttered prayers, and some looked away like the shame was theirs. But none stepped forward. Not on