Chapter Three – Caelan

The Hollow felt too quiet tonight.

The corridors that normally rang with the sound of activity — servants hauling weapons, betas barking orders, wolves laughing or sparring — now felt like tunnels, long and winding, wrapped in silence. The trials were almost at an end, and soon the Marking Ceremony would claim its victor. The weight of that thought pressed down on him harder than he liked to admit.

Caelan stood near the archway that overlooked the courtyard, arms crossed, staring out across the sprawling expanse of stone and mist-clung pines. The trials had taken too long already, days and nights blurring into one brutal test after another, and soon, the pack would have its Luna. The Elders would have their victory. The Hollow would have its chosen.

Helena.

He clenched his jaw at the thought. Strong. Skilled. A warrior with noble blood. The logical choice. The one the Council demanded he claim. Yet, every thought of binding her to him felt like swallowing poison.

“Alpha,” came a voice from the side. Derrin emerged from the shadow of a column, brushing a hand down the hilt of his knife. “The priestesses have called for final preparations. The trials end tomorrow at dusk. By the Blood Moon, you’ll be marking the chosen one.”

Caelan didn’t respond. He didn’t need to. The thought thrummed through him like a taut bowstring. Marking a Luna wasn’t some shallow ritual. It was a merging of flesh, of essence, a bond that would sink into bone and claim the beast within him for the rest of this lifetime. And if he gave that claim to Helena…

Why then, every night, when he closed his eyes, was it not Helena he dreamed of?

Why was it a stranger?

Why was it the shy tilt of a servant girl’s chin and the dark sweep of lashes that refused to leave him in peace?

He exhaled sharply, brushing a hand down the dark stubble along his jaw. “Make sure the priestesses have everything in order. The ceremony will proceed as intended.”

“And you?” Derrin tilted a brow, voice low. “Are you sure about this?”

Caelan leveled a glance at his Beta — long, unreadable. “What would you have me say?”

Derrin shrugged one broad shoulder. “That you’re certain. Not for the Council, not for the gods, but for yourself.”

The silence between them spoke louder than any word. The gods didn’t give their blessings easily, and tonight felt like a warning resting just beyond the veil.

Caelan pushed away from the archway. “Walk with me.”

They descended the stone steps, boots scuffing the worn path that led toward the training grounds and courtyard. As they walked, he caught the sound of soft humming. Not a song he knew. Not a melody belonging to the Hollow. It was soft and faint, rising like mist through the corridors.

He stopped. So did Derrin. The sound pulled at some deep, forgotten part of him — a whisper brushing across the beast he kept leashed within.

Through the arch of a side corridor, he spotted her.

A girl. Not a warrior, not a noble. A servant. Her dress was plain, torn at the hem, smudged with ash from long hours in the kitchens. But she carried herself with a quiet grace that didn’t fit the place she belonged. Dark hair framed a heart-shaped face, brushing delicate shoulders as she worked, brushing a rag along a long table. Her voice was soft, lilting, humming that strange, hypnotic song like she hadn’t a care in the world.

Ilia.

He didn’t know her name then, but the sound of her voice pressed down into the marrow of him. His beast stirred, rising slow and wary like a beast sniffing at the edge of a long-abandoned trail. He watched as she stood, brushing hair from her face, and for a moment — a breath, no more — she looked up.

Their eyes met.

Time stopped.

Her gaze was wary, like a doe spotted in a clearing. Yet it was not fear he felt from her. Not truly. There was strength there, buried deep. A quiet, molten thing that refused to be extinguished.

The beast within him surged, brushing the edges of its prison, demanding closer, closer. Not Helena. Not some well-bred daughter of a lord. This one. This slip of a girl who held herself like a shadow and refused to drop her gaze from his.

He felt it then. Not a whisper. Not a hint. A shift. A spark deep in the beast that refused to be ignored.

“Caelan?” Derrin’s voice pulled him sharply from the moment, sharp and wary.

Caelan didn’t answer. He stood rooted for a moment longer, committing every line of her delicate face to memory. The soft curve of her mouth. The stubborn tilt of her chin. The wary, burning glint in deep brown eyes that refused to look away.

Then she stepped back, melting into the hallway like mist.

Caelan drew in a breath like a man breaking surface after too long underwater.

“Have someone learn her name,” he said sharply.

“Alpha?” Derrin frowned. “That one? She’s a servant.”

Caelan didn’t flinch, didn’t justify himself. He didn’t have words for the way the beast surged within, only that he refused to be ignored.

“Her name,” he said again, voice like steel. “And where she came from.”

Derrin tilted his head slightly, wary. “And if she’s nothing? If she’s no one?”

Caelan turned, burning amber brushing the air between them. “Then you forget you ever asked.”

But as he walked away, one thought refused to release its grip:

A Luna was to be chosen by strength, by heritage, by victory.

And yet… something in the quiet hum of a servant girl felt like belonging.

Something felt like it had already been claimed.

And when the night came, and the moons rose, and the Marking Ceremony called forth its gods and beasts, he wondered if this was the warning the gods had promised.

He wondered if this was the ruin — or the glory — that would claim him.