Chapter Three: THE PULL I CAN'T ESCAPE

Elara's Pov

I avoided the Quad like it was cursed.

After what happened with Seraphina and the way Kael looked at me, the way he spoke up  for me, I couldn’t risk running into them again. Not when I wasn’t even sure what any of it meant.

Lila tried to drag it out of me during lunch. I told her half of the story but left out the whole alpha showdown in the hallway bit.

“So you’re saying the most wanted guy on campus stood up for you twice, and now you’re skipping lunch like the lead in a sad artsy movie?” she asked, waving her fork at me. “Girl, Seriously.”

“I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“That it meant something. Or at least that you had a moment staring into his weirdly hot eyes.”

I laughed. “His eyes aren’t weird.”

“They’re silver. That’s pretty weird. Hot, yeah, but still weird.”

I looked outside. Kael was there, on the Quad. Leaning against a tree, talking to Rowan.

And then he turned, like he knew I was watching. His eyes met mine. He didn’t look away.

My stomach did a flip. Great.

“I hate this,” I muttered.

“Do you, though?” Lila smirked.

Before I could respond, my phone buzzed.

Unknown Number: Meet me behind the library, five minutes, come alone.

My heart skipped. I showed Lila.

“Nope. Nope. That’s how girls get kidnapped in movies.”

But I was already standing.

“Elara—”

“I’ll be fine.”

The walk to the back of the library felt way longer than usual. Everything felt quiet.

I expected to see Kael.

But it wasn’t him.

A girl stood by the wall, her face half-hidden. Her eyes were sharp like she already knew everything.

“You’re Elara,” she said. Not a question.

“And you are?”

“Someone who knows things.” She stepped forward. “Things you should know too.”

I didn’t answer.

“Like who you are, what you are. And why is Kael suddenly so interested?”

My chest tightened.

“You think he’s protecting you,” she said. “But he’s not. He’s hiding you.”

“Hiding me from what?”

She glanced around like she didn’t want to be overheard, then stepped closer, voice low and steady.

“From yourself.”

I stepped back, pulse quickening. “Who are you?”

She sighed like she didn’t have time for games. “I’m someone who made the mistake of trusting the wrong Alpha once. I’m not letting you do the same.”

“Kael’s not, he hasn’t done anything.”

“Yet.”

The air between us thickened. Her gaze rested heavily on me like she was trying to decide if I was worth the warning. Or maybe I was already too far gone.

“You felt it, didn’t you?” she asked. “When he looked at you, like something shifted.”

I didn’t answer because she was right. I had felt it. Like gravity tilting toward him.

She pulled something from her hoodie, a pendant. It looked old. Silver, with a cracked moon etched into it.

“You’re not just anyone, Elara. You never were, you’re one of us.”

“One of them?”

Her lips curled into something sad. “The ones they keep hidden.”

Before I could ask more, she turned and vanished around the corner, disappearing into shadows like she was never there.

And just like that, I was left alone—with a thousand questions and a heart pounding loud enough to drown them all.

******

I didn’t go straight to class.

Instead, I wandered behind the science building, hiding in the shadows like I expected that girl to appear again. My fingers played with the strap of my backpack, my heart thudding with leftover adrenaline and questions that felt too big for someone like me.

“You’re not just anyone, Elara.”

Her voice echoed louder than the campus bells.

I wasn’t ready to believe it. I didn’t want to believe it. Because if I did, everything I knew about my life… about me, would collapse like a house built on sand.

I reached the back of the building and leaned against the cold brick. Took a breath, let it burn. I tried to shake it off.

And then—

“Are you hiding from me already?”

His voice slid in like warm velvet. My spine straightened instantly.

I turned, and there he was.

Kael Draven.

No distance, no crowd, just him in a fitted black shirt that clung to every sculpted line like it had been made to worship him. His dark hair was still damp from the morning air, strands falling over his eyes too sharp and too blue for their good.

He looked like a Greek god lost in a college brochure. And for some reason, he was talking to me.

“I, ” I tried to speak, but my throat dried out like a desert. “I wasn’t hiding.”

He smirked like he didn’t believe me.

“It looked like hiding.”

He stepped closer, and something in my chest did a full somersault. His presence wasn’t just attractive—it was magnetic, like he bent the rules of space just by existing in it. The air around us pulsed.

“What do you want?” I whispered, annoyed at how small I sounded.

His smile faded, but he didn’t look away.

“I don’t know,” he said quietly. “That’s the problem.”

I swallowed.

People were passing by just a few yards away, laughing, carrying books, and living their lives. And I was here, standing in the eye of a storm I couldn’t name.

“You... don’t even know me,” I said, forcing my voice to hold steady.

Kael’s eyes didn’t flinch. “I know I’ve never felt this drawn to someone before.”

My chest tightened.

“I’m not special,” I blurted, barely keeping the shake out of my voice.

He tilted his head like he was trying to see straight through me. “You keep saying that. But you’re wrong.”

I should’ve walked away. I wanted to walk away.

Instead, I asked, “Why me?”

He didn’t answer, not with words.

Instead, he reached out and brushed a stray curl from my cheek, fingertips barely touching my skin, he was close enough for me to feel his breath. 

His touch sparked something in me, a heat, a shiver I couldn’t explain.

But before I could say anything else, his eyes darkened.

“Elara,” he said slowly. “Have you noticed anything... Strange lately? Anything you can’t explain?”

My breath caught. How did he know?