Flashbacks from a haunted night.

Keon's POV:

Sleep had become a courtesy I occasionally extended to my body. Nothing more.

The dawn hadn't yet broken, but the palace was already beginning to stir beneath my window. Guards changed shifts below in practiced, rhythmic silence, their armor clinking softly in the heavy air. Life continued. It always did, entirely indifferent to the wreckage left in its wake.

I rested both hands against the cold stone railing of the balcony, leaning my weight forward and letting the rain-soaked wind strike my face. The icy droplets bit into my skin, but it still wasn't enough to drown out her scent.

Gods. Even after washing. Even after changing clothes twice. Even after forcing myself to stay on the absolute opposite side of the palace, away from her wing of the castle, she lingered.

Not on my skin, where the physical trace could be scrubbed away, but somewhere deep beneath it. The bond pulsed quietly beneath my ribs, simply existing.

I closed my eyes, a heavy sigh escaping into the dark morning air. I shouldn't have kissed her. I knew that with every logical, analytical part of my brain. The moment she'd crossed that stairway, I'd already admitted defeat in a battle I'd spent weeks pretending I could still win.

Yet, I didn't regret it. I regretted the fallout I knew would come out of it; I regretted what it would cost both of our kingdoms if anyone found out, but I would never regret what she'd meant. What she still meant.

My fingers tightened against the rough stone of the balcony until the rock bit into my palms. The scent dragged me backwards, shattering the present completely.

The forest had smelled exactly like this that night.

Rain clung to every branch, the earth soft and muddy beneath my heavy combat boots as Rowan and the rest of the border patrol spread through the dense treeline. The Blood Moon hung ominously overhead, casting an unnatural, crimson glow across the canopy.

Wrong.

Everything about that night had felt fundamentally wrong.

The younger wolves blamed the moon.

Rowan blamed unusual rogue activity along the perimeter. I blamed neither.

My wolf had been pacing restlessly beneath my skin since sunset, a low, frantic growl echoing in the back of my mind. It felt like someone was calling to him from somewhere far beyond the established boundaries of our territory. I broke away from the main patrol without thinking, driven by a sudden, inexplicable urge.

Something powerful was pulling me east. Toward the border. Toward the territory of the witches.

Every logical instinct I possessed as a commander told me to turn around, to go back to my men. Every primal instinct my wolf possessed ignored me completely, driving my legs forward through the thick brush.

Then, the wind changed, and I caught her scent.

Everything stopped. The rain felt frozen in mid-air, the wind died down to absolute nothingness, and even my own breathing ceased.

Mine.

The word wasn't a conscious thought spoken in my mind. It simply existed. My knees almost buckled beneath the sheer, crushing force of the realization.

No... it wasn't possible. The scent was coming from beyond the border. Magic, thick and intoxicating, lingered heavily in the air alongside it. A witch. My wolf surged forward so violently that the shift threatened to rip through me while I was still standing.

Easy... I commanded internally, trying to rein in the beast. Easy... You'll frighten her—

There was a sudden movement ahead. She stepped out from the dense treeline and into the small, misty clearing. She was small, wrapped in an oversized black hoodie that swallowed her frame. Rain soaked her dark hair, loose strands sticking to her flushed cheeks as she turned around.

She looked overwhelmed. Her shoulders were tightly hunched, her breathing shallow and uneven. Even from where I stood at the edge of the shadows, my sharp hearing could pick up the frantic, erratic rhythm of her heartbeat.

I should have called out to her. I should have spoken in a calm voice, told her she was safe, told her she wasn't alone in the dark. I should have done anything but what happened next.

The fated bond snapped taut between us like a pulled wire. The world exploded. My wolf had taken over.

By the time I even realized I'd shifted, I was already moving.

I yelled at the beast within, but my wolf didn't hear me.

He was completely deaf to command, driven by pure, instinct.

Absolute terror flooded her pale face.

She screamed, a piercing, desperate sound that ripped straight through my chest. Not because the frequency hurt my ears, but because she was screaming in terror... at me.

I hit her harder than I ever meant to. The momentum carried us both across the clearing, and we crashed into the deep mud together. She fought desperately beneath my heavy weight, her small hands trembling as wild, unchanneled sparks of magic flared brightly around her fingers, scorching the air.

The words I tried to form in my mind dissolved into a deep, guttural growl that vibrated against her chest.

She looked directly into my wolf eyes, completely terrified. My wolf, consumed by the primal rush of the fated bond, completely misunderstood her panic. He saw her frantic struggling as resistance. A challenge to the bond. The dominant instinct I'd spent my entire life learning to control became stronger than thought itself. Before I could manually pull him back, my teeth found the soft skin of her shoulder.

The world completely shattered.

Moonlight seemed to crash through every nerve ending in my body.

The fated bond slammed into me, not gently like the stories said, but with a violent, agonizing velocity.

I felt her.

Everything.

Her fear, her deep loneliness, the crushing weight of expectations she'd carried silently for years. I felt the quiet, stubborn determination buried beneath all of it.

And then, pure agony.

Her body arched violently beneath mine, her muscles seizing up. A second scream tore from her throat, but this one wasn't born of fear. It was pain. Real, torturous pain.

The fated bond recoiled instantly at her suffering.

Horrified by what he had done, my wolf retreated, and I threw myself backwards so fast that I shifted back into my human form before my body even hit the ground on the other side of the clearing.

She collapsed sideways into the wet mud, her small form curling into a tight ball.

"Winter." The name left my mouth in a breathless gasp before I even understood how I knew it.

The bond had carved her identity straight into my soul.

She wasn't breathing properly, her chest hitching erratically.

Magic rolled off her skin in chaotic, visible waves, distorting the air around her. It was hot enough to burn the grass one second, and freezing cold enough to form frost the next.

Her entire body convulsed.

"No..." I muttered, panic freezing the blood in my veins. I dropped to my knees beside her in the dirt. "Winter."

Nothing. She didn't answer. Her pulse hammered frantically beneath my fingertips when I pressed them to her neck. Too fast. Far too fast. Her innate magic and the newly forged werewolf bond were actively fighting each other inside her body. Wolf biology clashing violently with witch spellcraft.

My stomach dropped into a hollow void. "...No."

Biologically, historically... this shouldn't exist. Witches and wolves could not form soulmate bonds. The magic of the Moon Goddess was never meant to intertwine with the elemental spellcraft of the covens. They weren't even meant to share the same spaces, let alone a soul.

Then why? Why would the Moon Goddess do this to us?

Another violent convulsion tore through her small body, cutting off my spiraling thoughts. I didn't have time to question the heavens. I slid one arm beneath her, carrying her before her head could hit the hard ground again.

"Easy. Stregezza, just breathe."

Another tremor racked her frame, followed immediately by another. Gods... she was freezing cold, her skin turning pale.

Then, a second later, she was burning up, a fever burning through her veins before dropping back to freezing.

The fated bond wasn't rejecting her, but her own magic was tearing her apart from the inside out, trying to understand what my alpha bite had done to her system.

Or perhaps... what she had now become.

I didn't know. No scholar had ever written about this. No elder had ever imagined it in their wildest warnings. I searched desperately through every lesson I've ever learned, every battle strategy, every historical text.

Nothing.

There was no guidance in the archives for impossible things.

I could only do the one thing my instincts told me to do: protect her.

I pulled my heavy leather cloak from my shoulders and wrapped it tightly around her shaking body, keeping the damp, freezing earth from stealing away whatever warmth she had left. I scooped her up into my arms and carried her out of the open clearing, finding a small, dry cave embedded in the rocky hill nearby to hide her. I sat against the cold stone wall and held her as gently as I possibly could, while wave after wave of convulsions hit her over and over again.

Several times throughout the long night, I heard the distant sounds of my patrol searching the woods. They were getting closer. I scented the air before they could ever reach the clearing, and every single time they neared, I let out a low, warning growl from the darkness of the cave. Not loudly, but with enough dominant alpha frequency to carry through the trees.

No one crossed that boundary. No one questioned the command of the Alpha.

Hours passed in an agonizing blur.

By the time the forest fell completely quiet, she was sleeping peacefully against my chest, exhausted beyond anything I'd ever witnessed.

My uniform was completely ruined, caked in dried mud and stained with forest debris

I didn't care about any of it. I simply watched her breathe instead. She looked peaceful.

Then, her long eyelashes fluttered.

My heart lurched violently against my ribs.

In that split second, I did the one thing a seasoned commander should never do.

I froze. My entire body went completely stiff, and my eyes slammed shut, mimicking sleep like a kid getting caught stealing out of the kitchen jar.

I couldn't explain why I'd done it, even now. Fear of her reaction, perhaps. Fear of the terror returning to her eyes.

Her eyes opened.

I knew this not because I saw it, but because the fated bond flared to life, letting me sense her piercing gaze landing directly on my face.

First came confusion, radiating through the bond. Then, a sharp spike of recognition. And finally... fear. Again.

Through the tiny crack in my eyelids, I saw her look at me as though I were the absolute worst monster she had ever encountered in her life. Before I could open my mouth to explain, before I could even tell her my name or reassure her that the danger had passed, she shoved herself backwards with a burst of panicked adrenaline.

I reached out instinctively to steady her, but my hands caught only empty air. She was already running. Her bare feet slipped through the wet grass as she bolted out of the mouth of the cave, sprinting blindly toward the safety of the witch borders. She never once looked back.

I stood there at the cave entrance long after her scent had faded from the morning air. The fated bond stretched painfully with every single step she took, pulling hard at the center of my chest, practically begging me to follow her, to hunt her down and bring her back.

But I didn't. I forced my feet to stay planted in the mud. Because somewhere beyond those trees, back at the heart of our territory, my little brother was waiting at a ceremonial altar for his bride. And my fated soulmate... was currently sprinting in the exact opposite direction from me.

Damn.

A sudden, sharp voice crashed directly into my head, shattering the memory.

"Keon."

It was Rowan.

It's time. Everyone's already here, and Sabrina is getting impatient.

I opened my eyes.

The steady morning rain replaced the nightmare of the Blood Moon.

I take a deep breath.

"I'm coming" I mindlinked back calmly.

I turned away from the balcony.

No matter what happend in the past, the future was already waiting for me behind the heavy oak doors of the council chamber, and I had a part to play.