Chapter 5

Elara's POV

Kael turned toward the young man so fast I barely saw him move, but when he spoke, his voice wasn't the sharp bark of a King bracing for a fight, it was low and controlled, the voice of someone who had learned a long time ago that panic never solved anything.

"Slow down, Tobias," he said. "Catch your breath and tell me exactly what you saw, not what you think it means."

Tobias pressed a hand to his ribs, still catching his breath, and when he finally spoke again his voice had steadied a little, like Kael's calm had rubbed off on him the way calm sometimes does when someone else in the room refuses to lose their head.

"A rider from the Ashwood pack came through the eastern trail asking questions at the old crossing post, he wasn't hunting anyone.

He was just asking if a woman matching Elara's description had passed through, I don't think anyone knows about the mark, my King. I think they're only looking for their missing omega."

The relief that moved through the room was quiet but real, and I felt my own shoulders drop from somewhere up near my ears, because for one terrible moment I had pictured Ryker's father leading warriors through the trees with torches, the way the old stories always seemed to go when a woman ran from her pack in the middle of the night.

"That's Mira," I said, before I could stop myself, and everyone turned to look at me.

"She promised she wouldn't tell anyone I left, but she also promised she wouldn't let me disappear into the woods alone without someone knowing where I went. She's probably terrified right now."

Kael studied me for a moment, the kind of look that felt like he was weighing something carefully before he let himself say it out loud. "Do you want to send word back to her? Let her know you're safe?"

I hadn't expected him to offer that, not after everything Nyra had just said about bloodlines and danger and every kingdom wanting a piece of me, and something about the offer loosened a knot in my chest that had been sitting there since the clearing.

"Please," I said. "She's the only person in that pack who's ever actually looked out for me."

Kael gave Tobias quiet instructions, something about finding Mira without drawing attention and passing along a message that Elara was safe and would explain everything soon, and once Tobias had gone, the cottage settled back into the kind of quiet that made the last hour feel almost unreal, like I might wake up any moment back in my old room with Mira lacing up that too tight dress.

Nyra excused herself not long after, murmuring something about needing rest and needing to think, though the way she kept glancing at my wrist on her way out told me she wasn't planning to sleep at all, and then it was just Kael and me and the low crackle of the fire in the hearth.

"You didn't have to do that," I said. "Send someone for Mira."

"You looked like you needed it." He settled into the chair across from mine, and for the first time since we'd met, he looked less like a King and more like a man who had been carrying something heavy for a very long time and hadn't set it down in years.

"I know what it's like to lose the people who were supposed to look out for you. I wasn't going to make you lose the one who actually did, not tonight, not on top of everything else."

Something about the way he said it made me want to ask what he'd lost, but the question felt too big for how little I still knew about him, so instead I asked something smaller. "Is it true? What Nyra said, about the bloodline?"

He was quiet for a long moment, staring into the fire like the answer was written somewhere in the flames. "I've read the old texts, Most people think they're just stories, the kind elders tell to explain why the world works the way it does.

A goddess's bloodline hidden away generations ago, meant to return when the world needed balancing again." He finally looked at me, and there was something careful in his eyes, like he was afraid of scaring me off with the truth.

"I never expected to find it standing in the middle of a rogue attack in Ashwood territory, in a torn wedding dress, asking me if I was going to hurt her."

"I didn't ask if you were going to hurt me."

"You didn't have to ask. It was in your eyes the whole walk here." His voice softened in a way I wasn't prepared for.

"You flinch like someone who's spent a long time waiting to be hurt by the people who were supposed to protect you. I recognized it because I've spent centuries doing the same thing, just for different reasons."

The fire popped in the silence that followed, and I found myself studying him the way he'd studied me back in the forest, trying to see past the King everyone in three territories feared to whatever was underneath that had made him gentle with a stranger's wrist and quick to send help to a girl he'd never met.

"What reasons," I asked quietly. "Why do you flinch?"

His jaw tightened, just slightly, and for a moment I thought he wouldn't answer at all, that I'd pushed somewhere he wasn't ready to let me go yet.

"Because every full moon," he said finally, "I lose a little more of myself to something I can't control, and I've spent a hundred years making sure no one gets close enough to watch it happen.

" He looked down at the mark on his own wrist, tracing it once with his thumb like he still couldn't quite believe it was there.

"Until tonight, that was the safest way I knew how to live."