Chapter Five: The Alpha

Four years later

Four years had a way of changing things. Edinburgh didn't feel unfamiliar anymore. It felt like home.

I knew which coffee shop opened earliest and which bus to take to campus and which professors actually replied to emails and which ones you had to show up to in person. I knew the best study spots in the library. I knew that the dining hall pasta on Thursdays was good and every other day was not worth trying.

I had real friends. Isla had kept her promise of being an aggressively excellent roommate and four years later she was one of my favourite people. We had moved out of the dorms and into a small flat two streets from campus with a kitchen window that had an actual view.

She still made tea for everything. I stopped complaining about it about two years ago.

I was good. Not pretending to be good. Actually good.

The wound was still there if I really pressed on it. I knew that. But it had healed over the way things do when you stop picking at them and just let time do its job. Ethan Caldwell had been part of my life and then he wasn't and I had survived it. Maya had called last spring to tell me he had officially become Alpha of Silvermoon Pack and married Celeste. There had been a formal announcement and everything apparently.

I had read Maya's message, put my phone down, made myself a cup of chamomile tea and sat with it for about ten minutes.

Then I went back to studying.

That felt like real progress.

Things at home had changed too. Caden was now training directly under my dad as head warrior in waiting.

My mother said the two of them spent mornings doing drills and evenings arguing about strategy and that my father had never looked more proud in his life.

Leo had grown four inches since I left which I found personally offensive, had gotten even more charming somehow which I also found offensive, and had started seeing someone from the pack that the whole family was pretending not to be excited about.

He had mentioned her name three times in our last call while trying to seem like he wasn't that bothered. He was very bothered.

My mom still put chamomile tea bags in every package she sent me.

I called my dad every single day. I had not broken that promise once.

Life was good. It had kept moving and I had kept moving with it.

My fourth year research project was a community health study on rural populations in the Scottish Highlands. Twice a week I drove about forty minutes out of Edinburgh to work with a local health program there. It was quiet, steady work. Exactly the kind I was built for. I had been doing it for a month with no problems at all.

Until the Thursday that changed everything.

I was packing up my kit at the end of the afternoon when I heard it.

A small rustling from the tree line at the edge of the field. Then a quiet, careful sound that I recognised immediately as someone trying very hard not to cry from pain.

I left my bag and walked over.

He was sitting at the bottom of a big oak tree, half hidden in the grass. Small. Maybe four or five years old with dark messy hair and the prettiest light brown eyes I had ever seen on a child , warm and clear like honey, completely at odds with his dark hair and the very serious expression on his little face.

He had mud on both knees and a dried tear track on one cheek he had clearly wiped away in a hurry. His left leg was stretched out in front of him and there was a bad cut on his leg that was bleeding into his sock.

He looked up when I got close. His jaw tightened in that way little kids do when they have decided they are absolutely not going to cry in front of a stranger.

"Hi," I said. I crouched down to his level without moving any closer. "That looks like it hurts."

"It doesn't," he said straight away.

"Okay." I sat down on the grass cross legged like I had nowhere else to be. "I'm Elara. I'm going to be a doctor. I have a first aid kit over there." I nodded towards where my bag was. "Can I look at your leg?"

He studied me for a moment with serious dark eyes. Then he gave one small nod.

I went and got my kit and sat beside him and got to work. He stayed completely still and watched everything I did like he was checking If I was doing it right.

"What's your name?" I asked, cleaning the cut.

"Theo."

"How old are you Theo?"

He held up five fingers.

"Five. Very grown up." I kept my voice easy. "What happened to your leg?"

"A branch happened," he said.

"Did you win?"

He thought about it. "Mostly."

I pressed my lips together so I wouldn't smile. "Fair enough. How did you end up out here alone?"

He got the look of a child working out how much trouble they were already in.

"I ran away," he said.

"From what?"

"My lessons. And Mrs Fenn."

"Who is Mrs Fenn?"

"My caretaker." He dropped his voice. "She's mean. She makes me do letters for a whole hour and never lets me go outside. Today she said no again so I went out the window."

"Which window?"

"The downstairs one," he said quickly. "I'm not allowed the upstairs one."

"At least you followed some rules."

He nodded like that was a fair point.

I was halfway through the bandage when I heard them.

Multiple sets of footsteps moving fast and quiet through the tree line. Low voices. Short words. Theo went very still beside me.

"They found me," he said. Not scared. Just like someone who had always known this part was coming.

"Probably," I said, and kept going.

The trees opened and three large men came through, moving fast and sharp, scanning everything.

They saw us straight away and the urgency in how they were moving settled down into something calmer. One of them said something quietly into an earpiece.

Then the fourth person came through.

Tall. Really tall. Dark hair that sat slightly pushed back like he had run a hand through it at some point and hadn't thought about it since. A sharp jaw with a faint shadow of stubble along it. And his eyes ,even from a distance they caught me off guard. Green. Not a soft green but deep and sharp and set against his dark features, the kind of eyes that didn't match the rest of him and somehow made the rest of him worse to deal with because of it. Broad shoulders, built in a way that looked like a bear.

He moved differently from the other three, not like someone trained to move that way but like someone who had simply never needed to question where they were going. The other men were big. He made them look average.

His eyes went straight to Theo.

And then ….

"UNCLE KAEL!"

Theo lit up like a switch had been flipped. Both arms shot up waving, all the suffering completely gone, just a five year old who had spotted the person he wanted most.

"Uncle Kael I got hurt! There was a branch! The lady fixed me! Look!"

The man's face changed for just a second. Something fast and unguarded, pure relief , before it closed back over again. But I saw it.

He crossed the space quickly and crouched in front of Theo, looking him over carefully. The cut. The bandage. The mud. Theo sat up straighter under the inspection.

"I'm fine," Theo said, before he could ask.

Kael looked at the bandage. Then at me.

"Almost done," I said, and finished tying it off.

"Done," I said. I looked at Theo. "Keep it clean and dry for two days. If it gets hot or puffy you need to see a real doctor, okay?"

"You said you're going to be a doctor," Theo said.

"Going to be. Not yet."

He thought about this. "Okay."

I started packing up my kit.

"Who are you."

I looked up. Kael was standing now, looking down at me. Not a question. A demand. The kind of voice that demands respect .

I stood up and brushed the grass off my jeans. I had to look up to meet his eyes which was a little annoying.

"Elara Voss," I said. "Fourth year medical student at Edinburgh University. I do fieldwork out here twice a week." I nodded at Theo. "He was hurt and alone so I helped him."

Something moved in his jaw. "You should have…."

"He's five years old and his leg was bleeding," I said. My voice came out completely calm. "What would you have wanted me to do instead?"

Silence.

One of the warriors behind him made a very small sound. Quickly stopped.

Kael looked at me with the expression of someone who had been handed a situation their usual responses didn't fit. He wasn't used to being cut off mid sentence.

That much was obvious. And he wasn't used to someone standing in front of him looking completely unbothered about it either.

He looked down at Theo.

Without saying anything he reached down and picked him up, settling him against his chest easily, like he had done it a hundred times. Theo put his head straight on his uncle's shoulder and wrapped both arms around his neck like that was exactly where he was supposed to be.

Then Theo lifted his head and looked back at me over Kael's shoulder.

"Thank you Miss Elara," he said seriously. Very polite and sweet.

Something warm and quiet moved through my chest.

"You're welcome Theo," I said. "Be nicer to branches from now on."

His face broke into a proper grin. He gave me a big wave with his whole arm.

I waved back.

Kael's eyes met mine one more time over the top of Theo's head. Still unreadable. Still not a thank you. He held my gaze for just a second longer than necessary and then turned and walked back toward the tree line, his men falling in around him, Theo a small sleepy weight already drooping against his shoulder.

They disappeared into the trees.

I stood there in the empty field with my kit at my feet and looked at the spot where they had gone.

What on earth was that?