Chapter 4

Aria woke to silence.

Not the soft, comfortable kind she knew from early mornings in the pack house, with birds chirping outside her window and someone always banging a pot in the kitchen.

This silence was alive.

It pulsed.

It breathed.

It pressed lightly against her ears like velvet.

She blinked up at a ceiling made of obsidian stone, veined with faint streaks of silver light that flowed like liquid moonlight across its surface. The bed beneath her was impossibly soft, wrapped in dark sheets that smelled faintly of cold wind and night-blooming flowers.

She tried to sit up.

Pain shot through her chest—sharp, sudden, deep—and she gasped, clutching at her ribs as the remnants of the broken bond twisted inside her again.

“Easy,” a voice murmured.

Her head snapped to the side.

He was there.

The Dark King.

Erevan sat beside the bed, one elbow resting on his knee, shadows curling lazily around his fingers like obedient pets. His eyes—unnatural, luminous, a shade between sapphire and twilight—fixed on her with a level of intensity she wasn’t prepared for.

“You’re awake,” he said softly, as if he’d been waiting.

Aria’s throat tightened. “Where… where am I?”

“The Night Palace,” he answered, watching her carefully. “Deep within the heart of my realm.”

Her breath caught.

He had taken her through the rift.

She remembered flashes of it—the swirling shadows, Blake’s voice calling her name in panic, the sensation of falling and flying at the same time. But now she was here, in a place she’d only heard about in half-forgotten myths told around campfires.

Aria swallowed, her voice hoarse. “Why did you bring me here?”

Erevan’s jaw clenched, the shadows around him tightening like a storm pulled taut. “Because you were dying.”

She froze.

“No,” she whispered, shaking her head. “Just—hurting. The mate bond always hurts when—”

“When?” he repeated, voice turning dangerously soft.

Aria looked away. “When it breaks.”

His silence was a cold, heavy thing.

She forced herself to take a steady breath. “You didn’t have to save me. I would’ve been okay eventually.”

“You would not have been,” he said sharply.

Her eyes widened.

“You collapsed,” he continued, his tone raw in a way she didn’t expect. “Your pulse faltered. Your wolf was screaming. If I had been one second later, the damage to your mind would have been irreversible.”

She stared at him.

No one had spoken about her pain like that. No one had looked at her pain like it mattered.

Aria’s voice trembled. “How do you even know that?”

“Because I felt it.”

Her heart stumbled in her chest. “Felt it… how?”

Erevan leaned forward, shadows stirring.

“When I touched you, something awakened,” he said quietly. “A connection. Deep. Old. Powerful. Older than your pack, older than mine, older than the rifts that separate our worlds.”

Aria blinked, confused. “But that’s impossible. The mate bond is—”

“I am not speaking of a wolf bond,” he interrupted. “I am speaking of something else entirely.”

She hugged her arms around herself. “I don’t understand.”

“You will.” His voice softened. “But not while you’re shaking.”

Only then did Aria realize her hands were trembling.

She pulled them into her lap, embarrassed, but Erevan’s gaze followed the movement—sharp, attentive.

“May I?” he asked.

She hesitated, unsure what he meant.

Erevan extended a hand, palm up.

Aria’s breath caught. “Why?”

“To ease the pain,” he said simply. “Your heart. Your wolf. Both are still injured.”

She shouldn’t trust him. She didn’t know him. He was powerful, lethal, a being the packs whispered about with fear.

But the memory of Blake’s voice—

the rejection—

the cold slice of agony—

made her chest ache all over again.

Her fingers moved on their own.

She placed her hand in his.

The shadows stilled instantly, as though bowing. Erevan’s eyes softened, and a warm, tingling sensation spread through her arm, over her shoulder, then into her chest. The tight, suffocating pain loosened. Her wolf’s whimpers quieted.

Aria inhaled sharply. “How… are you doing that?”

“Shadow magic soothes wounds of the soul,” he murmured. “And what he did to you was not a simple wound.”

Aria’s throat tightened.

Blake.

Her mate. Her former mate.

The bond’s ghost still lived inside her chest—faint, cracked, aching with every breath.

“He didn’t want me,” she whispered.

Erevan’s fingers closed gently around hers. His touch was warm—not cold like she expected. Warm and grounding, like strong arms wrapping around her against a winter storm.

“He was unworthy of you,” Erevan said quietly. “The Goddess gives gifts. Fools throw them away.”

Aria’s eyes filled with tears she refused to let fall.

“He said it was a mistake,” she whispered.

Erevan’s jaw hardened. Shadows rippled across the floor like a silent snarl. “You are not a mistake.”

Her breath caught.

He said it like a vow.

No pity.

No hesitation.

No doubt.

“You know nothing about me,” she said, voice small.

Erevan lowered his head slightly, his gaze never leaving hers.

“I know enough,” he murmured. “I know you ran into the woods alone. I know you faced death with no one to protect you. I know you collapsed in a place where no wolf should survive. I know your pain shook two realms.”

Aria’s heart pounded.

“I know,” he added softly, “that when I touched you… something in me woke up.”

A shiver ran down her spine.

He leaned closer, shadows gathering like a protective veil.

“Aria Hale,” he whispered, her name rolling off his tongue like a spell, “I did not come for you by accident.”

Her breath faltered. “W-What does that mean?”

“Everything,” Erevan murmured.

The shadows around them flickered—

like a heartbeat,

like a warning,

like destiny bending toward her.

And before Aria could ask anything else, the chamber doors burst open.

A woman made of starlight and shadow rushed in, eyes wide, voice trembling with urgency.

“My King,” she gasped, “the Council demands an audience. They sensed the rift opening. They want to know—”

Her gaze landed on Aria.

And she froze.

Her pupils dilated.

Her mouth parted.

Her hand pressed over her heart.

“Oh,” she whispered, almost reverently. “It’s true.”

Erevan stood slowly, positioning himself between Aria and the woman.

“You will say nothing,” he warned. “Not until she is strong enough.”

The woman swallowed, nodding. “Of course, my King.”

Aria’s pulse raced. “Say nothing about what?”

The woman bowed her head to Aria, voice barely above a breath.

“Your arrival,” she said, “fulfills the prophecy.”

Aria’s blood went cold. “Prophecy?”

The woman met her eyes—

and smiled like Aria was something divine.

“You,” she whispered, “are the one the shadows have waited for.”