FIRST BLOOD

KAIA POV

The forest before dawn smells like death and possibility.

I'm already there when Damien arrives—I didn't sleep, just lay in my bunk and counted the hours until I could leave the compound without questions. The north gate is abandoned at this hour. The sentries are on the other side of the perimeter, and the woods are dark enough that I can pretend I'm alone.

Then he steps out of the trees, and I'm not alone anymore.

He's shirtless. Just leather pants and boots, and his body is a landscape of scars and muscle that I've seen a hundred times in training but never like this. Never when we're not surrounded by warriors. Never when it's just us.

"You came," he says.

"You gave me an order."

"No, I didn't." He moves closer, and the morning air shifts around him. "I gave you a choice. You chose to come."

I don't answer because he's right, and I hate that he's right.

"We're going to work on your technique," he continues, circling me like I'm prey. "Not the warrior technique you learned from the handbook. The primal technique. The part of you that's been holding back."

"I don't hold back."

"Yes, you do." He stops in front of me. "You fight like you're apologizing. Like every hit is sorry for existing. I need you to stop apologizing."

"Maybe I should apologize," I say, and my voice cracks. "Maybe if I'd been better, stronger, Lyra would still be—"

"Stop." His hand comes up and grips my chin, forcing me to look at him. "That's not what happened. And you know it."

"Do I?" I ask, pulling away from his touch. "Because I still don't remember that night. I have gaps, Damien. Huge, terrifying gaps. What if I did do something and I just don't remember?"

"You didn't."

"How are you so sure?"

"Because I know you." His eyes burn gold in the dim light. "Better than you know yourself."

He drops his hands and steps back.

"Now. Attack me."

"What?"

"Attack. No mercy. No holding back. Show me what you're really capable of."

I hesitate for maybe two seconds before I move. A front kick aimed at his ribs, fast and mean. He blocks easily, and I follow with a punch. He parries. Another kick. Another parry. We move like we've trained together for years—which we have—but this is different.

This is faster. Harder. Angrier.

I'm hitting him with every ounce of rage I've been storing up since the rejection ceremony. Every moment of humiliation. Every second of Rafe's manipulation. Every time I caught Damien looking at me and had to look away first.

"Harder," he says, dodging a spin kick.

I push faster. My body is liquid fire. The sand beneath my feet explodes with each movement, and I'm so close to touching him, so close to—

He catches my fist mid-punch and spins me.

My back hits his chest, and his arm comes across my throat. Not choking. Just holding. And the bond between us erupts.

It's like lightning under my skin. Like every nerve ending I have is suddenly aware of exactly where his body is, exactly how his heartbeat syncs with mine, exactly how much I want to lean back into him and never leave.

"Don't move," he whispers against my ear.

I'm not moving. I can barely breathe.

His other hand comes up, and his fingers trace the scar on my collarbone. The one I got three years ago in a rogue fight. The one he's never touched before.

"This," he says softly. "This is what I see when I look at you. Not weakness. Not guilt. Survival."

"Damien—"

"Don't look at me like that."

"Like what?"

"Like you're about to break."

His hand is still on my scar, and I can feel the rough texture of calluses against my skin, and I'm completely aware that if either of us moves wrong, this becomes something else entirely.

Something that will shatter us both.

"Let me go," I whisper.

He releases me immediately, and I stumble forward. When I turn around, his face is a mask again. The ice is back. The Alpha heir is back.

"Again," he says.

We train for hours. Until the sun is high enough that we should have been seen. Until my body aches and my muscles burn. Until I feel like I might actually be strong enough to survive this.

That's when I hear it.

A sound from the trees. Distant, but unmistakable.

"Sentry," Damien says, immediately alert.

We both freeze. If someone finds us out here, alone, training in secret—it breaks every rule. It proves that Damien is helping me. That he's choosing me over protocol.

That he's choosing me over the pack.

"Run," Damien says.

"What?"

"Run. Now. Back toward the compound but stay in the woods. I'll handle the sentry."

"Damien—"

"Go."

I run.

But I'm not fast enough, and neither is he.

Rafe steps out of the trees before I've gone ten feet, and his smile is absolutely predatory.

"Well, well," he says, and there's blood on his lip like he's already fought someone. "Isn't this interesting? The disgraced warrior and the future Alpha. Training together. In secret."

Damien is between us before I can even process the threat.

"Rafe. Explain."

"I was patrolling," Rafe says, brushing dirt off his shoulder. "Heard something interesting at the north gate. Decided to investigate." He looks past Damien at me. "Find anything good out here?"

"You're off-perimeter," Damien says, his voice glacial. "Without authorization."

"And you're training the pack's accused murderer without council approval," Rafe counters. "Interesting how that works, isn't it? One rule for the Alpha heir. One rule for everyone else."

I watch Damien's hands clench.

"What do you want, Rafe?"

"Want? Nothing." He steps closer, and there's something in his movement that makes my skin crawl. "Just observing. Just noting that the future Alpha seems very personally invested in the guilt or innocence of one particular packmate."

"She didn't kill Lyra."

"Didn't she?" Rafe's eyes slide to me. "Or did you just not want to believe it?"

That's when it happens.

The rage inside me boils over, and I feel it—that silver heat that's been building since the laundry room. Since my rank was stripped. Since Lyra stopped breathing.

It rises from my chest like a second heartbeat.

Silver light blooms across my skin.

Just for a second. Just enough for Rafe to see it before I shove it back down, clamp it so hard I think something inside me breaks.

But it's too late.

Rafe's smile is the smile of someone who just found a weapon.

"Moonfire," he breathes. "Oh, Kaia. You've been hiding that”

Damien is suddenly in front of me, blocking Rafe's view.

"If you tell anyone—" Damien starts.

"I'm not going to tell anyone," Rafe says softly. "I'm going to let the council find out on their own. During the next training exercise, when her control slips and she burns someone. And then they won't just exile her for Lyra's death. They'll burn her for practicing forbidden magic."

He steps back, and his smile never wavers.

"See you at the compound. Both of you."

He walks away, and I feel Damien's whole body go rigid beside me.

"Kaia—"

"I know," I whisper. "I know what he's going to do."

"We have time. We can—"

"No, we can't." I look at my hands, and they're still shaking from the power I just unleashed. "He's going to tell the council. He's going to make sure I'm executed. And he's going to make sure you have to vote yes to save your own position."

Damien's jaw clenches.

"I won't let that happen."

"You won't have a choice."

I look up at him, and I see the war happening behind his eyes. The battle between his duty to the pack and whatever this thing is between us that won't break.

"If you protect me," I say quietly, "you lose everything. The Alpha title. The respect. The pack."

"I know."

"And if you don't protect me, I die."

"I know that too."

He reaches out and pulls me into him, and for a moment, we're not standing in a forest making impossible choices. We're just two people who got dealt the worst hand imaginable, holding on to each other because it's the only thing that makes sense anymore.

"There has to be another way," he whispers into my hair.

But we both know there isn't.