Chapter 14: Khael

The night air holds a stillness that’s always been familiar to me. Not comforting—never that—but necessary. It is the kind of silence that carries weight, meant for creatures like me to walk unnoticed.

I slip out of the dream like breath leaving lungs, quiet and deliberate. Elunara’s world vanishes behind my eyes, but the echo of her clings to me.

She doesn’t know I was actually there. But a part of her felt me. I saw it in the way she turned toward the shadows, whispering my name. Saw it in the tension that coiled beneath her skin, the way she gasped in the moment before waking.

I should’ve stayed hidden. But her scent, her energy—it’s unlike anything I’ve ever felt. Not even when I walked among queens or the sacred ancestral bloodlines have I ever been this rattled.

Elunara is fire sealed in flesh.

And I am cold shadow, carved from bone and purpose. Yet when I was in that dream with her, watching her drawn to the others, to the ritual, to the pull of something deep and ancient, I felt the ache of warmth at my core. A dangerous thing. Something I was trained to destroy in others, never foster in myself.

I step out into the Hollow. Moonlight dusts the land, brushing over the tall grass and forgotten stone. Every part of this place whispers in its own language. The wards woven into the air hum against my skin. I touch a knotted root with my hand as I pass, murmuring a single word of binding.

The land wakes to me.

I follow the sound of murmured voices and the occasional metallic clink of Darius tending the fire pit. Smoke rises ahead, drifting through the trees. It smells of cedar and iron.

I emerge into the clearing.

Darius stands with his shirt undone, hands blackened from the firewood, his gaze flicking to me before I speak. He always knows I’m near before I arrive. Vastian doesn’t turn, but I catch the twitch in his jaw. He’s listening, even when his back’s to me.

“You’ve seen her,” Darius says, not a question.

I nod. “Inside her dream.”

Vastian’s knife slows. He glances over his shoulder. “She knew you were there?”

“Not consciously,” I reply, moving to the edge of the firelight. I stay standing. My energy still vibrates with Elunara’s presence, and I don’t want to sit. Not yet. “But she felt me. I touched nothing, revealed nothing... but she knew. Her instincts are powerful.”

Vastian sets the blade down beside him and finally faces me. “Tell us what you saw.”

I hesitate.

Not because I don’t trust them—but because speaking it aloud will make it real.

“She’s changing. More quickly than we expected. Her blood is awakening her, but it’s not normal.” I glance into the fire. “It’s more potent. Focused. There’s a reservoir of power in her, something... compressed over time.”

Darius shifts. “The curse.”

I nod once. “A hundred years of suppressed energy, waiting for the first Moonstone daughter to be born. It’s all inside her.”

“And it’s cracking through now,” Vastian murmurs. “Even the land recognizes her.”

I look between them. “She’s not just a hucow. Not just a mate. She’s something else. I felt it.”

I glance up. “You’ve seen the signs. The wards pulse harder when she walks by. The runes shift. The animals settle when she nears. Even the shadows bend in reverence.”

I pause at the memory of Elunara, bare and presenting in the field for us. It assaults my mind.

“She’s the one,” I whisper. “But if we’re not careful, we’ll lose her before she even understands who she is.”

Darius’s eyes catch mine across the firelight—steady, knowing. He’s been waiting for the moment I’d say something, though he gives me space like a predator circling another, not pouncing—just sensing weakness.

But Darius is not my enemy. He’s my king.

Still, his eyes glitter with something sharp.

“You want her.”

The question cuts through the silence—no pretense, no soft edge to brace against. Just raw.

“I have never wanted anything.”

It’s the truth. A simple, brutal fact. I’ve desired, yes. For truth. For control. But never wanted. Not with a name, not with a soul.

I was made to take what needed taking, to remove what needed removing. My existence has been purpose—pure, undistracted purpose.

Darius leans forward slowly, fire catching the edge of his smile. A wolfish grin splits his face, predatory and amused.

“And yet?”

Two words. A wedge hammered straight into my chest.

I look away.

And yet.

My jaw flexes, tension riding under my skin like coiled wire.

And yet—her.

Elunara.

I can still feel the imprint of her breath inside the hollow of my lungs. The way her body reacted in the dream was as if she already knew me. The way her presence didn’t pull me in but dragged me—like the tide swallows land, leaving nothing untouched.

I’ve stood in blood up to my elbows, torn men from bone for less than a flicker of disloyalty. I’ve walked unseen through chambers filled with secrets, and not one of them has ever reached beneath my skin like she has.

She is my undoing, and she doesn’t even know it.

I let out a breath, low and tight.

What is this?

Affection?

Longing?

They sound weak. Human. Fragile.

And I—I am none of those things.

But here it is. That ache. That heat behind the ribs. That wanting that makes me vulnerable in ways I was trained never to be. A tether she doesn’t even realize she holds. And the worst part?

It could be used against me.

She could be used against me.

And I would unravel.

Because for the first time in a lifetime spent in the shadows of men and monsters, I care.

And caring is dangerous.

Because I know what it means to be the apex predator—untouchable, feared, alone. I’ve worn that skin comfortably.

But this? This hunger that’s deeper than flesh and louder than instinct?

This is how you become prey.

I glance back toward Darius, who watches me like he already knows the answer but is giving me the dignity of speaking it myself.

“Yes,” I say, and the word is low, guttural, edged with reluctant truth. “I want her.”

There’s no ceremony in the admission. No romance. Just the blunt force of honesty I can’t deny.

Darius grins wider, and Vastian’s sharp eyes narrow in thought, but neither of them speaks right away.

The flames crackle between us, and for the first time in a hundred years, I feel seen. Not as a weapon. Not as the king’s hidden blade. But as something closer to a man.

And I hate how much I want her now.

How she’s made me real.

How she’s made me weak.

But, gods help me—I would give everything I am to touch her as myself, not the ghost I’ve become.

Because for the first time in my life…

I want to be seen.

Vastian exhales. “So do we.”

Darius lifts his chin, voice low and firm. “Then we protect her. Even from herself.”

I move closer to the fire. The warmth doesn’t reach me. It rarely does. But standing beside them, something less cold stirs in my chest.

“She’ll feel the pull soon,” I say. “The hunger. It’s already begun. She will have questions. We’ll need to tell her soon.”

Darius’s gaze hardens. “Then we give her space to feel it… but not drown in it.”

Vastian folds his arms. “What did you see in the dream?”

I answer with the truth.

“She was at the edge of the moonlight. The ritual was beginning. She walked willingly, but her soul trembled like something half-caged. She saw you. She knew you. But there was someone else there.”

“Me,” I say. “But also something older. Primal.”

I glance up at the sky, at the moon above. I want to tell them what I think. That it was the moon goddess herself, but I hold back. None of us are ready for that type of epiphany yet.

“She’s waking. And when she fully does, the Hollow won’t be the same.”

The wind shifts.

Darius meets my eyes.

“And neither will we.”