Chapter 5: Face to Face

"Elena!"

Hearing him say my name like that, desperate, scared, nothing like the cold voice from the rejection ceremony, made me freeze mid step even though every part of me was screaming to keep running.

I turned around before I could stop myself.

Damian stood at the edge of the clearing, still in the same black clothes from the ceremony, his men fanned out behind him. He looked different than I remembered from just a day ago. Tired. Almost unsteady on his feet, like he hadn't slept either.

Some small, stupid part of me almost felt sorry for him. I hated that part of me right then.

"Elena." He said my name again, softer this time.

"Don't," Kael said beside me, his hand tightening around my arm. "We keep moving."

"Wait," I said, pulling free.

Every instinct in me screamed to run, but something else, something stubborn and angry, wanted answers more than it wanted safety. Around us, Damian's men stood in a loose half circle, hands resting near their weapons but not drawing them, like they were waiting for a signal that hadn't come yet.

"You rejected me in front of everyone," I said, my voice shaking but loud enough for him to hear across the clearing. "Why are you here."

Damian took a step forward. His men shifted, but he raised a hand and they stopped. "Because I need to talk to you."

"You had your chance to talk to me last night."

"I didn't know," he said. "I swear to you, Elena, I didn't know what you were."

"And that makes it better," I snapped. "You didn't reject me because of what I am. You rejected me because you thought I was weak. Worthless. A dying bloodline not good enough to stand beside a king."

His jaw tightened, but he didn't deny it. That silence hurt more than anything he could have said.

"I need you to come back with me," he said instead. "It's not safe out here. My father's old allies will be hunting you the second word spreads, and they won't care about explanations."

Renata stepped up beside me, her voice like ice. "Your father's old allies. You mean the council that murdered her mother."

Damian's face went pale. "What."

"You didn't know that either, I suppose," Renata said. "Ask your father what happened to the Aurelian bloodline thirty years ago. Ask him whose land your kingdom is really sitting on."

For a moment Damian just stood there, and I watched something shift behind his eyes, confusion turning into something darker.

"That's not true," he said, but his voice didn't sound sure anymore.

"Isn't it," Renata said. "Look at her. Look at what she became the moment you rejected her. Did that look like a weak bloodline to you."

Damian looked at me again, and for the first time since he'd walked away from me on that dais, I saw something in his face that looked almost like fear.

"Elena," he said quietly. "Come home. Let me protect you."

"Protect me." I laughed, but there was no humor in it. "You rejected me in front of five hundred people. You called me weak. You were already reaching for Selene's hand before I even stopped shaking. Now you want to protect me."

"I made a mistake."

"You made a choice," I said. "There's a difference. A mistake is something you don't mean to do. You stood on that dais and chose every word."

Behind him, one of his men shifted uneasily, glancing at the trees like he expected an ambush. Kael noticed it too, his whole body going still and alert. I could feel Marisol close behind me, her hand resting lightly on my back, steady, like she was ready to pull me away the second things went wrong.

"We don't have time for this," Kael muttered. "Elena, we need to move."

Damian's eyes flicked to Kael, sharpening instantly. "Who is this."

"Someone who actually came looking for me," I said. "Unlike you, who only found me because your men tracked my scent like I was an animal."

"That's not what this is."

"Isn't it." I stepped back, putting distance between us. "You're not here because you care what happens to me. You're here because you realized what I might be worth now. A rejected Luna is nothing. An Aurelian is a weapon."

"That's not true," he said again, but weaker this time, like even he didn't fully believe it.

I felt something hot building in my chest, the same heat from the night before, the same pressure right beneath my skin, like a second heartbeat waking up inside my own.

"Get back," Kael said quietly, his hand hovering near my shoulder. "Elena, your eyes."

I didn't need a mirror to know what he meant. I could feel it, gold light pressing behind my eyes, the wolf under my skin reacting to Damian's presence the same way it had reacted to his rejection, like my body couldn't decide whether he was still a threat or something else entirely.

Damian's men tensed, hands moving toward weapons.

"Stand down," Damian barked at them, but his own eyes were locked on me, wide with something between awe and fear.

"You should leave," Renata said, stepping slightly in front of me. "Before something happens that neither of you can take back."

Damian didn't move.

"Elena," he said, ignoring everyone else in the clearing like they didn't exist. "I know I don't deserve you to trust me right now. But there are things coming for you that are worse than me. Worse than my father's council. If you go with them, you're stepping into a war you don't understand yet."

"And if I go with you," I said, "I'm stepping into the hands of the people who killed my mother."

That landed. I watched it land, watched something crack across his face, watched the confident king I used to know disappear for just a second into someone who looked lost.

"Your mother," he repeated slowly.

"Ask your father," I said. "If you can still stand to look at him after you do."

I turned to Kael. "We're leaving."

"Elena, wait—"

"No." I didn't look back at him. "You had your chance to choose me, Damian. You chose someone else. Don't expect me to choose you now just because it's convenient for you."

I walked into the trees with Kael and Renata beside me, my whole body trembling with the effort of holding the shift back, gold light still burning behind my eyes. Marisol fell into step on my other side without a word, close enough that I could feel the warmth of her shoulder against mine, a quiet kind of support I hadn't expected to need this badly.

Behind us, I heard Damian shout something to his men, but I didn't catch the words. I didn't want to.

We hadn't gone more than a hundred steps when Kael suddenly grabbed my arm and pulled me to a stop. My heart was still pounding from the confrontation, my legs unsteady, and for a second I thought maybe he just wanted to check that I was alright.

"Wait," he whispered.

"What is it."

His eyes were fixed on the trees ahead of us, his whole body tense in a way that made every instinct in me go quiet and alert at the same time.

"We're not alone out here," he said. "And whoever that is isn't wearing Kade colors."