MasukElaraThe world feels different when you know where you come from.And when that truth comes wrapped in death, betrayal, and magic older than time — it doesn’t feel like belonging.It feels like breaking.I wake before the sun climbs over the hills. The air is heavy with the scent of dew and pine. Kael’s side of the bed is cold. He must have left hours ago, though the echo of his presence still clings to the room — the faint musk of his scent, the lingering warmth where his hand must’ve rested against the headboard.Sleep was impossible.Every time I closed my eyes, I saw my father dying on his knees, shielding a cradle.My cradle.Me.I thought being an orphan meant I’d been forgotten.Now I know I was taken.I push the blankets aside and walk barefoot through the quiet halls. The guards at the end of the corridor bow their heads as I pass — hesitant, uncertain. I feel their eyes on me, but none speak. The silence between us is thick with unasked questions and quiet fear.The balcony
ElaraI don’t remember falling asleep again.One moment I was staring at the ceiling, heart pounding, the Moon Goddess’s voice echoing through my bones. The next, a blush of dawn stains the horizon outside the window — soft gold bleeding into the edges of night.Kael is awake already.He sits at the edge of the bed, elbows resting on his knees, head bowed. The early light paints his back in amber and shadow, muscles tense, hair tousled like he fought demons in sleep.Maybe he did.Maybe I did too.I push myself up slowly. “Kael?”He doesn’t turn at first — he closes his eyes instead, jaw flexing like he’s fighting himself.Then he exhales and looks back at me.His gaze is hungry and haunted all at once, like he spent the night trying to build walls and tore every one down instead.“Elara.”Just my name, but it feels like a vow — and a surrender.“You said this morning.” His voice is low, rough. “You would tell me.”I nod. My heartbeat is too loud, too frantic. “I will.”His eyes searc
KaelTiberius shouldn’t have still been here.He should have left with the arrogance he walked in with — a northern wolf who thought himself made of prophecy and frost. But instead, after the formal audience, my guards found him waiting in the lower courtyard, hands clasped behind his back, face carved in unreadable stillness.As if he knew I would come.As if he’d been waiting.I approach him in silence. The night air is sharp, iron-cold, kissed by the moon. Warriors stand at the shadow-edges, pretending not to watch.But they feel it.Tension like steel wire.Fate like a drawn bow.Tiberius turns when I stop three steps away. “You didn’t send her.”“She needed rest.”And I needed to think without breathing her in. Without being undone by her every heartbeat.Tiberius studies me with that infuriating northern calm. “You brought her to the meeting. That alone speaks louder than any proclamation.”“She stays where I can protect her.”“And where the world may see her,” he murmurs. “The
ElaraI don’t sleep that night.Not really.I drift in and out, wrapped in the warmth of Kael’s scent, but peace never comes. Every time I close my eyes, I see silver light spilling from my skin, feel the echo of bones shifting, ancient power cracking through me like a shell breaking open.My wolf whispers in my mind — steady, calm, ancient.We were always more than we were allowed to be.And Kael…He lies beside me again.He pretends he’s dozing, breathing slow, arm resting above me on the pillow, but I feel the truth — the tension in him, the way he’s coiled like a hunter waiting for a threat. Or a man afraid of one.The secrets in my chest feel heavier than any stone.I should tell him.He deserves the truth.He deserves to know what he’s tied to.But the words don’t come.Because once I say them, I can’t ever be just Elara again.I become legacy.Threat.Heir.A piece on a board I never wanted to play.⸻Sometime past midnight, sleep finally drags me under.Darkness gathers first
TiberiusPower reveals itself in silence first.The forests stilled when I crossed Kael’s border. No wind, no birdcall, not even the distant whisper of prey. Nature holds its breath before a storm — before fate.And fate has begun moving here.I felt it before I saw her.A pulse in the air, silver-bright and ancient — as if the Moon had brushed the very soil and left it humming. Wolves like mine know that sensation. We are carved from lunar bloodlines, shaped by prophecy and ruin.Magic old enough to remember gods.And the pack feels it too. They pretend otherwise, but their hackles were raised when I entered the hall. They smelled the shift, the awakening, the bond. They just didn’t know how to name it.Yet.Kael stood like the mountain he is — immovable, lethal, beautiful in the way only cursed kings are. His power always tasted like winter steel and war smoke… but now there is something else bleeding through him.Something alive.Something dangerous.And then I saw her.Elara.Smal
KaelRonin’s footsteps echo behind me, but I don’t slow. I won’t. The envoy is here, and the pack is coiled tight as steel wire. The courtyard hums with unease, wolves stationed along balconies, doorways, shadows — silent, watching.They don’t fear the emissary.They fear what this means.Change. Power.Her.Elara is at my side, her steps soundless, her aura still unfamiliar — newly woken, newly wild. She tries to match the calm I wear, chin lifted, gaze steady, but I feel the tremor beneath her skin.She’s brave — braver than she knows.Her scent has shifted again. No longer quiet and omega-soft. Now there’s something ancient threaded through it — moonlight and silver edge, starlight and storm. My wolf paces under my skin, unsettled and hungry at once.I shouldn’t have brought her. But leaving her behind was worse.I can’t protect what I can’t see.She glances up at me, voice low. “You keep clenching your jaw. Someone’s going to think you’re grinding your teeth to dust.”Despite ever







