LOGINKaelProphecy.I’ve hated that word my entire life.“Prophecy” is what wolves say when they want to pretend destiny excuses cruelty. When they want to pretend suffering is noble. When they want to pretend that pain was chosen for them, rather than inflicted.But tonight—Tonight the word feels like a chain.Wrap it around my throat.Tie it to Elara’s wrists.Drop it into the deepest part of the Veil.I’ll still break it.I’ll break anything that tries to take her.My hand is still wrapped around hers as Tiberius steps away from us to examine that cursed scrap of Veil-cloth again. His presence fills the room like thunderclouds collecting before a storm.Ronin shifts uneasily.Elara trembles beside me.I force myself to breathe slowly, keep my wolf from shoving through my skin.She needs calm.Even if I’m the last male in the realm capable of accessing that emotion right now.She chose me.She said the words with her own mouth.The bond glowed so bright I felt it pulse through my bones.
TiberiusThere are some truths the wind brings whether you ask for them or not.Tonight, it brought me here.I didn’t choose to step into Kael’s fortress. The choice was made long before I was born, long before Kael, long before Elara ever drew breath under a stolen roof.The moment her light split the witch’s fog, I felt it.A crack.In the curse.In the Veil.In the lie we’ve all been living.The world shuddered.I was standing on the cliffs above my own lands, watching a storm roll in from the north, when it hit me. My wolf dropped to his knees inside my chest. My bones hummed with recognition.The bloodline has awakened, the wind whispered.The hidden heir has chosen.Elara.I knew her name before I met her.I knew Kael’s too. I’ve been watching that boy since he was barely more than a pup — angry, haunted, already marked by a curse he didn’t understand. A curse meant for a king.It settled on him instead.Because the world never misses an opportunity to be cruel.So when the Veil
RoninThe night air is wrong.I’ve patrolled these forests since Kael was barely old enough to shift. I know every path, every deer trail, every Wildwood gust. But tonight the trees whisper with something colder.Something watching.I tighten my grip on the double-edged knife sheathed against my thigh. Not because I need it — my wolf is more weapon than blade — but because the instinct settles the unease twisting in my gut.Kael is in the fortress.Elara is with him.And I can’t shake the feeling that something is coming for both of them.I exhale slowly, testing the wind.Smoke.Pine.The faint metallic tang of magic.Magic that does not belong in our lands.My wolf rises under my skin.Find it. Destroy it. Protect Alpha and mate.Yeah. That’s the plan.I angle left, toward the ravine. The moon is high, the shadows deep. But even in darkness, I catch it:A flicker.A glint of something silver hanging on a thorn branch.I approach slowly.A scrap of fabric.Not cloth — something tough
Sleep does not take me gently.It drags me under.One moment, I’m lying in Kael’s bed — his scent wrapped around me like armor, his heat still lingering on my skin from where he held me until exhaustion claimed him. The next, the world tilts sideways and my vision blurs.My wolf tries to push through the dark.No. Not again. Don’t go.Stay with mate.But I can’t.Something pulls harder.Not the witch.Not Kael.Something woven deeper into my bones.Blood.A shadow inside my blood that wasn’t there before tonight.My breath disappears.The darkness cracks—And I fall.Cold.That’s the first thing.Cold so deep it wraps around my bones and squeezes.I open my eyes and I’m standing in a place I’ve never been, yet recognize instinctively.Stone floors.Broken pillars.A ceiling lost to darkness.Wind that whispers through ruins in a voice that sounds almost like… sobbing.I’m in a throne room.No throne.No king.Just echoes.My wolf snarls at my feet, fur bristling, golden eyes sweeping
ElaraKael doesn’t let go of me, even when Myri tries to fuss with poultices and herbs.Even when Ronin pokes his head into the healer’s wing, sees my tear-stained face pressed against Kael’s throat, and immediately backs out without a word.Even when the torches burn low and the room empties.He holds me like I’m something fragile.I hate it.And I need it.My fingers curl into the fabric of his shirt, feeling the steady rise and fall of his chest beneath my cheek. His heartbeat is slow, powerful — not calm, no, Kael is never calm — but steady enough to anchor the parts of me that feel like they’ve been torn open.I breathe him in. Pine. Iron. Smoke. And something warmer underneath. Something I don’t know the name for yet.He murmurs against my hair. “Elara.”I don’t answer at first.Because if I open my mouth, I don’t know whether I’ll cry again or scream.My wolf presses against my ribs, curling herself around Kael’s warmth.Mate. she says with stubborn certainty.Safe.Ours.But a
KaelThe scream shatters the hallway.Sharp. Raw. Terrified.Her voice.My body reacts before thought catches up.One moment I’m in the corridor just outside the war room, speaking with Lucian about border rotations.The next—I’m running.No—not running.Shifting.Fur ripples down my spine, claws erupt from my fingertips, teeth elongate in my mouth as I slam into the healer’s wing doorway shoulder-first, splintering wood, growling like a feral beast.I don’t remember choosing the shift.I don’t remember breathing.I only remember her.“Elara!”My voice is half-human, half-wolf, a twisted snarl of fear.Myri jumps aside so fast she nearly trips on her own staff. The curtain is still swaying when I rip it away with enough force to tear the fabric from the ceiling.Elara is thrashing in the cot.Her back arched.Fingers clawing at the sheets.Eyes squeezed shut.Sweat glistening on her brow.Her breath comes in gasps like she’s drowning.My heart stops.Stops.Then slams back to life w







