LOGINElaraI don’t realize something is wrong at first.That’s the strangest part.The corridor smells like smoke and cold stone and the faint metallic echo of lightning. Wolves move around us in tight, controlled patterns—repairing wards, murmuring to one another, pretending not to stare at me the way they always do now. Like I’m something fragile and volatile all at once.Kael walks beside me, close but not crowding, his presence a steady weight at my shoulder. Ronin has already peeled off to bark orders, his voice sharp and familiar in a way that almost makes this feel normal.Almost.I take three steps.Then four.And then my vision tilts—not enough to knock me down, just enough to make the world feel… softer. Blurred at the edges. Like I’ve stepped half a heartbeat out of sync with everything else.I stop.Kael stops instantly.“Elara?” His voice is low, careful. Not alarmed yet, but tuned to me in a way that makes it impossible to hide anything for long.“I’m fine,” I say automatical
WitchI know the moment it happens.Not because the Veil screams — it has been screaming for days now — but because the fabric of my work hiccups. A stutter in the spell lattice. A tremor where there should be none.I still.Power pools around me like dark water, coiling through my fingers, sinking into the etched circle beneath my bare feet. The Veil pulses — irritated, unstable, resentful.Something has changed.Not broken.Shifted.I reach outward, letting my consciousness slip between realms, following the threads I spun so long ago. Bloodlines. Curses. Tethers. The exquisite web I crafted with patience measured in decades.I find Kael first.Always Kael.The cursed Alpha burns like a storm-star — bright, furious, impossible to extinguish. His curse is still there, still biting, still coiled around his heart like a loyal serpent.But it is thinner.Frayed.Something has been feeding on it.I snarl softly.Then I follow the pull.Elara.The girl who was supposed to be empty.The gi
ElaraI can still feel the cold on my skin.Not physically — not anymore — but in the place beneath the skin, the place my wolf lives. The hall is quiet now, scorched stone still smoking, bits of frost glittering across the floor where reality tore open like wet paper.Kael stands between me and everything else, chest rising and falling too fast, his jaw tight, shoulders rigid. He hasn’t shifted back fully; his eyes remain the gold of a wolf ready to lunge again if anything twitches wrong.Ronin wipes blackened blood from his forearm, muttering under his breath in a language I don’t understand but assume is a curse.The bodies — or whatever counts as bodies — are gone. Ash. Dust. Nothingness. As if they never existed.Except they did.I felt them.I felt their intent.And worse… I felt something inside me respond.Kael turns toward me, and even before he reaches me, I feel the tension roll off him. His hands frame my arms gently, but the pressure is firm enough to steady my shaking le
ElaraRonin’s face tells me everything before he even speaks.That sharp stillness in his posture — the one that means blood is seconds away from hitting stone — snaps my wolf fully awake inside my chest.“Elara stays behind me,” I growl, already moving.She doesn’t argue. She steps in close, fingers gripping the back of my shirt like instinct knows better than fear. Good. I can work with that.Ronin shuts the door behind us. “We’ve got movement on the eastern ridge.”My jaw tightens. “Rogues?”“No.” His eyes flick briefly to Elara, then lock back on me. “Something worse.”My wolf snarls, claws itching under my skin.“How many?”“Three confirmed. Maybe more. But they didn’t cross the boundary like rogues would. They slipped it.”That stops me cold.Only two things slip pack wards without setting off alarms.Stormwalkers.Or Veil-touched.I feel Elara stiffen behind me before she even says a word.I glance back just enough to see her face. “You feel that pulse again.”“Yes,” she whispe
ElaraMorning finds me before the sun does.I wake not gently, but like air flooding back into lungs that forgot how to work. One sharp inhale, my spine arching off the mattress, my fingers clutching at the sheets.His voice is gone.Thank the Goddess.But the echo remains — a vibration in my sternum, faint but undeniable, like someone plucked a string inside my chest and walked away before the sound faded.My father.What’s left of him.The shadow the witch carved him into.I blink the sleep from my eyes, breathing slowly through the fading tremor. The room is still dim, early dawn light barely brushing the window. Kael’s scent wraps around me — pine and storm, safety and danger, everything that should not feel like home but does.I expected him to be gone.I shouldn’t have.He sits in the chair beside my bed, head tipped back, eyes closed, arms crossed over his chest. His posture is rigid even in sleep, like his body refuses to forget vigilance.A knife rests on his thigh.Of course
KaelProphecy.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.







