Chapter 5 – Masks and Monsters (Kaela)

The Hall of accord echoed with too much silence.  Everyone was gone except for my father, his two enforcers, Erdan, and myself. 

I stood beneath the high arched ceiling, cold light dripping from the glass dome above. The council had dispersed hours ago, but her father remained seated, flanked by two Frostfang enforcers, both watching her as if she were a blade that might swing without warning.  Like I was a threat to him.  As cold as my father was, I did not hate him I just wanted him to love and except me.

“You didn’t tell me,” Alpha Myras said, voice level, but edged in steel. “About the bond.”

I didn’t flinch. “Because I didn’t choose it.”

“No one does.” He rose slowly; steps precise. “But only fools pretend it isn’t real.”

I kept her hands at her sides, fingers twitching to shield the mark beneath my sleeve. “It changes nothing.”

Myras’s eyes narrowed. “It changes everything.”

He crossed the floor in a few strides, stopping just before me. “Do you think the other clans will allow this? A Frostfang heir bonded to a Lunari exile?”

She said nothing. There was no answer he would accept.

Her father turned away, dismissive. “Break it.”

“It can’t be broken,” I said quietly. “Only rejected and only if he accepts the rejection.”

A long silence stretched. Then, without turning, Myras murmured, “Then reject it and he excepts it, or he dies.”

My heart sank and my wolf let out a low growl. I couldn’t reject it; I wouldn’t reject it.  I felt something and I would no longer hold myself back because my father did not accept this fate the Moon Goddess granted me.  Even if I wanted to my Nemphis would not allow it.   

I met with Aeryn that night outside the city walls, fleeing the watchful eyes and tight corridors of Veyra. The forest swallowed us whole, thick with moonlight and secrets. I led us to a forgotten shrine, a crumbling stone hollow half-buried in moss and time.

The air inside was cooler, still. Old symbols of the Moon Goddess shimmered faintly along the walls, reacting to their shared presence.

Aeryn sat with his back against the altar steps, cradling his hand, where a jagged cut ran across his palm, from shielding her in the council skirmish earlier, when I told my father I wouldn’t reject the bond all hell broke loose, and he just appeared.  I didn’t even realize he was there. 

I knelt beside him, pulling a cloth from my belt pouch. “Let me see it.”

“I’ve had worse,” he muttered, pulling his hand away.

“I know.” I caught it gently, ignoring his flinch. “But you don’t have to pretend right now.”

He didn’t meet my eyes. As I wrapped the cloth, my fingers grazed another mark, higher on his forearm, faded but brutal.

I hesitated. “This one wasn’t from today.”

His silence stretched long.

I glanced up, searching his face. “What was it?”

He shook his head. “Training.”

I felt myself frown. “From whom?”

Aeryn looked away; jaw tight. “My father. Said I needed to learn about the pain early. Said it made me hard to kill.”

I sat back on her heels, the bandage half-finished. “That’s not training. That’s punishment.”

He shrugged. “Same result.”

For a moment, they were just two wolves stripped of titles, bloodlines, and masks, sitting in the wreckage of a forgotten god, haunted by everything they couldn’t say aloud.

I whispered, “I’m afraid of this.”

He glanced at her, wary. “Of me?”

“No.” I took a long breath. “Of what this bond does to me. It’s the first thing that’s ever made me want to disobey my clan or my father.”

Silence again. Then Aeryn spoke, softer this time.

“No one sees me unless I’m bleeding.”

His confession making me want to kill anyone that made him feel this way.  I have never wanted to hurt someone so much.  My healer instinct was wanting me to heal what was broken but I knew I couldn’t heal this for him. 

I reached for his hand again, finished tying the cloth. “Then I’ll see you before that.” I promised him.

He looked at me finally, truly looked, as if he were trying to memorize this version of me. Moonlit, tired, real.  It was as if no one truly ever seen him. 

Neither of us spoke again for a while. We didn’t need to.