He remembers my scent

*CHAPTER 3: HE REMEMBERS MY SCENT*

"Leo, no!"

I said it too fast, too sharp. Leo flinched, his little wooden wolf dropping to the floor.

Kade's golden eyes snapped to me. He saw the panic I couldn't hide.

Leo is only five. His wolf hasn't woken up yet, but he is close. White pups shift early. If he shifts here, in front of an Alpha, Kade will see. White fur. Silver tips. The same fur his rejected mate's wolf should have had.

He would know.

I knelt and picked up the toy, my hands trembling. "Love, you promised Mama you wouldn't show your gift to strangers, remember? Go play inside. I will be there soon."

Leo nodded, but he wasn't looking at me. He was looking at Kade. Kids can feel an Alpha's loneliness, even when they don't understand it.

"He looks sad, Mama," he whispered. "Like his wolf is crying."

Kade's jaw tightened. I saw his chest rise sharply. Leo was right. Kade's black wolf had been crying for five years.

Ever since he rejected me.

"Leo. Inside. Now," I said, softer this time.

He went. The curtain fell behind him.

Silence fell in the clinic, heavy and dangerous.

Kade was still staring at the curtain. "His hair... white... How old is he?"

"That's not your business," I said, turning my back and pretending to arrange my herbs. My heart was hammering so loud I was sure he could hear it.

"Four? Five?" he pressed. His voice was low, rough.

"He is five," I said before I could stop myself.

I heard the sharp inhale behind me.

"Five years ago..." Kade whispered. He was counting. "Five years ago in March, you—"

He didn't finish. The soul-binding ritual was reacting. White light was still glowing faintly between us, connecting my chest to his. The closer we were, the stronger it pulled.

My scent block was failing.

Wolvesbane only works for a few hours. And with my heat starting, with my wolf reacting to her mate, my real scent was pushing through. Snow, pine, moonflower, and underneath it all — vanilla. The scent he had called weak five years ago.

Kade inhaled, deeply this time. His nostrils flared. His eyes went black, then gold, then black again. His black wolf was fighting to the surface.

"No..." he growled. "That scent... vanilla... I know that scent... I dreamt about it... Every night for five years I dreamt about it..."

He pushed himself up from the table, ignoring the curse pain. He was too close now. I could feel the heat from his body. He reached for my mask.

I stepped back and hit the herb shelf. Bottles rattled.

"Don't touch me," I warned.

"Ani," he said. My name again. He was certain now. "Ani Grey is dead. The guards said no wolfless girl survives the Black Forest. But you— your eyes—"

"My name is Ghost Healer," I said, my voice shaking. "And you are my patient. That's all."

He smiled. It was not a kind smile. It was the smile of an Alpha who finally found something he lost.

"My patient," he repeated. "Who smells exactly like my fated mate. Who has a five-year-old son with white hair. My mate was eighteen when I rejected her. She would be twenty-three now. Like you. She was a healer's daughter. Like you."

Each sentence was a step closer. I was trapped against the shelf.

"Your wolf," he whispered, his face inches from my mask, his breath hot on my skin. "Let me see your wolf, little healer."

_Let him see me!_ Lyra howled inside my head, desperate for her mate. _Show him! He is ours!_

_No,_ I told her. _He called us nothing._

"Alpha Kade, please," Jax interrupted from the doorway, saving me. "The debt is bought. The clinic, the street, everything is under your name now. And... Elder Marga is here. From Blood Moon. She heard you were dying and came."

Elder Marga.

The woman who chanted my mating ceremony. The woman who watched me bleed in my mother's dress.

My blood turned to ice.

"Send her away," Kade said, not looking away from me.

"She says she has to see the Ghost Healer," Jax said. "She brought your mother, Luna Rhea."

My mother's best friend. Luna Rhea, who tried to lift me that night.

If they see my mother's staff, they will know me instantly.

The clinic door opened before I could stop it. A small, old woman with a glowing staff walked in, followed by a beautiful woman with sad eyes — Luna Rhea.

Elder Marga stopped dead when she saw me. Her eyes went from my white hair, to my mask, to my mother's silver staff glowing on the table beside Kade.

Her staff clattered to the floor.

"Ani?" she whispered, her voice breaking. "Ani Grey? Child... is that you?"

Luna Rhea gasped, her hands flying to her mouth. "That staff... That is Elara's staff... Only her daughter could make it glow..."

Kade's head whipped from them to me. His golden eyes were blazing.

"You lied to me," he said to me, his voice dangerously soft.

He reached up and this time I was too shocked to stop him. His fingers hooked under the edge of my white mask.

And he pulled.

The mask fell.

The whole clinic saw my face for the first time in five years.

And Leo chose that exact moment to push the curtain open again, rubbing his sleepy eyes.

"Mama, I had a bad dream. The big wolf was crying again."

Three pairs of eyes — Kade, Elder Marga, Luna Rhea — all turned to look at the little boy with snow-white hair and golden eyes.