جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 20

POV: ELARA Arin’s scream hits me before anything else. It’s so sharp it makes my whole body jerk. Then the smell hits, burning dirt, burning skin, burning something that shouldn’t even be real. My heart goes straight into my throat.I grab his hand without thinking and yank it up, and the second I see the ground under it, my stomach drops. There’s a shape burned into the dirt. A crescent. The same one on his skin. The same one that’s been following us since the day he was born.“Arin,” I say, and my voice breaks in the middle. “Baby, look at me. Look at me.”He’s shaking so hard his teeth click. His hand is still glowing and getting brighter, like it’s trying to light the whole cave on fire. I grab his shoulders and he’s so hot I flinch, but I don’t let go.“Mommy it hurts,” he whimpers, and I swear something in my chest actually cracks.Kael rushes toward us but stops a couple steps away, like he hit a wall. I can feel him staring at that mark. His eyes go sharp, like he knows somet

POV: ELARAI know the second I open my eyes that something’s off. Not in a terrifying way. Just… weird. Quiet. Too quiet. Like the whole world is holding its breath and nobody told me why.It’s been weeks since that night Kael grabbed Arin before he smashed into the ground. Weeks since he muttered those creepy grounding words that made my skin crawl but somehow calmed my son. Weeks since Arin scared the life out of me and I almost shifted without meaning to.And now we’re here. In this old cabin Kael calls his “wandering base,” like that’s a normal thing people just have. The first time we stepped inside, I remember blinking at the dust, the sad little kitchen, the wooden floors that creaked like they were judging us.“This is it,” Kael said, holding the door open like he was showing us a castle.Arin peeked around me. “It’s small.”“It’s safe,” Kael said. “And it’s ours for now.”I didn’t bother correcting him. I just walked in.Life since then has been… simple. Like suspiciously sim

POV: KAELI wake before dawn with my hand already on my knife.No dream. No sound. Just that cold punch in my chest that drags me out of sleep like someone grabbed my spine and yanked.I sit up fast. My heart slams so loud it feels like it shakes the whole cabin. My breath is sharp. My wolf is already pushing at my skin, ready to tear into something.Someone is here.Not inside. Not in the yard.Right outside the wall.I can feel it like a hand pressed to the back of my neck.I stay still for a second, knife tight in my fist. I look at the door. Then the window. The shadows look wrong. Too thick. Too long. I swear they shift when I blink.My pulse spikes so hard it hurts.No. No, this feeling is not random. This is old fear. Old rage. Old memory.He is here.Varek.My wolf slams against me like he wants out right now. Like he wants to attack. Or run. Or both.I breathe through my teeth. Quiet. Slow.I know that man. I know him in a way you never forget. First from stories whispered by

POV: ARINI wake up screaming.My mouth is open and my throat hurts and my chest feels tight like something is sitting on it. My hands are shaking. My feet are cold. I don’t know where I am for a second and that makes it worse.I see gray.Not room gray. Dream gray.Ash gray.I saw fire. Not a bright fire. It was… dead fire. Fire that already burned everything and left it broken. The ground was cracked and black and my feet hurt even though I wasn’t walking.And Varek was there.He was standing in the middle like the fire knew him. Like it stopped because of him. He didn’t look scared. He didn’t look angry. He just looked tired.Behind him was a wolf.Not a normal wolf.Too big. Too tall. Bigger than trees. Bigger than the sky in my head.The wolf was stuck.Dark things were wrapped around its legs and neck. Like ropes. Like shadows. It couldn’t move. It didn’t fight. It just stood there and looked at me.The wolf looked sad. And it looked at me. Like he knew me “Arin.”That is when

POV: KAEL“I will not lose another.”I don’t remember deciding to leave.One second I am standing there, hearing his voice in my head, hearing the way he said it like it was already done. Like she already belonged to him. Like I don’t exist.Next thing I know, I am in the trees.“I will not lose another.”Branches snap under my boots. Thorns tear at my hands. I don’t slow down. I don’t feel it at first. I just keep going until my chest burns and my head feels like it might split open.“I will not lose another.”My fists are tight. Too tight. Something warm slides down my palms. I look down and see blood. Mine.Good.“I will not lose another.”I punch a tree. “FUCKER!!!!” I roar into the silence The bark cracks as pain shoots up my arm and so I punch it again. And again. And again.“She believed him,” I say out loud, even though no one is here. “She fucking believed him.”My breath comes out rough as I drag my hands through my hair and laugh, but it sounds wrong. Too sharp. Too close