جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 40

POV: KAEL“Move,” I say.Varek does not move.He stands there with his arms crossed, tall and solid, blocking the narrow path between the trees like he planned it that way.“I am not in your way,” he says.“You are literally in my way,” I snap. “Step aside.”Elara exhales hard behind us.“Can you both not,” she says. “For five minutes. Please.”Varek turns first. He always turns first when she speaks.“I am calm,” he tells her. “He is the one pacing like a rabid dog.”I spin on him. “Do not talk about me like I am not here.”“You are here,” he says. “That is the problem.”My wolf snarls inside my chest.I take a step forward. “Say that again.”“Enough,” Elara says, sharp now.We both freeze.She steps between us and puts a hand on my chest. Not hard. Not soft. Just there.“Stop,” she says. “Both of you. This is stupid.”I look down at her hand.She never touches him like this. Never pushes him back. Never tells him to cool it.She just works around him. Like he is a storm she already

POV: ELARAI wake up because the quiet feels wrong.Not peaceful. Not safe.It feels like the world is holding its breath.I lie there with my eyes open and listen. There is no wind pushing at the walls. No birds. No bugs. No small sounds that should be there. Even the house feels stiff, like it is pretending to sleep.My chest tightens.This quiet feels staged. Like something is waiting. Like a storm that has not broken yet but wants to.I sit up slowly and the blanket slides off me just as the cold air bites my skin. I pause, listening again, because moving feels loud even though it is not.Nothing.That makes it worse.I stand and pull on my clothes. My hands shake and I hate that. I hate that my body knows something before my mind does.When I step outside, the tension hits me so hard I almost stop breathing.Kael and Varek are already awake.Of course they are.Kael stands near the tree line, arms crossed, eyes sharp, scanning everything. He looks calm but his jaw is tight and hi

POV: ELARAThe sun finally comes out fully, and it is unnerving. Wrong light. Wrong colors. It sneaks through the trees like it’s too scared to touch all this. The clearing is quiet now. Too quiet. My legs ache, my arms ache, my hands still smell of blood and iron. The bodies lie there and I recognize some of them. Faces I used to smile at, faces that clapped when Darius asked me to be his mate. Faces I trusted. Faces that now lie broken, torn, dead. And my chest keeps twisting because I don’t understand how they became rogues. Why did they want to kill me? Was it still that cursed thing Darius suffered through? Do they still blame me? And then I think of the pages I found under one of them. Lyra’s name in black ink, sigils I don’t fully understand. My stomach knots tight and I have to sit down because the world is too much.I hear the quiet first, the low hum in my mind. My wolf scratches, pushes at me, wants to speak. I let her. “They were one of us,” I whisper, voice hoarse, “wh

POV: DARIUSI am kissing her.That is the first thing I know.Her mouth is warm and soft and she tastes like rain and something sweet I cannot name. My hands are on her waist and it feels right, like my body knows her even if my head does not. She laughs into my mouth and the sound settles in my chest. It feels like home.We are standing somewhere bright. Sunlight pours over us. I can hear water nearby. Birds. My wolf is calm. Not pacing. Not snarling. Calm like he has been sleeping for years and finally woke up happy.She pulls back just enough to smile at me.“You’re here,” she says, and her voice is gentle and sure.“Where else would I be?” I ask, and I mean it. I mean it with everything.She touches my cheek. Her fingers fit there like they belong. Like they have done this a thousand times. I lean into it without thinking. My wolf hums low in my chest. A sound of peace. A sound I forgot existed.“I missed you,” she says.I feel that. It hits hard and soft at the same time. I want

POV: VAREKI catch him before I see him. It’s small, barely there, just a shift in the air, the faint thread of Kael’s scent winding through the trees like he thinks he can disappear if he tries hard enough. It almost makes me laugh. Almost. My chest tightens instead, ears pricking, muscles pulling tight under my skin. He’s close. I’ve been waiting for this since that night. That fucking night. The symbol. Carved into my bed. Something I told myself was buried, burned, finished. And yet here it is again, crawling back into my life through him, through the shadows, through lies. Kael, standing there like he’s innocent, like he doesn’t know exactly what he’s done.I step forward, slow and deliberate, boots crunching over dry leaves. I know he hears it. He always does. He just pretends he doesn’t. That’s how Kael survives. That’s how he stayed breathing when others didn’t. My wolf growls low in my chest, buzzing, restless, wanting blood, but I hold him back. I want to see Kael first. I w