All Chapters of Born From The Ash : Chapter 1 - Chapter 9

CHAPTER 1THIRD PERSON'S POVThe wind howled through the trees like a grieving widow, low and sharp as it swept across the borderlands.Aria Ashborne stood on a jagged outcrop of stone, her cloak snapping around her ankles as she surveyed the distant shimmer of firelight in the valley below.Another rogue camp. Another reminder that the world she once knew had turned its back on herShe hadn't been Alpha-blood in years-not since the day they dragged her father into the Council pit and branded him a traitor. Not since the night their home burned and the mark of Ashborne was struck from every stone in their territory. And she was forced to run away with her younger brother, and leave her beloved family to turn to ashes.Now, she is a shadow. A ghost. A weapon wrapped in skin and silence. A waiting fire to burn down each and everyone who's responsible for her family's downfall.Behind her, a low growl rumbles, she turns to find David, a massive black wolf with a scar running down his mu

CHAPTER 3THIRD PERSON'S POVThe woods were colder than she remembered. Aria tore through the underbrush, her feet steady even as her heart cracked in silence. Cera and David trailed behind, saying nothing. They didn't need to. They had seen what happened.They had heard the rejection.The scent of pine and fire still clung to her skin— his scent. The Moon had branded it into her senses, and now it haunted her every breath.She wanted to rip it out. Tear it from her lungs, do anything to erase the scent, erase him from her every sense.“Aria.” Cera called softly. “We need to stop.” She says, looking at her with worried eyes.“I'm fine.” Aria replies, cold and steady, and continues walking down the path.“You're bleeding.” Cera again says, trying to convince her. Aria looked down at her palm sliced from a sharp branch she hadn't noticed. Blood streaked her fingers, but she barely felt it. Not compared to the ache beneath her ribs.She clenches her fists, her nails digging into her ski

CHAPTER 5ARIA'S POVThe morning after the false howl, I woke before the sun, or to be specific I didn't sleep much peacefully.Sleep had offered no solace. My dreams had been filled with flickers of firelight and ashes, my father's voice a fading whisper. Every time I reached for him, he disappeared. Always the same. Always gone.I threw off my blanket and stepped outside my tent. The frost was heavier today. The earth was hard under my bare feet, grounding me in the moment.Something inside me shifted last night. Not because of the howling or the bond, but because of the memory that came with it, a whisper of a place, a symbol carved into stone.My father's study.I hadn't thought about it in years. The last time I was in there, he was standing by the fire, cloaked in silence. I was just a girl then, clutching a broken arrow and tears I hadn't let fall. He told me stories of the High Council. Of betrayal. Of something hidden deep beneath the Ashborne estate.A secret he said would c

CHAPTER 7ARIA’S POVThe snow clung to my fur in thick, wet clumps by the time we reached the edge of the borderlands. The run back from the Ashborne ruins had left my muscles aching, but the heat in my chest was stronger than the cold. Not the kind of heat that warmed you, the kind that burned, like embers buried deep under your ribs.Betrayal had a taste, I decided. It was sharp, metallic, like blood you bite down on. And Kaiden Blackthorn’s name was on every drop of it.Cera shifted first, shaking out her dark hair as steam rose off her skin. I followed, pulling my cloak tighter around me. She didn’t ask what I’d found in the ruins, though I knew she was dying to. She’d seen the way I froze in my father’s study, how I clutched the journal like it might vanish if I blinked.We didn’t speak much on the way back. The silence wasn’t uncomfortable, it was heavy. Weighted with questions neither of us wanted to crack open in the middle of the forest.By the time we stepped into camp, the

CHAPTER 9KAIDEN’S POVThe silence of the forest was a lie. It was full of her.Her scent was a trail of fire through the cold pine, a brand on the wind that my wolf followed without thought, without permission. Every snapped twig, every disturbed patch of snow, was a word in a story she was writing, and I was helpless but to read it.She was leading me. Of course she was. Aria Ashborne was no frightened rabbit to be tracked. She was the hunter, and this path was an invitation. A challenge.*She knows you’re here.* My wolf growled, the sound a constant rumble in my mind. *She wants you to follow.*“I know.” I muttered, the words a cloud of steam in the frigid air.Elias had stayed behind at the ridge, a silent, disapproving shadow. He thought this was a trap. He was right. But it was a trap I had to walk into. The journal… the prophecy… it was no longer my father’s ghost I was chasing. It was the future of my pack, of all the territories. The secret my father died to protect was now