POV: KAEL
He hadn't shifted in two years.
Not since the night the moon turned black and the pack screamed beneath it — bodies convulsing, bones breaking, wolves howling at a sky that refused to answer.
All except Kael.
He had stood silent. Still.
While others tore and writhed, his body did not move.
His wolf… did not rise.
They called it...The Hollowing.
And it had stolen something... something sacred.
---
Kael stood atop the Hollowpine cliffs now, a shadow cloaked in wind and silence. Down below, the forest pulsed — wild, old, and watching. Rivers below whispered... Pines swayed with the wind. Night creatures scurried between roots and starlight.
He could sense all of it.
But he couldn't feel any of it.
Not the way he used to....it felt near yet distant.
---
Moonlight brushed against the silver rune carved over his heart — jagged and cruel.
It wasn't a birthmark.
It was a brand. A curse.
A curse too old to name, too sacred to speak of.
And it burned when she was near.
Aryn.
Even now, her scent lingered in the mist — wildflowers and stormfire, clinging to his thoughts like smoke on a battlefield.
You let her get too close.
He hadn't meant to speak to her. Hadn't even meant to be seen.
But something ancient — older than blood oaths, older than wolves — had pulled him forward.
She was supposed to be a myth.
The hunter's daughter who didn't know.
But she looked at him… and didn't run.
Not at first.
---
His fists clenched.
The mark throbbed like a second heartbeat beneath his skin.
"You don't have time for this," he muttered. "She's just a girl."
But that was the same lie he kept chewing, over and over.
Because she wasn't just anything.
No, not anymore.
The bond had flickered — faint, fragile, but it was real.
A silver thread, invisible, pulsing, pulling somewhere deep in his ribs.
---
"Kael."
He didn't turn. Didn't have to.
The voice belonged to Vaelen — his older cousin, Council's leash, and the second-in-command to a throne Kael had never asked for.
"You vanished last night."
Kael stayed still. Unmoving. Expressionless. "I walked."
"You walked... into human lands?"
"It's my land."
"Not anymore Kael. No, not since the Hollowing."
His jaw tightened. His once expressionless face contorted. But slightly. Then relaxed.
His calm, expressionless face returned.
"And yet the forest let me pass."
"Because it's still deciding. It hasn't chosen."
Kael finally looked at him. "You think the trees care about Council politics?"
"I think they care about survival. And so should you Kael."
Vaelen's tone dropped. "Your father grows weaker by the day. The Elders want a successor they can trust."
"And they have you."
"They want you."
Kael said nothing.
Only looked down at the rune again.
Still glowing.
Still choosing.
Still binding him to her.
---
Vaelen noticed.
"It's back, isn't it?"
Kael said nothing. Simply stared.
"The mark."
Silence.
"She's real."
A twitch in Kael's hand, a flicker of heat — rage, fear, or perhaps something worse.
"You were supposed to kill her if she was."
His head snapped toward him. Eyes glowing faint silver.
"She's not what they said she'd be."
"Then what is she?"
"Alive."
---
The air between them thickened.
Then Vaelen spoke the words Kael had buried deep:
"If the bond ignites… and she bears the curse—"
"She doesn't know." Kael's voice was low. Sharp. "Her bloodline may carry it. But she's clean."
"You don't know that."
"I do."
Because he'd seen her.
Heard her heartbeat — unsure, but steady.
Felt the terror, the fire, the strength.
It wasn't just the mark that reacted.
Something else felt it. It was the wolf. The wolf he didn't have anymore.
And that terrified him.
Because only a true bond could awaken something that dead.
And true bonds…
Were fatal.
---
"Kael," Vaelen said again, softer now. "If the Council learns she's alive—"
"They'll hunt her. I know."
"And you'll have to choose."
Kael turned back to the cliff's edge. His back to Vaelen.
Hands steady.
Heart anything but calm.
What happens when the wolf you buried rises for the girl your enemies would burn?
What happens when your fate is tied to blood that once slaughtered your kind?
The wind shifted.
And for the first time in two years… something deep in his bones stirred.
Not from pain.
But from change.
---
He closed his eyes.
Saw her face again — not just the frightened girl in the fog, but the quiet rebellion in her stare before she threw the basket.
Not prey.
Not threat.
Fate.
Aryn.
Her name echoed loudly in his chest. Clear. Like a howl only the soul could hear.
And then — the mark burned again.
Not just with heat…
This time with light.
The rune pulsed beneath his cloak, glowing like silver fire beneath his skin.
He pulled the fabric tighter.
Not now.
Not yet.
She's not ready.
And neither am I.
But the forest whispered something he could no longer ignore:
You don't have a choice anymore...