The air was still. Too still.
Ash drifted through the forest like snow, glowing faintly in the aftermath of what had been divine wrath. The trees—once proud and ancient—now stood twisted, burned into obsidian silhouettes. The scent of iron and ozone hung thick, a cruel reminder of what the moonlight had done.
Lyria stood amid the ruin, her knees sinking into the scorched earth. Her palms trembled as she pressed them to the ground still warm with Kael's blood.
He was gone.
Or he should have been.
Because what stood before her wasn't Kael—not the Alpha she knew, not the man whose heartbeat once tethered her to sanity. This thing… this shadow bore his shape, his scent, even the cadence of his breath—yet everything about him felt altered, hollowed, sharpened.
"Kael?" Her voice fractured against the silence, carried by the ghost of wind.
