Lyra's POV
The forest swallowed me whole.
Branches clawed at my skin, roots caught at my boots, but I didn't stop. Couldn't.
Every breath burned, and every heartbeat echoed with the same cursed name Kaelan.
His scent clung to me like smoke.
Iron. Cedar. Storm.
Even now, it haunted the air, threading through my lungs, twisting my chest with that painful, unwanted pull.
I hated that I could still feel him.
Hated that fate had the audacity to make him my mate.
The bond wasn't kind. It didn't ask. It took.
Every emotion he felt bled faintly into me confusion, tension, something dangerously close to guilt.
No.
No, I couldn't afford to believe that.
Kaelan Draven had stood among the wolves who destroyed my home, who burned my family's crest into ashes and left me bleeding in the dirt.
He had been there I'd seen him.
Hadn't I?
I stumbled over a fallen log, catching myself against the bark. My fingers trembled.
I'd run for hours, yet the forest never ended. The moon had dipped low, casting a dim silver wash over the mist.
For a second, I just stood there chest heaving, hair clinging to my face, trying to force air into lungs that refused to cooperate.
The world tilted.
I saw flashes not of the present, but of that night.
Screams.
Fire.
My mother's voice.
Theo's hand, shoving me toward the forest gate.
"Run, Lyra! Don't look back"
And Kaelan standing at the edge of the courtyard, sword in hand, eyes wide with something that looked too much like betrayal.
I'd remembered that moment every night since.
But now… now, when I tried to recall it clearly, it blurred.
Had he been fighting with them? Or against them?
The memory twisted, reshaped by time and fear.
No. I shook my head. This was how lies began in the spaces between truth and what we needed to believe to survive.
He was my enemy.
He had to be.
A rustle cut through the air behind me.
My instincts flared wolf rising beneath my skin. I spun, crouched, ready to fight.
But it wasn't Kaelan.
It was a shadow moving between the trees, large and slow.
Not human. Not pack.
Rogue.
"Come out," I snarled, voice low, raw.
The figure emerged a man, lean and scarred, with eyes too pale for comfort. The stench of decay hit before his words did.
"Well, well," he drawled, lips curling. "An omega this deep in the woods? What are you running from, pretty thing?"
"Try me," I hissed, sliding into stance.
He grinned. "I like when they fight."
He lunged fast, but not fast enough.
I sidestepped, drove my elbow into his ribs, then twisted and struck him across the jaw.
Another came out of the shadows. Two more.
Surrounded.
I let the wolf rise.
Bones cracked, muscles burned the world sharpened into scents and sound.
I tore through the first rogue's throat before he could blink. The second's claws grazed my arm; pain flared, but rage was stronger.
I fought like I had nothing to lose because I didn't.
Every strike was a memory. Every kill, a scream from the past silenced.
When it was over, I stood in a ring of blood and silence, chest heaving.
The night air was heavy, damp with death and something else him.
Kaelan's scent hit before his voice.
"Enough!"
I froze.
He stood a few yards away, moonlight catching the sharp lines of his face eyes burning like molten silver, fury and fear tangled there.
He must've tracked me.
"I told you to stay out of my way," I hissed."
"And watch you get torn apart by rogues?" His voice was rough. "Not happening."
"I didn't ask for your help."
"Maybe not. But the bond did."
The words hit like claws.
The bond that cursed, invisible chain that tied me to the one wolf I could never forgive.
"Why?" I spat. "Why me? Out of every soul the Moon Goddess could've cursed you with why me?"
He took a slow step forward. "Maybe because fate doesn't make mistakes."
"Fate burned with my family."
"And yet here you are. Alive."
I laughed, sharp and bitter. "You think survival's a gift? It's a sentence.
He flinched and for the first time, I saw something in his eyes that didn't look like arrogance or authority. It looked like regret.
"Lyra"
"Don't say my name."
The sound of it on his tongue sent a shiver through me not the kind I could explain or control.
He paused. "You remember me."
My throat tightened. "Unfortunately."
The silence stretched, thick with unspoken things.
Then, slowly, Kaelan reached into his coat pocket and pulled out something silver.
A pendant. Broken in half
I froze.
"I found this," he said softly. "In the healer's hall. Thought you might want it back."
The world tilted again.
That pendant the crest of my family, the last piece of home I'd ever owned. I'd lost it the night Silverfang fell.
"I kept it," I whispered, my voice splintering. "All these years. You shouldn't have"
"I had to know," he cut in. "Had to be sure."
"Sure of what?"
"That the girl I failed to save wasn't dead."
I stared at him, heart slamming painfully against my ribs.
For a moment one fragile, terrible heartbeat I wanted to believe him.
But then the memory of blood came back.
Theo's scream.
The betrayal.
I took a step back, shaking my head. "You don't get to play savior, Kaelan. Not after everything."
"I'm not your enemy."
"Then who were you that night?"
His silence was my answer.
I turned away, clutching the pendant so tightly it bit into my palm.
"I'll find the truth myself," I said. "And when I do, I'll destroy every wolf who had a hand in it even if it's you."
"Lyra"
But I was already gone, disappearing into the mist once more leaving him standing in the ruins of what might have been forgiveness.
Behind me, the moon broke through the clouds, cold and merciless.
And in my hand, the pendant pulsed faintly as if the past itself was waking up.