"…found you."
The last syllable dripped into the dungeon like venom.
The air snapped cold. Not normal cold, something deeper, heavier, like the temperature dropped inside her bones.
Aria couldn't breathe.
Her heartbeat jolted into panic-mode, sharp and uneven. Her knees nearly buckled, and for a moment she swore she was five years old again, small, helpless, lost in smoke and screaming.
Caelum moved instantly.
"Aria, look at me." His hand found her arm, grounding but gentle, exactly opposite of the chaos building around them.
But she couldn't look away.
The shadows were moving.
Not shifting.
Moving.
Like living things with purpose.
Kael's wolf power cracked through the cell with a low, dangerous hum. Frost-blue eyes locked onto the darkness, muscles tense enough to snap.
"Lyra," Kael murmured, voice tight. "Stay behind me."
Lyra didn't listen, she stepped in front of him.
"No. You stay back."
Kael shot her a warning glare, but Lyra's expression was already set fierce, protective, trembling in a way she probably hoped no one noticed.
Aria blinked.
Why was Lyra shielding him?
Before she could question it, before any of them could breathe.
The shadows tore open.
Not like smoke.
Not like magic.
Like skin splitting.
And Malachai stepped through.
Not walking.
Unfolding.
Tall, pale, beautiful in that eerie, wrong way that made her stomach twist. Silver hair drifting like it floated underwater. Eyes obsidian, no whites, no pupils, just a depth that felt like falling.
He smiled when he saw her.
Aria's chest tightened painfully.
It wasn't recognition.
It was ownership.
"There you are," Malachai whispered. "I've waited so… very… long."
Kael shoved forward, voice snapping like a whip.
"Back away from her."
Malachai didn't even glance at him.
His attention was fixed entirely, obsessively on Aria.
Caelum stepped between them.
His stance was quiet, protective, steady, like he'd been preparing for this moment for years.
"Don't look at him," Caelum murmured to her. "Do not meet his eyes."
But Aria couldn't help it.
Because her chest was burning again.
Not heat.
Pressure.
Something inside her… turning, waking, clawing.
She squeezed her eyes shut as a flash of white surged under her skin.
Her wolf.
Her wolf wanted out.
Her wolf wanted Malachai, not to follow, not to obey, but to fight.
Malachai inhaled slowly, reverently. "Ah… you feel it, don't you, little moon? The pull. The hunger. The truth."
"Shut up," Caelum snapped, voice cracking with something raw.
Malachai tilted his head. "You're still here. Loyal thing."
Aria's eyes flew open.
Still here?
Still?
Caelum tensed, jaw hardening but he didn't answer Malachai.
Which only made Malachai's smile widen.
Kael stepped forward, shoulder brushing Caelum's as if silently pushing him aside.
"Stand down," Kael ordered tightly. "This is my pack. My territory. My prisoner."
The word sliced through Aria.
Prisoner.
Right. That's what she was.
Just a threat they didn't understand.
Malachai let out a soft laugh. "Your prisoner? My dear Alpha, the girl is older than your throne."
Kael froze.
Lyra's breath hitched softly.
Caelum's hand tightened around Aria's wrist.
Aria's heart hammered faster.
Older than his throne?
She swallowed, voice barely a whisper.
"What… what do you mean older?"
Malachai stepped closer.
Caelum growled under his breath, not a sound a wolf made, something deeper, darker. Shadows coiled around his feet as he shifted his stance, ready to defend.
Malachai ignored him again.
"You don't remember yet," he said softly to Aria. "But your blood does. Your power does. Even your wolf remembers, look at her scratching at your insides. She wants out. She wants me."
Aria shook her head hard. "No, she wants to kill you."
Malachai's grin sharpened.
"Oh, little moon… the two are not always different."
A tremor ran down her spine.
She didn't understand him.
But something inside her did something cold and ancient that made her stomach twist.
Kael stepped forward again, letting his Alpha power roll through the dungeon like an invisible shockwave.
"You don't get to speak to her," he growled. "You don't get to be anywhere near her. You're leaving now."
Malachai slid his gaze to Kael for the first time.
And smiled slowly.
"You already rejected the bond. You forfeited your claim."
Kael flinched only for a fraction of a second, but Aria saw it.
Lyra saw it too, judging by the way she stepped even closer to him, her hand brushing his arm.
Protective.
Over him.
Not over Aria.
Malachai's voice lowered. "You gave her up. You did not want her."
His eyes slashed back to Aria.
"But I do."
Aria's pulse skidded.
Caelum snarled. "Over my dead body."
"That can be arranged."
The shadows surged.
Kael shouted something Aria couldn't hear because the floor itself shook under her feet. Torches burst back to life then died again in an instant.
Lyra lunged toward Kael as a shadow claw whipped out from the darkness aiming directly for him. She shoved him out of the way, taking the hit herself.
"Lyra!" Kael's voice broke, sharp, furious, terrified.
Lyra crashed against the stone wall, gasping, her shoulder bleeding from a dark, sizzling mark.
Aria's heart stopped.
Lyra wasn't protecting the pack.
Lyra wasn't protecting her Alpha.
Lyra was protecting Kael the man.
Her eyes were wild, terrified, locked on Kael like she was afraid not for herself, but of losing him.
And suddenly Aria understood.
Lyra wasn't Kael's Beta because she was strong.
She was Kael's Beta because she'd been saving him for years.
Malachai watched the moment unfold with bored amusement.
"Touching," he murmured. "But pointless."
Aria's vision started to flicker again.
Her wolf was clawing, roaring, screaming.
Pain spiked behind her eyes.
"Caelum" she gasped, "I can't… something's wrong"
He grabbed her hands, grounding her.
"Aria. Listen to me."
His voice was low, fast, urgent.
"You have to breathe slowly. Focus on the sound of my voice. Don't let your wolf take over yet, she's too strong, she'll burn you out."
"I can't"
"You can."
His palms were warm, steady.
And his voice…
His voice.
Something inside her jolted.
Because she knew that voice.
Not from now.
Not from Silvercrest.
Not from this life.
From the fire.
From the night everything went wrong.
Her eyes widened, breath shattering.
"You…" she whispered, shock flooding her veins. "You were there."
Caelum's expression shifted, fear flickered in it, not for himself, but for what she was remembering.
He shook his head once. "Aria, not now"
"I remember your voice," she whispered, louder this time. "From when I was a child. You…"
"Aria."
His voice snapped, sharp, pained.
"Please. Not now."
Her throat closed.
Why wouldn't he let her say it?
Malachai's smile deepened.
"Oh, she remembers. How lovely."
Caelum's eyes snapped to him, fury igniting.
"You did that to her," Caelum said, voice shaking. "Don't pretend otherwise."
Malachai tilted his head.
"I did many things."
Aria's pulse thundered. "Stop! stop talking like you all know something I don't!"
Kael, Lyra, Caelum, even Malachai.
All of them were acting like she was the only one in the dark.
She stumbled back, chest burning, vision blurring. The pressure in her ribs felt like something inside her was expanding, demanding space.
"Aria" Caelum reached for her.
But the shadows surged toward her first.
Malachai stepped forward, hand outstretched, the world bending around him.
"Come to me," he whispered. "You were never meant to be theirs."
Her wolf roared, furious, white-hot, ready to tear the world apart.
Caelum shoved in front of her again.
Kael lunged forward, too fast to see.
Lyra staggered after him, blood dripping but determination harder than bone.
All three of them tried to reach her.
But the shadows hit first.
They wrapped around Aria's legs, her waist, her throat, lifting her upward as if she weighed nothing. Her scream tore out of hervechoing against the stone walls.
Caelum yelled her name.
Kael's eyes flashed white.
Lyra threw a dagger at Malachai's head, it turned to ash before reaching him.
Aria clawed at the shadows, but her hands went through them, cold, burning, endless.
Malachai's voice whispered inside her mind, sliding like silk through cracks in her thoughts.
"Moonblood… awaken."
Her back arched.
White light exploded beneath her skin.
The dungeon walls shook violently like an earthquake had torn through the keep.
Kael shouted something she couldn't hear.
Caelum leapt up, grabbing her wrist, refusing to let go even as shadows dragged at him too.
Lyra tried to cut through the darkness with a glowing wolf-blade but shadows swallowed it whole.
Aria's scream broke into a sob.
Her wolf howled inside her head.
The shadows surged.
And everything went white.
A flash like lightning swallowing the world.
And then…
Nothing.
Silence.
Until Malachai's final whisper threaded through the void:
"Remember what they took from you."
Blackness swallowed her.
And Aria fell.
Straight into her past.