3 - Their Past
1916 Words
Kaelen
The forest was quieter than usual. Not peaceful—just… waiting. For her.
Kaelen stalked the ridge above the northern trail, his senses half on patrol, half on the memory that had clawed its way to the surface when he caught her scent this morning. That scent. It had changed, deepened. Sweet and sharp like blooming moonroot, impossible to ignore. It clung to the air, a visceral reminder of Lucia.
He should be calmer after claiming Anya last night. She had been an eager, relentless lover, her cries ringing out into the velvet night as he took her under the sky, as was his preference.
But somehow it had all felt…a bit performative. Even as he filled her with his seed, again and again, his teeth buried in her neck, his thoughts had been on someone else.
You can’t think of her that way. Lucia was not pack. She would not survive bearing your pups.
He clenched his jaw, forcing his mind back to duty. There was something restless about the borders today. The Blackwoods were quiet, too quiet, and he couldn't afford to be distracted by a… by her.
But memory didn’t care about duty. It coiled around him like a serpent of longing and regret.
Then
They were children. He, a boy with fire in his blood, already too quick to shift, too eager to bare his teeth. She, a quiet thing with soft hands and eyes like the forest after rain. Lucia never flinched, even when he snapped. Never ran, even when his temper flared. Instead, she'd meet his wildness with a steady gaze, a silent challenge that calmed and infuriated him.
One summer afternoon, he'd found her kneeling beside a wounded fawn, whispering to it. Her small fingers stroked its trembling flank. She hadn't noticed him until the light fractured between the trees, and then she smiled. The sight had stolen his breath, not with childish delight, but with unsettling awareness.
“You’re scaring it,” she’d said, her voice a low murmur, more for the fawn than for him.
He’d scoffed, desperate to mask the unfamiliar heat that had flared within him. “It should be scared. It’s weak. It’s food. Why are you helping it?”
“It’s hurt. Not weak. And it is not food yet, it needs time to live.” Her eyes, those damnably compassionate eyes, had lifted to his, and he'd felt seen. Truly seen, for the first time. Not as the future Alpha, but as… him.
She’d placed her hand over the fawn’s wound, a faint, ethereal glow emanating from her skin, and something profound had shifted in him then—something dangerous and soft. A possessiveness he was too young to name, a tenderness he was too proud to acknowledge. He’d never told anyone about that moment. The memory of her touch, the quiet power in her, was his alone.
After that, he had often played with Lucia. In secret.
She liked his wolf form, and he enjoyed taking it, even when he wasn’t supposed to.
So it all worked out. At times, he even let her climb onto his back, giggling as she clung to his fur and tried not to fall off.
If anyone had seen them, the shame would have been eternal—the future alpha, acting like a domesticated dog with the human.
But no one had seen, and when she eventually fell off his back, still laughing with her back on the warm grass, he had licked her face.
It was the sweetest taste he had ever known. He couldn’t quite forget it.
Now
Kaelen’s boots hit the stone step outside the old lodge where his father once held council. It had become more mausoleum than meeting hall these days, echoing with the ghosts of forgotten promises. The air smelled of old wood, dust, the cloying sweetness of dried herbs, and the faintest, metallic trace of blood memory. A cocktail of the past that always unsettled his wolf.
He shouldn’t have let her inside. The lodge was a place of pack secrets, of history best left undisturbed. But Lucia was inside, sifting through old trunks, her delicate brows furrowed in concentration. That was his excuse, anyway. The reason he’d given himself to follow her, to invade her space.
He found her crouched near a cracked leather-bound book, its spine crumbling with age. She held it with reverence, her fingers tracing the faded crest burned into its cover—his family’s crest. A crest that should have meant nothing to her.
Lucia didn’t look up, but he could see the tension in the set of her shoulders, the way her scent had shifted, sharpening with curiosity. It mirrored his own unease.
“What is that?” he asked, his voice rougher, more possessive than intended. He wanted her attention on him, not on the past.
Her fingers paused their delicate exploration. “Your father’s journal, I think.”
Something cold spidered down his spine, a primal warning. This was more than idle curiosity.
Then
It had been just after his first successful hunt. The pack had celebrated him, chanting his name, their eyes filled with pride and expectation. He was nearly of age, tall and strong, already heir in everything but name. Power thrummed beneath his skin, intoxicating and terrifying. He remembered the older boys, his future warriors, jostling him, their laughter laced with a crude eagerness. It was time, they'd said, to stop “playing with the human girl.” Time to claim his place, to shed the last vestiges of childhood.
So when she came to the clearing to congratulate him, her smile tentative, her dark brown hair in a braid woven with wildflowers, he’d turned his back. The exclusion is clear.
The betrayal had tasted like ash in his mouth, but he’d swallowed it, forcing himself to embody the ruthless Alpha they expected him to be.
“She’s not one of us,” someone had muttered behind him, the words like a stone thrown into a still pond.
He’d echoed it. Louder, harsher, than necessary. A performance for his wolves, a death sentence for his friendship with Lucia.
The way her face had changed—that wounded confusion, that silent question of why—still haunted his dreams, a constant reminder of his weakness. He’d shattered something precious that day and never been able to piece it back together.
Now
“You shouldn't be reading that,” he growled, the possessiveness in his voice a low, dangerous rumble. He wanted to snatch the journal away, to erase the past it represented, but he couldn’t bring himself to touch her. The air crackled between them, thick with unspoken words and buried desires.
Lucia finally looked at him, her gaze searching and intense. The years had stripped away the last traces of childhood. She was a woman now, her curves absurdly apparent in her ridiculous human clothes.
Her quiet strength both challenged and intrigued him, as it always had.
Her scent filled the small space, a heady mix of wildflower and something uniquely her, igniting that familiar fire in his veins that seemed to burn only for her.
“Did your father know about me?” she asked, her voice low, almost a plea.
“What?” The question threw him.
“Did he know what I was?” Her eyes searched his, desperate for an answer he wasn’t sure he had. “Maeve has told me, on some of her better days, that my people used to kill women like me. Your father’s journals also discuss human magic.”
Kaelen stared at her, and momentarily, all the carefully constructed barriers crumbled. She looked the same and nothing like the girl he remembered. Older. Braver. Infinitely more desirable.
And yet, beneath the surface, he saw the echo of that same impossible hope, that unwavering belief in connection, that had once been his undoing. He wanted to reach for her, to pull her close and bury himself in the mystery of her, but the lodge felt suddenly too small, the weight of his responsibilities too heavy.
He moved then, driven by a sudden, urgent need to control the situation. To control her. He crossed the space between them in a few swift strides and snatched the journal from her hands.
“This is pack business,” he said, his voice hard, dismissive. “Mind your curiosity.”
Lucia’s eyes flashed, her quiet strength hardening into defiance.
“It is my past,” she retorted, reaching for the journal. “And I have a right to know it.”
Their hands closed over the worn leather at the same time. A jolt of energy, raw and untamed, passed between them. Kaelen felt something surge within him. Not anger, not exactly. More like a fierce, hungry heat.
“Give it back, Kaelen,” she hissed, her voice low and dangerous, moss-green eyes flashing with open irritation.
His grip didn’t loosen. “No.”
That single word held weight—possessive, primal, and barely leashed. It wasn’t just about the journal anymore. It was about her.
Their faces were inches apart now. Kaelen could feel the ghost of Lucia’s breath against his lips, fast and uneven. Her scent surrounded him - wildflowers and moonroot, laced with the undercurrent of something forbidden. His wolf surged, clawing toward the surface, snarling for more.
Her pulse fluttered in her throat, and his gaze caught on it, fixated. He wanted to press his mouth there, to feel her surrender beneath his teeth. A growl rumbled low in his chest.
Lucia didn’t back down. Her fingers curled tighter around the journal, but her body swayed toward his, ever so slightly. Her lips parted as if to speak, but no sound came.
For one suspended breath, the world stilled. His heartbeat roared in his ears. Every instinct screamed at him to take. To taste. To claim.
The look in her eyes excited him. Defiant. She needed to bent over and taught her place.
With a guttural sound, Kaelen yanked the journal free.
Lucia stumbled, off-balance, and he caught her without thinking, one hand gripping her upper arm, the other splayed against her back. Her body collided with his, soft and yielding. Her chest pressed to his, her breath catching between them. Too close. Far too close.
His jaw clenched as he fought the urge to drag her closer, to bury his face in the curve of her neck and lose himself. His hand tightened, just a fraction, fingers digging into her as if she might vanish.
Her eyes locked with his, and he felt himself unraveling.
“Don’t,” he said hoarsely, not knowing whether he meant don’t push me, or don’t stop.
But he let go.
Abruptly and violently, as if he had been burned.
She reeled back, her arms wrapping around herself as if she, too, had to hold something in. She didn’t speak at first. Didn’t even look at him. Then, through clenched teeth: “Fine.”
Her voice was brittle, and it cut deeper than it should have. She turned, her retreat a storm bottled into a single controlled movement.
But the scent she left behind lingered, drugging him.
Kaelen stood there, jaw tight, chest heaving, the journal a forgotten weight in his hands. His wolf snarled beneath his skin, furious at the loss of contact, aching for what had almost been.
He’d crossed a line.
But worse—he’d wanted to cross another.
- Writer
