Chapter Two
871 Words
Kael
I knew she’d be there before I even walked through the door.
I felt her.
The same way the air shifts before a storm hits. The same way your skin tightens when someone says your name in a dream.
Arielle.
I didn’t know her name until my father said it. But I’d felt her long before that. In the corridors. In class. In the way her laugh reached me when nothing else did.
The first time I saw her, I thought the bond was playing tricks on me. That I was being punished for trying to outrun it.
But now she stood in front of me, wide-eyed, silent, barely breathing — and I knew.
The Moon didn’t make mistakes.
Only people did.
“Kael,” my father said, his voice too bright, too loud. “This is Lydia’s daughter. Arielle.”
She was beautiful in that kind of dangerous, soul-cracking way. Not like the girls who watched me on campus or the ones who offered themselves like they could fix me. Arielle didn’t try to look perfect. She just was. Naturally raw. Hair pulled up like she didn’t care. Lips parted like she was still catching her breath.
From me.
She recognized me too.
She just didn’t understand why.
Yet.
I kept my distance, didn’t offer a handshake. If I touched her, I might not be able to stop. And I couldn’t afford that—not tonight. Not ever.
Not when my father had spent the last six months trying to build something with her mother. Not when this night was supposed to seal a family, not tear one apart.
And not when I’d already failed once before.
Dinner blurred past me.
My father talked about architecture and charity work. Lydia smiled like she’d finally found peace. Arielle barely ate. I caught her glancing at me, only to look away like her own thoughts scared her.
I could hear her heartbeat. Too fast. Too close to mine. My wolf stirred beneath my skin, restless, drawn to her scent like a tether I couldn’t break.
I hadn’t shifted in months, not since the last pack run. Not since I’d told myself I didn’t need a mate. That I’d reject the bond, if it ever came. That I’d be stronger than whatever the Moon demanded of me.
But sitting three feet from her, with the scent of roasted chicken and nervous tension thick in the air, I couldn’t lie to myself anymore.
She was it.
The one.
And fate had a sick sense of humor.
After dinner, I escaped to the balcony. The night air cooled the fire under my skin, but it didn’t put it out.
Footsteps behind me.
I didn’t turn.
She stood there anyway.
“You knew,” she said quietly. “Didn’t you?”
I closed my eyes. “Yes.”
“For how long?”
“Since I saw you.”
She stepped closer. Not enough to touch, but enough to set every nerve inside me screaming.
“What is this?” she whispered. “Why do I feel like I can’t breathe when you look at me?”
I exhaled hard, gripped the railing like it was the only thing keeping me from lunging forward.
“It’s the bond,” I said mentally . “The mate pull.”
“That’s not real.”
“It is.”
She didn’t argue.
She didn’t run.
She just stood there, trembling slightly, like her body already knew what her mind couldn’t accept yet.
“Why didn’t you say anything?” she asked.
“Because this is wrong.”
Her breath hitched.
“I’m not your sister, Kael.”
“You might as well be.”
“No,” she said. “Don’t do that.”
Her voice cracked, soft but fierce. Like she already hated the idea of us being something we weren’t.
“I’ve lived through this before,” I said, finally turning to face her. “Wanting something I wasn’t allowed to have. Losing someone because of what I am.”
She blinked at me, confused. “You… lost someone?”
“I thought she was my mate. Last year. I tried to fight it. It broke her. Broke me.”
The words cost me. I hadn’t spoken them aloud until now.
Arielle’s eyes softened. “I’m not her.”
“I know,” I said, and the truth of it wrecked me.
She wasn’t her.
She was worse.
Because she was mine.
The real one.
The only one.
And she’d been placed in the worst possible role — the girl I couldn’t touch without burning everything down.
She didn’t say anything else. Just stood with me in silence while the night thickened around us.
I could feel the mark forming under my skin, the mate seal waiting to rise. The Moon pulling strings like it always did. Reckless. Final.
She was the calm before the storm. The reason my blood felt wrong when she wasn’t near.
And now… we were family.
Legally. Socially.
But not spiritually.
Not truly.
The Moon doesn’t care about paper. Or parents. Or human laws.
It only cares about one thing.
The bond.
And I was losing the war against it.
- Writer
