Chapter4
1283 Words
“You were in that hallway.”
Kael’s voice was low. Certain.
He stood at the edge of the war room, facing his Beta. A fire crackled in the stone hearth behind him, but the heat did nothing to calm his blood.
“I saw her,” he said again.
Cruz frowned. “You saw a figure. Hooded. Quiet. Could’ve been anyone.”
Kael shook his head. “It was her.”
“Kael—”
“I smelled her,” he snapped, turning sharply. “Even if it was only for a second. That scent—hers—it never left me.”
Silence stretched between them.
Finally, Cruz asked, “What will you do if it’s true?”
Kael’s hands curled into fists. “I don’t know.”
****
I didn’t sleep that night.
I stood on the cliff edge, the moon above me, the wind cutting cold through my sleeves. My fingers closed around the moonstone Ryker had given me. The one the boy found near the river.
The place I died.
And lived again.
My mind spun in quiet circles—Kael’s voice, his eyes, the way his gaze had pierced the dark. It stirred something I didn’t want to name. Not warmth. Not grief. Something dangerous.
I heard movement behind me.
Ryker’s voice broke the quiet. “You’re not thinking of jumping again, are you?”
I turned my head slightly. “Not unless you push me.”
He stepped beside me. His shoulder brushed mine. Just enough to feel.
“You look like her again,” he said softly.
“Who?”
“The Elara I found at the bottom of that cliff. Tired, bleeding, but breathing.”
I stayed quiet.
“You’re letting him in,” Ryker said.
“No.”
“Yes,” he said. “That look in your eyes? That’s not the Elara who trained for three years in the wild and made the moon shake when she howled.”
“I’m not letting him in,” I whispered. “I’m remembering what I survived.”
He nodded once. “Good.”
But I knew he didn’t believe me.
And maybe I didn’t either.
****
We returned to the ridge the next day, cloaked and silent. I didn’t need to be close. I just needed to see.
The pack’s training field had fresh footprints. The soldiers were moving again.
Kael was preparing for something.
Or someone.
“Your name’s already spreading,” Ryker said. “That boy must’ve talked.”
“Let them talk.”
“They’ll do more than talk if Kael gets confirmation.”
I studied the buildings through the scope of my lens. Soldiers near the front line. Sariah standing in the council ring, talking fast, her hands moving in sharp circles.
“She’s nervous,” I muttered.
“Good. Let her be.”
Ryker handed me a cloth. I cleaned the lens and sighed.
“She knows if I come back,” I said slowly, “she loses everything.”
He looked at me. “So does Kael.”
“No,” I said. “He never cared about the power. He just didn’t want me.”
Ryker didn’t speak. But I saw it in his eyes.
He did care.
Not about the power.
About me.
****
That evening, we sat by the fire outside the cave we used to sleep in during winter. Ryker leaned back against the stone wall, his arms crossed. I watched the flames, my legs tucked beneath me.
“Why didn’t you leave me?” I asked quietly.
“When?”
“When I was barely alive. After the fall. You didn’t know who I was. You had no reason.”
Ryker’s gaze didn’t move. “I had a reason.”
“What?”
“You looked at me like you were already dead. I didn’t want that to be the end of your story.”
My throat tightened.
He turned to me then. His voice low. Honest.
“I didn’t save you because I wanted something back. I saved you because I couldn’t walk away.”
I met his eyes.
And for a moment, the air between us felt like something else. Something more.
I looked away first.
“I don’t know what to do with any of this,” I admitted.
“You don’t have to know yet,” he said. “Just don’t pretend it doesn’t matter.”
***
Back in the Nightfang palace, Kael stood alone in the armory, staring at the same blade he’d trained Elara with.
She’d called it too heavy once. He’d laughed and told her to grow into it.
Now the weight of it sat heavy in his hands.
He knew what they all said behind his back. That Sariah was the one keeping things together. That Elara had been too soft.
But he remembered the way Elara stood her ground during council fights. How she held his hand in front of warriors and never let it go.
She hadn’t been weak.
She’d been his.
And he’d thrown her away.
A guard knocked. “Alpha. A messenger came from the outer ridge. A woman matching her description passed near the market yesterday.”
Kael’s grip tightened on the blade.
“Elara Vale is alive.”
*****
I moved through the old healer’s path that night. It circled the village and led to the grave hill—where they buried wolves in silence.
I wanted to see the stone they made for me.
I needed to know what they wrote.
The moon lit the way as I reached the far corner of the hill. Graves were marked with carved stone, some clean, others covered in moss.
I found it.
My name was carved in white.
Elara Vale. Fated, Fallen, Forgotten.
Forgotten?
I knelt down, brushing away the dirt around the stone.
“I’m not forgotten,” I whispered. “I’m still here.”
Behind me, a twig snapped.
I stood, hand on my blade, heart racing.
From the trees, a figure stepped into the light.
Tall. Familiar. Dangerous.
Kael.
****
We stared at each other.
His chest rose and fell hard. His eyes locked on mine.
“Elara,” he breathed.
I didn’t speak.
“I knew it,” he said, stepping closer. “You’re alive.”
“I never said I wasn’t.”
He looked shaken. “Where have you been?”
“Far from you.”
“Elara—”
“Don’t say my name like it still belongs to you.”
He flinched.
I stepped forward now, closing the space between us. My voice was low. Cold.
“You threw me away like I was nothing. Now you think you can speak to me like I’m some ghost come back for comfort?”
His mouth opened, then closed.
“I buried you,” he said finally. “I mourned you.”
“No,” I snapped. “You mourned what you lost. Not who.”
He took a breath, eyes searching my face.
“I made a mistake,” he whispered.
“You made a choice.”
We stood there, firelight from the distant village flickering between us.
Then he said it.
“I never stopped loving you.”
My heart cracked. Not enough to bleed. Just enough to feel the heat of something buried.
“You don’t get to say that now.”
“I need to.”
“No,” I said. “You need to live with the silence you left behind.”
And I walked past him.
His hand reached for me—but stopped.
He let me go.
This time, he didn’t chase.
But I knew he would.
Soon.
- Writer
