The Past Returns
1553 Words
War preparations began before dawn.
Bloodridge fortress became a living beast—boots striking stone floors, weapons being sharpened, messages flying between towers, wolves shifting and running toward the eastern border.
Aria stood at the balcony outside her chamber, watching the territory wake beneath red morning light.
She should have been terrified.
Part of her was.
But beneath the fear was something colder.
Focus.
If Kael was bringing troops, he wanted one of three things: intimidation, negotiation leverage, or public claim.
Possibly all three.
A soft knock sounded.
Aria turned.
Mara entered without waiting too long, carrying folded clothes.
“Council attire,” she said. “If you’re going to cause political earthquakes, you should dress appropriately.”
Despite everything, Aria almost smiled.
Mara was tall, sharp-eyed, with a scar cutting through her left eyebrow. She looked like a woman who had survived too many men underestimating her and had grown bored of it.
“Are you always this welcoming?” Aria asked.
“No.”
“Then I’m honored.”
“Don’t be. I still haven’t decided if you’re a blessing or a catastrophe.”
Aria took the clothes.
“Can I be both?”
Mara’s mouth twitched.
“Unfortunately, yes.”
The outfit was dark green and black, fitted for movement rather than display. Practical. Strong. Respectful without making her ornamental.
Aria touched the fabric.
Darius had chosen this.
Or approved it.
He was not trying to make her look like a captured prize.
He was presenting her as someone who belonged in power.
The thought unsettled her.
It warmed her too.
Mara watched her carefully.
“You affect him.”
Aria looked up.
“Darius?”
“No, the cook,” Mara said dryly. “Yes, Darius.”
Aria folded the clothes over her arm.
“He barely knows me.”
“Some people arrive like storms. Time is irrelevant.”
Aria looked away.
“I’m not here to be his weakness.”
Mara’s expression became serious.
“Good. He has enough wounds. Be his equal or be nothing.”
The words stayed with Aria long after Mara left.
She found Darius in the war room.
Maps covered the central table. Small carved markers represented troops, scouts, and border paths. Darius stood over them, sleeves rolled, jaw shadowed with exhaustion.
He looked up when she entered.
For a second, his expression changed.
Just a fraction.
Enough.
Aria felt heat rise in her chest and hated how aware she was of him.
“You look like you’re planning three wars at once,” she said.
“Only two.”
“Efficient.”
His mouth twitched.
She approached the table and studied the map.
His warriors glanced at one another, clearly unsure whether to object.
Darius didn’t.
Aria pointed to the eastern ridge.
“Kael won’t attack from there.”
Mara, standing nearby, lifted a brow.
“That is where his troops are moving.”
“Yes,” Aria said. “Because he wants you watching it.”
Darius’s gaze sharpened.
“Explain.”
Aria leaned over the map.
“Kael was trained by his father to use visible pressure before a private strike. If he truly wanted war, he would divide your attention across three borders. But this is too obvious.”
Darius came closer, his shoulder nearly brushing hers.
“Then where?”
Aria pointed to a narrow pass through the cliffs.
“Here. It’s difficult terrain. Most Alphas would avoid it. Kael won’t. He will send a small team, not an army.”
Mara studied the map.
“What target?”
Aria’s throat tightened.
“Me.”
The room went quiet.
Darius’s eyes darkened.
“No.”
Aria turned to him.
“That is not a strategy.”
“It is a response.”
“Then improve it.”
For one breath, tension crackled between them.
Then Darius looked back at the map.
“What do you suggest?”
Aria’s pulse steadied.
Not because she was calm.
Because she was needed.
“Let him think the pass is unwatched. Place your best trackers beyond the second bend, not the entrance. If he sends men, you trap them alive. Dead soldiers prove nothing. Prisoners talk.”
Mara smiled slowly.
“I like her.”
Darius did not smile.
But his eyes burned with something fierce.
Admiration.
It made Aria’s heart stumble.
Before anyone could speak, a horn sounded from the southern gate.
A messenger entered.
“Alpha Kael requests parley.”
Darius’s jaw tightened.
Aria’s hands went cold.
Kael was here.
They met at the old stone bridge between territories.
Darius walked beside Aria, not ahead of her. Bloodridge warriors followed at a distance.
Across the bridge stood Kael with his Beta and four guards.
Seeing him hurt.
Aria hated that it still hurt.
Kael looked at her in Bloodridge colors, and pain flashed across his face before anger buried it.
“You look comfortable,” he said.
Aria lifted her chin.
“I look alive.”
His jaw clenched.
Darius stood silent beside her, but his presence was a wall of heat and power.
Kael’s eyes flicked to him.
“You enjoy taking what is mine?”
Darius’s voice was calm.
“She was never yours to discard and reclaim.”
Aria felt the words deep in her chest.
Kael looked at her again.
“Aria, come home.”
Home.
The word almost broke something in her.
Silvermoon had been home. The training yards. The library. The gardens where she had learned to control her wolf. The moonlit halls where she had once watched Kael pass and believed destiny was gentle.
But home was not a place that made you bleed and called it duty.
“No,” she said.
Kael’s face tightened.
“You don’t understand what he is.”
Aria laughed softly, bitterly.
“I understand more after one night in Bloodridge than I did after years beside you.”
His eyes darkened.
“I rejected you to protect you.”
The words struck like a slap.
Aria went still.
Darius’s body tensed beside her.
Kael stepped forward.
“I had no choice.”
Aria’s voice came out low.
“You had every choice.”
“You were being watched.”
“By whom?”
Kael’s gaze flicked away.
There.
The evasion.
The lie beneath the confession.
Aria stepped closer.
“Say it.”
Kael remained silent.
Her heart cracked again, but this time anger filled the spaces.
“You don’t get to wound me and call it protection because the truth is inconvenient.”
Kael’s control fractured.
“You think he is better?” he demanded. “Darius will use you the same way everyone else will. Do you think his claim was love?”
Aria flinched despite herself.
Darius noticed.
So did Kael.
Kael pressed the advantage.
“He claimed you because of what you are.”
Darius’s voice turned lethal.
“Enough.”
Kael smiled without warmth.
“She deserves the truth.”
Aria turned to Darius.
The silence between them cut deeper than Kael’s words.
“Did you know before you claimed me?” she asked.
Darius did not answer fast enough.
That was answer enough.
Pain opened inside her again.
Not the same as Kael’s rejection.
Different.
Sharper because she had started to trust Darius.
Aria stepped back.
Darius reached for her, then stopped himself.
“Aria—”
“No.”
Her voice trembled.
“I am so tired of men deciding what truth I can survive.”
Kael said softly, “Come with me.”
She turned on him.
“And you are worse. You had years to tell me.”
His expression twisted.
“I was trying to keep you alive.”
“Then you should have trusted me enough to let me help.”
For the first time, Kael looked truly wounded.
Good.
Let truth wound him too.
Suddenly, a scream rose from the Bloodridge side.
A scout collapsed near the treeline, an arrow in his back.
Darius turned sharply.
Kael’s eyes widened.
“That wasn’t mine.”
Aria believed him.
Which made the situation worse.
A second arrow flew.
Straight toward Aria.
Darius moved in front of her.
The arrow struck his shoulder.
Aria screamed his name before she could stop herself.
Darius staggered but did not fall.
Blood spread across his shirt.
Something inside Aria snapped.
Not fear.
Power.
The air around her surged.
The ground trembled beneath the bridge.
Every wolf froze.
Aria’s vision silvered at the edges.
She heard whispers—not from people, but from something ancient moving in her blood.
Darius looked at her, stunned.
Kael looked terrified.
Aria lifted her hand toward the trees.
The hidden attackers were thrown backward by an invisible force.
Silence crashed over the bridge.
Aria lowered her hand slowly, shaking.
“What…” she whispered.
Darius, bleeding and pale, stared at her with awe.
Kael breathed one word.
“Moon-touched.”
Then Aria’s knees buckled.
Darius caught her before she hit the ground.
His arms closed around her, firm and warm.
But as darkness pulled at the edges of her mind, she heard Kael shout one final thing.
“She belongs to me by first bond!”
Darius’s growl shook the bridge.
“Then why did her power awaken for me?”
Aria’s world went black.
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