By the River
224 Words
Ethan found Alariel again the next morning.
She stood barefoot in the frost.
"Why do you come here?" he asked softly.
"It's quiet," she replied. "It feels like someone remembers me here."
His wolf surged violently at that.
Mate.
But beneath that instinct was something deeper now.
Familiar.
Ancient.
Alariel pressed her palm to her chest suddenly.
"I don't understand," she whispered. "Sometimes I feel like… something inside me is missing."
Ethan's breath caught.
Her wolf wasn't gone.
It was sealed.
And somewhere deep underground…
The ancient entity shifted again.
It could not sense her like it sensed other wolves.
Because her power was not dormant.
It was locked.
Elara woke in the middle of the night.
Not from fear.
From grief.
A grief that was not her own.
Alpha Liam stirred beside her. "You felt that."
She nodded slowly.
"There's… something north of us."
Alpha Hunter's bond pulsed faintly through her chest — distant but steady.
But beneath that was something else.
A thread.
Thin.
Silver-gold.
Familiar.
She pressed a hand to her abdomen.
The twins pulsed.
Not toward Alpha Hunter.
Willow knows Alariel exists.
But she cannot sense her.
Because a sealed wolf is invisible to magical tracking.
Alpha Edward Rowan hid her in plain sight.
Protected.
Forgotten.
Unnoticed.
Until now.
Because the Sovereign Mark has awakened.
And blood calls to blood.
- Writer
