Chapter Three — The Runaway
841 Words
Aria
By nightfall, the valley smells of rain and regret.
The air is thick, the kind that carries every sound — the flap of wings, the sigh of the wind, the restless stir of wolves in their dens. I’ve been pacing my room for hours, watching the last of the daylight bleed across the hills. Every minute that passes tightens the pull in my chest until it’s almost unbearable.
Something out there is calling to me.
And I’m done pretending I don’t hear it.
The mark on my palm glows faintly when the moon rises, silver spreading beneath my skin like veins of light. I flex my hand and the pain sharpens, not cruel — alive. The bond’s hum has grown louder every night, but this is different. Tonight it feels like a summons.
I pack light — cloak, knife, waterskin. I don’t dare bring more. Rhea would know. Rhea always knows.
When I reach for my mother’s pendant on the dresser, my reflection catches in the mirror. My eyes are bright — too bright — gold flashing at the edges of green. I look like a stranger. Like something half-wild, half-divine.
“Maybe I am,” I whisper.
The manor is quiet when I slip into the halls. The guards at the gate change at the hour before midnight it gives me just enough time. I move fast, silent, past the war room where Father’s maps still hang and the great hall where our ancestors’ portraits watch like judges.
I can almost feel Rhea’s gaze even here. Her voice echoes in my head: The pack already wonders which of us the moon favors.
She doesn’t need to wonder.
I’ve never been the moon’s favorite. I’m the mistake the goddess forgot to erase.
Outside, the air hits cold and sharp, filling my lungs with freedom that tastes dangerously sweet. The trees sway in the wind, their shadows long and familiar. I run.
The wards hum when I reach the edge of the forest — faint lines of silver light woven between the trees. Every pup is warned never to cross them. The wards mark safety, belonging, the line between the known and the cursed.
My heart hammers as I reach out.
The moment my palm touches the magic, it flares. Heat sears up my arm — then softens, recognition flooding through me. The wards part. Threads of light unravel into mist, opening a path that wasn’t there before.
“I guess that’s an answer,” I murmur, and step through.
The forest beyond feels older. Wilder. The air smells different — pine, moss, rain, and something else. Something I can’t name. The mark on my hand glows brighter, guiding me deeper.
Branches whisper as I move. My wolf is restless beneath my skin, pacing, urging me forward. Every few steps, I swear I hear it — the faint echo of another heartbeat, not mine, threading through the silence.
Kael.
I don’t know how I know his name. I’ve never seen him, never spoken to him. But when I close my eyes, I see flashes: a man at the river, gold eyes burning through darkness, his voice low and rough like thunder wrapped in smoke.
Mine.
The memory isn’t mine to have, but it fills me all the same. I stumble to my knees, clutching my chest as the bond surges. The world around me sharpens — sound, scent, light, everything too vivid, too close. I can feel him, not just his presence but his pain.
He’s awake.
And he’s fighting something.
The forest trembles.
“Aria.”
I freeze. The whisper isn’t from the bond — it’s behind me. A figure steps from the shadows, cloak drawn, eyes silver in the moonlight.
Eamon. The historian.
“What are you doing out here?” I ask, breathless.
His voice is soft, old and knowing. “The same thing you are. Answering the call.”
“The call?”
He gestures toward my glowing hand. “Selene doesn’t bind souls lightly. You’ve crossed the wards. That means the choice is made.”
“I didn’t choose this.”
He studies me for a long moment. “Perhaps not. But blood remembers, child. And yours is calling home.”
The wind rises again, wild and sharp. In the distance, thunder rolls — faint but certain, like a heartbeat echoing through the mountains.
Eamon’s gaze turns toward it. “He’s close.”
“Who?”
“The one born of Thorn. The cursed Alpha.”
Kael.
My pulse stumbles.
Eamon’s expression softens, almost pitying. “If you keep going, nothing will ever be the same. You understand that?”
“I do.”
He nods once, as if that’s all he needed to hear. “Then the goddess has already chosen her path.”
When I look back toward the mountains, lightning forks across the sky — bright, blinding, alive. The air hums with power, and for the first time, I don’t feel afraid.
I feel awake.
The storm breaks overhead, and I run into
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