The Return of the true scent
1238 Words
They left the Hollowroots at dawn.
Mist rose from the forest floor, and every step forward carried weight — not just from the terrain, but from the decision hanging unspoken between them.
Averie walked beside Kaelen with quiet strength. She wore a dark cloak now, one Taletha had woven from dusk-moss and moon-thread. It shimmered faintly over her shoulders, wrapping her scent in layers of protection. But even still, Kaelen could smell it beneath.
Her scent was whole.
Soft amber and pine, with a hint of nightbloom — unmistakably hers. And as they approached the outer ridges of the Highfang Pack lands, Kaelen’s body tensed instinctively.
“She’ll feel it,” he said softly.
“Lyra?” Averie asked.
He nodded. “She won’t understand why her stolen scent is unraveling. But she’ll know it’s because you’re alive.”
Averie’s lips tightened. “Good.”
She didn’t tremble now.
Not at the mention of Lyra. Not at the thought of Darius. And not even when the towers of the Highfang stronghold came into view, etched into the cliffs like jagged stone teeth.
Averie wasn’t returning as a victim.
She was returning as something the pack had never seen before.
“Do you want to come in with me?” she asked Kaelen, halting near the tree line.
He looked at her carefully. “Do you want me to?”
She hesitated. Her heart ached. Not out of confusion — but because she wanted him beside her, and that truth terrified her more than any Alpha ever could.
“Yes,” she said, voice low. “But not as my protector. As my equal.”
Kaelen’s jaw flexed, and something soft flickered in his eyes.
“Then I’ll walk beside you,” he said. “But this moment is yours.”
They crossed the final ridge in silence.
The pack was gathered in the lower courtyard for the Spring Blessing. Wolves in formal garb. Elders seated at the high arch. And Darius — tall, golden, flawless — stood at the altar.
Lyra clung to his side.
Averie stepped forward.
Her scent hit the pack like a slap.
Heads turned. Eyes widened. Whispers surged like wildfire.
“…that’s her…”
“…she was gone…”
“…but her scent…”
Lyra staggered. Her eyes flew wide as her body jerked, suddenly confused. Her connection to Darius rippled, disrupted, like a thread snapping tight.
She clutched her chest. “What…?”
Darius blinked — and then froze. His nostrils flared.
His gaze snapped toward Averie.
He inhaled once.
Twice.
And then his eyes turned molten gold.
“Averie?”
The courtyard fell silent.
She stopped several paces away. Straightened her spine. Let the cloak fall from her shoulders.
The scent bloomed — rich, unfiltered, divine.
“Yes,” she said clearly. “I’m back.”
Darius looked staggered. “But… you were gone. We couldn’t sense you. Your scent—”
“Was stolen,” she said coldly. “By the one you chose instead of me.”
All eyes turned to Lyra.
The girl was shaking. Her scent fraying in real time. The stolen bond cracking.
Darius turned toward her — and stepped back, suddenly uncertain. “What did you do…?”
Kaelen moved to stand beside Averie.
Darius's eyes narrowed. “Who is he?”
“My witness,” Averie said, not flinching. “My rescuer. My truth.”
The Elders surged to their feet.
Whispers of trial, lies, and scandal surged.
But Averie just stood still, calm and unyielding as a rising tide.
This wasn’t a reunion.
This was a reckoning.
The courtyard pulsed with silence.
Then—
Lyra let out a sharp, broken gasp.
Her body buckled forward as if something had been torn from her ribs. She clutched her chest and dropped to her knees, eyes wild and scent unraveling like smoke.
“No—no, no, no—” she choked, breathing in shallow bursts. “He’s mine—he was mine—”
Darius stood frozen.
Even now, he didn’t go to her.
His gaze was fixed on Averie. Locked. Stricken.
It wasn’t love. It wasn’t guilt. It was recognition.
He was finally smelling what had been stolen from him.
“Tell me it’s not true,” he whispered. “Tell me she’s lying.”
Averie met his gaze with nothing but steel.
“I don’t need to lie anymore,” she said. “The Moon already knows.”
A hum went through the courtyard. Elder Riven stood.
“This is a sacred day,” he snapped. “A soul-bond cannot be forged or faked. If Averie’s scent has returned—truly returned—then everything we believed is undone.”
Elder Myrra narrowed her eyes. “Or rewritten.”
“Take her to the Inner Hall,” Riven ordered. “And the outsider as well. If a bond has formed outside the Rite, it must be questioned. Witnessed. Judged.”
Averie turned to Kaelen. He gave her a nod.
“We’re ready.”
As the guards escorted them from the crowd, Lyra shrieked behind them.
“She stole it back! That scent was mine! She was supposed to stay gone!”
Darius didn’t move.
Didn’t even look at her.
---
Later – The Inner Hall of Judgment
The Council’s chamber was dim, carved from the stone beneath the mountain. A single Moonflare crystal pulsed from the ceiling — meant to reveal lies, suppress illusions, and amplify truth.
Averie stood at its center, cloak discarded, scent pouring into the space without hesitation.
Kaelen remained beside her, silent but solid — her shield and sword, if needed.
Elder Riven spoke first.
“You return after seasons of silence, presumed dead. You bring with you a rogue, and now claim your true scent was stolen by another.” He narrowed his eyes. “Do you have proof?”
“I am the proof,” Averie said calmly.
Myrra leaned forward. “And the bond?”
Kaelen finally spoke. “It’s not complete. But it’s awakening. We didn’t force it. We didn’t ask for it.”
“Yet you carry it,” Myrra said. “Unmarked. Unmated. And still, it pulses in this room like wildfire.”
Another Elder murmured, “That’s not Darius’s mate. The bond never fully clicked with Lyra. We felt it. We just… ignored it.”
Averie’s hands trembled — not in fear, but release.
“Because you wanted to believe I was unworthy,” she said. “Because you didn’t want to question what it meant that your Alpha chose wrong.”
Riven snapped, “Mind your tone, girl—”
“No,” she cut in. “You mind yours. I lived. I returned. And I don’t need your blessing to exist anymore.”
The crystal above flickered—bright, white-hot for a breath.
Truth.
Myrra leaned back. “The bond with Darius was never real. The stolen scent confirms it. And the outsider—”
“Kaelen,” Averie said.
“The bond with Kaelen is forming through choice,” Myrra finished. “Rare. But powerful. Dangerous if suppressed.”
Riven scowled. “We need time.”
“You don’t have it,” Kaelen said darkly. “The balance is already shifting. You can feel it in your bones.”
He was right.
Storms were coming.
The Moon had made her move.
And no Council could stop what came next.
- Writer
