FATED TO BURN: DESTINED TO HEAL

Chapter 11 (Hidden wounds)

Long, flickering shadows were thrown against the crumbling walls of the deserted Silverfang cottage by the fire, which was burning softly in the old hearth. Still, the smell of blood and burning permeated the air and clung to everything like a quiet ghost. Raven sat next to Kael, holding a ripped piece of wet fabric that was quivering a little. The sight of him, wounded, tired, and still attempting to be strong, made her heart hurt.

When his shirt was taken off, his shoulders and chest were covered in deep, claw-marked bruises and his flesh was torn. She wiped at the cuts, squirming each time he recoiled. However, Kael remained silent. He simply gazed past her, absorbed in thoughts as gloomy as the darkness outside.

As Raven wrung out the cloth, he murmured softly, "You shouldn't have tried to fight." "You might have perished."

Slowly, his eyes moved to her. "If you hadn't come, I would have."

The remarks had a profound effect on her. They both remained silent for a moment. Like an old wound reopened, the silence between them was raw, aching, and incomplete.

“I didn’t come for you,” she claimed, though her voice was too faint to be plausible.

Pained and exhausted, Kael's lips quirked into a half-smile. "You say that all the time."

She turned her face away. It was easier than looking into those eyes—eyes that used to hold her whole world. Before it had all fallen apart.

She rubbed a clean cloth over a particularly nasty gash, and he snarled. She said, "Sorry," but her fingers stayed longer than necessary.

The delicate silence was abruptly broken when he said, "Why did you really come back, Raven?" "After all this time?"

Her fingers froze. Before turning back to face him, she glanced down at the blood-stained handkerchief. "I sensed the tug of the relationship. Then I heard you howling.

Kael took a small breath and felt her chest rise and fall. Thus, it remains in place. Between us.

She paused. “Yes. However, that doesn't alter what you did.

Her remarks caused the room to stiffen. His golden eyes clouded with pain not from his bodily wounds, and his jaw stiffened.

"There was nothing I could do," he said.

“You always had a choice,” Raven snapped, more harshly than she intended. "You choose them. You let me go. When I most needed you, you abandoned me.

Kael had sparkling eyes. "I went out to keep you safe. If I didn't turn you down, Elias would kill you.

Her heart ceased beating. "What?"

“I thought if I made you hate me… you’d be safer,” he said hoarsely. “I didn’t think Elias would come after you anyway.”

Raven's breath caught as she staggered back a step. Was that not the whole truth after all those years of suffering, betrayal, and believing she wasn't enough?

Her voice broke as she replied, "You made me feel like I was nothing." "I carried that by myself."

Despite the discomfort, Kael sat up and stated, "I carried it too." "Every evening. Every every second I longed to return. But I knew he would harm you if I did.

With her hands shaking and a silent storm roiling in her breast, Raven hid her face. Like thunderclouds, her feelings of anger, grief, love, and guilt collided.

"I could have assisted," she muttered. "Together, we could have fought him."

Kael gave a headshake. You were unaware of his true strength. Elias is more than simply a renegade. Now he's something else. Something more sinister.

Raven slowly let her hands drop. "What do you mean?"

Kael's expression darkened. “He’s been touched by the Umbra.”

Her blood froze. There was truth to the Umbra. The evil that twisted souls beyond recognition was the oldest and most feared. If Elias had struck a pact with it, they weren’t dealing with a rogue anymore.

“He wanted me broken,” Kael continued. “And when I refused to turn, he went after the pack. He slaughtered them to send a message.”

Raven's knees gave way. With unshed tears burning in her eyes, she fell to the ground next to him. "He must be stopped."

Kael reached for her hand. The room was cold, but it felt warm. "I can't do it by myself."

She wrapped her fingers around his. "You are no longer alone."

For a long time, they sat in quiet as two broken hearts tried to beat in time once more. The warm glow from the low-burning fire nearly made the outside world seem far away.

And then there was a knock.

The door was gently rapped three times.

They went cold.

Wincing through the pain, Kael used a broken chair leg as a weapon. Raven, her wolf tense beneath her skin, stood and slipped to the door.

Slowly, she opened it.

A girl was standing there. No more than fifteen years old. Her eyes were wide with terror, and her clothes were ripped and filthy.

"You must assist me," she said. "They took him." Dax was taken.

Raven's heart fell. "What?"

The girl trembled and muttered, "Elias." I was dispatched by him. said to advise you to come by yourself if you wish to get your pal back.

With rage written on every line of his face, Kael attempted to stand. "It's a trap."

“I know,” Raven whispered quietly, eyes burning silver.

But she also knew something more.

She had no choice.

She faced the girl once more. "Take me to him."

Kael leaned against the doorway and watched her leave as they vanished into the night.

And a shadow moved from the trees outside.

Elias grinned.

The air changed the instant Raven walked out into the night.

Now everything was sharper and colder. "Warning, warning, warning," the trees murmured in a language that only the wolves understood.

Despite the fallen leaves and broken branches beneath her bare feet, the young girl guided her farther into the woods with swift, quiet strides. Raven stayed close, her senses reaching the limit. There was a problem. The trail of scent was too prepared, too neat.

Her thoughts replayed Kael's words: *"It's a trap."

Nevertheless, she continued.

since Dax was a member of the family. She also had no intention of losing anyone else.

They approached a clearing—too pristine, too still. Raven's heart thumped in her chest as she paused at the brink. "Where is he?"

Slowly, the girl turned.

Her once-frightened eyes flashed black.

It's too late.

Raven felt a break in the ground beneath his feet.

Magic sizzled through the air as a net of shimmering silver sprang up around her. It was a prison, not just a trap. A warded circle, old and cursed. The kind designed to keep wolves like her in captivity.

She slammed at the barrier, growling.

The trees reverberated with a steady clap.

With a sneer on his lips, Elias emerged from the shadows.

"Well, well. You arrived by yourself. How foreseeable.

Raven bared her teeth. "Where is Dax?"

Elias displayed a chain of charms. Dax's blood dripped from it. "To put it simply, he's...in good hands."

"I promise that if you harm him—"

"You'll what?" Elias chuckled. "Combat me from inside?"

His eyes glowed with the black power of Umbra as he moved closer. "I wanted to check if you were still reckless because of the bond. And now you're entering my web directly.

Raven pushed toward the edge of the circle while reaching inside herself and called her wolf.

But the enchantment persisted.

"Kael will arrive," she cautioned. "He'll set the entire forest on fire for me."

Elias took a step back and remarked, "I'm counting on it." "Because I'll make you both watch each other die when he does."

He turned, retreating into the trees with the possessed girl.

Raven, too?

Her heartbeat thundered as she fell to her knees, locked inside glowing silver.

Another presence, one she hadn't noticed, stirred behind her.

From the woods' shadows came a low, female voice.

“You shouldn’t have come alone, Alpha.”

Red eyes opened in the darkness, and Raven's blood froze.

Elias, no.

Something more ancient.

A worse thing.

It was *hungry*, too.