( Kael's POV )
The cabin held a silence that wasn’t peace. It was the silence of aftermath, of blood still wet on the ground we’d left behind, of fire still burning in memory even though we had outrun its smoke. My lungs ached with every breath, as if the forest itself had lodged inside me. The ruin was gone, but its ghosts clung to my skin.
Kael moved with the coiled tension of a wolf who could not rest. His bare chest glistened with soot and sweat, muscles cut by the shadows from the crackling lantern Darius had found on a shelf. His golden eyes never softened, never lost that edge of violence, scanning every corner of the cabin as though the hunters might slip through the walls.
“Sit,” he ordered when I tried to stand, my knees still shaking.
I bristled at his tone, but the truth w
