( Kael's POV )
The forest had gone too quiet.
The kind of quiet that came after something ancient had been disturbed.
Kael stood in the wreckage of the riverbank, breath steaming in the cold night air, staring at the place where Aria had vanished. The crescent moon mark was gone now, but its ghost pulsed beneath his skin, tethering itself to the bond that had always existed between them, only now it felt different. Darker. Wilder. As if the very magic that had once tied them together had been twisted into something else entirely.
The war was over. But this… this felt like the beginning of something worse.
Jarek’s voice cut through the trees before Kael even heard the horses. “Alpha!”
Kael didn’t move. He could hear them coming, the thud of hooves, the rustle of armored bodies moving
