Chapter Six.
807 Words
Elara
The howl still echoed in my ears long after it faded into the trees.
I stood frozen, staring at the windows like something would crawl through them any second. The air was thick. Unnatural. Even the manor seemed to hold its breath.
Damon didn’t move. Just stood there like a statue, jaw clenched, his eyes flicking to the corners of the room, listening, calculating.
“What the hell was that?” I asked.
He didn’t answer right away.
“Something old,” he finally muttered. “Too close.”
My skin prickled.
Kael groaned behind me.
I turned fast.
His fingers twitched. His eyes fluttered open again, slower this time. His breathing was steadier, but the confusion in his gaze hit like a punch.
“Elara,” he whispered, reaching toward me.
I stepped back before I could stop myself.
Damon’s presence shifted, the air thickening behind me as he moved a fraction closer. Just enough to remind Kael he wasn’t alone.
Kael blinked, taking in the room. The stone walls. The shadows. Damon.
His jaw tensed. “Where am I?”
“You crossed into the wrong forest,” Damon said coldly.
Kael ignored him. His eyes stayed on me. “You’re alive.”
“No thanks to you,” I snapped.
He flinched.
“I… I didn’t know they’d try to kill you,” Kael said, his voice raw. “I didn’t know my father would."
“Would what?” I cut in. “Try to erase me like a stain?”
“I didn’t know!” he snapped, then winced, clutching his ribs.
Damon didn’t move, but the room felt like it shrank around him.
“Why did you come?” I asked, my voice trembling.
“After everything you did, after you rejected me in front of everyone, why come now?”
Kael’s throat bobbed. “Because I was wrong.”
My breath caught.
He looked at me like he was drowning.
“The moment you ran, I felt it. The pull. The void. I knew. I felt it, Elara. You’re my mate.”
My chest cracked wide open and slammed shut in the same heartbeat.
“No,” I said.
“Yes,” he insisted. “I felt it the moment you were gone.”
“Convenient,” Damon muttered.
Kael’s eyes darted to him. “You don’t get a say in this.”
Wrong move.
Damon stepped forward, slow and silent. Every inch of him screamed Alpha. His energy pressed into the room like thunder rolling across the floor.
“I’ll say what I want,” Damon said quietly.
“You bled out in my home. You brought your Red Moon scent onto my land. And you left her to die.”
Kael glared at him. “And who the hell are you to her?”
“I could ask you the same.”
The room sparked with tension so thick I could barely breathe.
“Stop,” I said, stepping between them.
Both men froze.
I didn’t know what I was doing.
I didn’t know who I was supposed to trust.
But I knew this. I wasn't gonna be the thing they fought over like a prize.
“I’m not yours to fight for,” I told Kael, my voice sharp.
“You rejected me. You made me feel like dirt. I needed you, and you crushed me.”
His eyes glistened. “I thought I was protecting you.”
“No,” I snapped.
“You were protecting yourself. From the shame. From what the others would say. From your precious Luna image.”
He didn’t deny it.
I turned away from him, only to lock eyes with Damon.
He wasn’t angry. But something stormed behind those cold blue-grey eyes. Something he wasn’t saying.
“I don’t need either of you to decide my fate,” I whispered.
“I’m not your broken Omega. I’m not your secret shame.”
My hands shook.
The floor pulsed beneath me.
Light flickered across my fingers—faint silver, like moonlight under my skin.
Kael stared.
Damon’s jaw tightened.
“You feel that?” Kael whispered, voice shaking. “It’s your magic. It reacts to...”
There he goes with the magic talk. I could feel my head spinning.
“To what?” I said, turning toward him.
“To us.”
And then he said the thing that shattered the breath in my lungs.
“My father’s looking for you, Elara.”
I stilled.
“What?”
“He knows what you are,” Kael said, voice trembling. “He knows who you really are.”
Damon took a step forward. “How?”
Kael looked between us, then spoke the words I never expected.
“Because he killed your parents to keep the truth buried.”
My heart stopped.
- Writer
