Chapter 5
646 Words
Magnus Blackwood requested a private audience with his son three days later.
Kael found him in the training grounds, a dusty arena behind the pack house where young wolves sparred and honed their skills. Magnus was stripped to the waist despite the autumn chill, his aging but still formidable body glistening with sweat.
“You wanted to see me?” Kael asked.
Magnus picked up a wooden training sword, testing its weight. “I’ve been thinking about what you said. About Elara being your mate.”
“And?”
“And I need you to know something.” Magnus turned to face him, and for the first time in Kael’s memory, the former Alpha looked old. Not just aging, but weary, burdened. “I didn’t just take her as a mistress. I... I genuinely cared for her. More than I should have.”
Kael stiffened. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying it wasn’t purely transactional. Yes, I offered her protection. Yes, there was a power imbalance. But over those two years, I fell for her. Hard.” Magnus’s voice roughened. “When your mother found out, I had a choice. I could have stood by Elara, claimed her as a chosen mate, torn the pack apart. Or I could let her go. I chose the latter. I’ve always told myself it was the right decision, for the good of the pack. But I’ve never stopped regretting it.”
Kael didn’t know what to say. The image of his father as a stern, unfeeling patriarch was cracking, and something complicated was emerging from beneath.
“I don’t tell you this to make you uncomfortable,” Magnus continued. “I tell you because I want you to understand. If the Moon Goddess has chosen her for you, perhaps it’s a chance for redemption. A chance to right the wrongs I committed.” He met Kael’s eyes. “Don’t make my mistakes. Don’t let her go.”
The peace shattered on a cold night in late November.
Kael was woken by the howl of a border sentry—not a greeting, but a warning. He was on his feet and shifting before his eyes were fully open, his silver wolf Kyr bursting through the pack house doors and racing toward the southern perimeter.
He found a scene of chaos. Five rogues had breached the border, their eyes wild with hunger and something darker—a feral madness that marked them as wolfless rogues, wolves who had been banished so long they’d lost touch with their humanity. And at the center of the fray, fighting with a desperation that made Kael’s heart seize, was Elara.
She had shifted. Her wolf was small and honey-gold, her movements hampered by her still-healing leg, but she was fighting. She had her teeth clamped around the throat of a rogue twice her size, and she wasn’t letting go.
Kyr roared and launched himself into the battle.
The fight was brief but brutal. When it was over, four rogues lay dead, and the fifth had fled into the darkness. Kael shifted back, naked and blood-spattered, and gathered Elara’s wolf into his arms. She was trembling, her golden fur matted with blood—not all of it her own.
“You should have stayed inside,” he said, his voice ragged.
She shifted back, and suddenly she was a woman again, small and shivering in his arms. “They were after me. They’ve been hunting me for months. I couldn’t let them hurt your pack.”
Kael stared at her. This woman—this omega he’d thought fragile—had thrown herself into a fight to protect a pack that still whispered about her behind her back.
“You’re incredible,” he breathed.
And then he kissed her, right there in the blood-soaked grass, with the bodies of their enemies cooling around them.
- Writer
