POV: Kael
The scent of blood and ash lingered in the air long after the battle ended.
I stood at the edge of the clearing, watching as the fires were put out by the warriors and the healers tended to the injured. My hands were still coated in the dark, viscous blood of the rogue who’d lunged for Aria.
The image of her — slumped over, her side gashed, yet defiant even through the pain — kept replaying in my head. Her wolf had taken the brunt of the hit. Her soul bore the rest.
I’d felt it. A fracture, not just in her body or spirit, but in something older. Deeper. Something that had once been mine, too.
A part of me had always known she was mine. Even when the curse smothered the bond, even when I tried to convince myself she was a threat to our pack, there was a quiet place in my ches
