✨ *THE LAST OATH OF THE MOON* ✨*

Chapter 3: His Cabin

She woke up to fire.

Not black fire. Not the hungry, smokeless fire that ate her mother's hut.

Real fire. Orange and gold, crackling in a stone hearth, throwing dancing shadows on dark wooden walls. The smell of real woodsmoke, and something else — stew? Meat and herbs?

Eira jolted upright, gasping, her hand flying to her neck.

The Moonstone was still there. But it was no longer clutched in her bloody fist. Someone had tied it on a new, stronger leather cord, braided with what looked like silver thread. It rested warm against her collarbone, glowing faintly, steady now. Not flickering.

She was not in the snow. She was lying on a pile of furs so thick and soft she sank into them up to her elbows. White wolf furs, grey wolf furs, some she didn't even recognize. They smelled like him. Pine and snow.

The room — no, the cabin — was small, made of dark logs and river stone. It was clean, too clean, like someone had scrubbed it furiously but didn't know what to do with it. A single table, a single chair, a hearth, and the pile of furs she was on. No decorations. No second bed. No sign that anyone had truly lived here for a very long time. On the walls, there were claw marks, deep and old, like something had tried to tear its way out.

And in the corner, sitting on the floor with his back against the wall, his long legs stretched out, watching her, was him.

Kael.

In the firelight, he looked less like a shadow and more like a man. A devastatingly beautiful, terrifying man. His black hair was still too long, damp now, falling over his forehead and hiding his eyes. His torn shirt was gone. He was bare-chested, and Eira's breath caught.

His chest was a map of war. Scars crisscrossed his pale skin, some silver and old, some pink and newer. Claw marks. Burn marks that looked like the black fire of the warlocks. And right over his heart, a faded, circular scar in the shape of a crescent moon — the mark of the Alpha.

He was muscle and scars and winter, and he was looking at her like she was a puzzle he didn't want to solve.

"You're awake," he said. His voice was still rough, but less like rocks now. More human. He had a tin cup in his hand, steam rising from it.

Eira scrambled back until her back hit the cold log wall, clutching the furs to her chest. She realized her nightdress had been changed. She was now wearing a massive, soft, black shirt that smelled like him, falling to her knees. Her own torn dress was nowhere to be seen.

Her feet throbbed, but not sharply. She looked down. They were bandaged with clean white cloth, wrapped expertly, with some kind of green paste underneath that tingled cold.

"What did you do to me? Where am I? Who are you?" The questions tumbled out, her voice high and panicked. "Are you — are you going to eat me?"

Kael's golden eyebrows furrowed. He stared at her.

"Eat you," he repeated flatly, as if she had spoken a foreign language.

"My mother said — the stories said wolves take Keeper girls and eat their hearts to steal their light!"

For a second, the cabin was silent except for the fire.

Then, to Eira's shock, Kael laughed. It was a short, rusted sound, like he had forgotten how. It was not a kind laugh.

"Eat your heart," he muttered, shaking his head. He stood up in one fluid, graceful motion. He was so tall his head almost brushed the low beams. Every muscle in his back moved as he walked to the hearth. "Little Keeper, if I wanted to eat you, you would have been gone in the snow. I don't need to bring you to my bed to eat you."

Eira flushed bright red, all the way to her ears, clutching the shirt tighter. "Your — your bed! This is your bed!"

"It was. Now it's yours." He poured the steaming liquid from the tin pot into the cup and walked back, kneeling in front of her furs. He held out the cup. "Drink. For the cold. And your feet."

She didn't take it. She glared at him, her grey eyes flashing, her fear momentarily replaced by anger — the same anger that had been building since her village burned.

"No! You don't get to order me around! You broke your oath! You were supposed to protect us! The Keepers trusted you! My mother prayed to your moon every night, she left food at the edge of your forest every full moon for you, and you did nothing! You let us die! You let my mother die!"

The words burst out of her, raw and loud, echoing in the small cabin. Tears that she had held since the snow finally spilled over, hot and angry.

Kael's hand holding the cup froze mid-air. His golden eyes darkened.

"You think I don't know that?" His voice dropped, dangerously quiet. "You think I have not heard that exact scream every night for fifty years?"

He set the cup down hard, the liquid sloshing. He turned away from her, his fists clenched, his back to her, his shoulders rigid.

"I was there, fifty years ago," he said, to the fire, not to her. His voice was shaking now. "On that same riverbank. Your grandmother. Her name was Alina. She called for me. The warlocks had her. I was three valleys away hunting a rogue bear that had killed one of my pups. I ran. I ran faster than I have ever run in my life. But I was too late. By the time I crossed the river, they had already ripped the stone from her neck. I watched the light leave her eyes. I watched the moon bleed for the first time."

He turned back, and his face was no longer beautiful. It was wrecked with a pain so old and so deep it didn't look human anymore.

"I buried her with my own hands. I buried my mate and my two pups that night too, because they followed me to help and the warlocks killed them for sport. I buried my entire pack that week. So don't stand there in my shirt, in my bed, wearing my Moonstone, and tell me I let you die. I know what I let die, little girl."

Eira's anger crumbled into horror. Her hand flew to her mouth.

"Your... your mate..."

"Dead. Because I broke my oath. Because I thought I could be in two places at once." He looked at her bandaged feet. "I swore I would never make another vow. I swore I would die alone in this forest and let the moon finally go dark. It would be what I deserved."

He stepped closer, and knelt again. This time he didn't stop his hand. He reached out and gently, so gently it made her breath catch, tucked a strand of damp hair behind her ear. His fingers were calloused and warm.

"But then you came. Bleeding in my snow. Wearing my heart around your neck. Smelling like hope and winter. And the stone —" His thumb brushed the Moonstone where it lay on her skin, and it flared bright, making them both gasp. A jolt of heat shot through Eira, straight down to her toes.

"It chose you. And for some cursed reason, it chose me again to guard you. Do you know what that means, Eira?"

She shook her head, her heart hammering so loud she was sure he could hear it. The way he said her name, like a prayer and a curse at once.

"It means the oath is awake again," he whispered, his golden eyes locked on hers, inches away. "If you die, I die. If you run, I follow. If you cry, I will burn the world that made you cry. Even if you hate me. Even if you never forgive me."

Outside the cabin, the wind picked up, howling through the ancient trees, making the fire flicker violently. And far away, so faint Eira thought she imagined it at first, a warlock hound howled back. Then another. Closer than before.

Kael's head snapped toward the door. His eyes flashed, no longer gold, but bright, glowing white.

"They found the edge of the wards," he snarled, all softness gone, Alpha back in full force. He stood, grabbing a massive, black axe that had been leaning against the wall, a weapon that looked like it could fell a tree in one swing.

He looked down at her, lying small and pale in his furs, wearing his shirt, his mark still glowing faintly on her skin from where he touched the stone.

"Stay here. Don't come out. No matter what you hear."

He opened the heavy wooden door. Snow and red moonlight flooded in, along with the smell of black smoke.

"Kael!" Eira called out before she could stop herself.

He paused, half in shadow.

"Will you... will you come back?"

For a second, he didn't answer. Then he looked over his shoulder, his scarred face half in firelight, half in bloodlight.

"I have to, little Keeper," he said softly. "You are mine to protect now."

He stepped out into the bleeding night and closed the door, leaving Eira alone with the fire, the howls getting closer, and a Moonstone that was suddenly burning hot against her skin.