CHAPTER 7 — THE SCENT OF DESTINY
841 Words
Snow muffled every sound as Amara and Kael walked side by side along the winding path leading deeper into the forest. The moon was only a sliver tonight, but its dim glow still silvered the branches above them. Amara’s breath made soft clouds in the air, mingling with the faint white fog drifting low to the ground.
Kael kept a measured distance—far enough not to overwhelm her, but close enough that she could feel the heat radiating from his body. Wolves ran hot; she was learning that. Every now and then she caught his scent again, that intoxicating blend of pine resin, smoke, and something wilder underneath. It tugged at her, pulling her forward even when she didn’t understand why.
Her cheeks warmed, and she quickly looked away.
“This is the long way home,” she murmured, mostly because the silence made her nervous.
“It’s the safer way,” Kael replied softly. “Less open space. Fewer vantage points.”
“Vantage points for who?” she asked, glancing up at him.
His jaw tightened. “For whoever was watching you tonight.”
Amara’s breath hitched. “You… meant that literally?”
He nodded. “Two scents. One unfamiliar. One masked.” His gaze swept the treeline as if reading secrets between shadows. “Someone has taken interest in you. And not in a good way.”
A cold shiver slid down her spine. “But why me?”
Kael stopped walking. The wind shifted—and with it, his expression changed, darkening with something like grief and something like certainty.
“Because you’re mine,” he said quietly. “And that makes you a target.”
Those last words struck her harder than she expected. Kael spoke them not with arrogance, but with the weight of a man who had lost too much already and feared losing again.
Amara swallowed. “I don’t… I don’t even know what that means yet.”
“You will,” he murmured.
They reached a narrow clearing where moonlight spilled like liquid silver across the snow. Kael turned to her fully. For the first time, she saw something crack beneath his stoic calm—vulnerability. Hesitation. Fear.
Not fear of her.
Fear for her.
“Amara,” he said, her name rough on his tongue, “when I carried you away from Rowan, your scent hit me like a storm. I’ve waited years… gods, years… for that moment.”
She felt her pulse skitter. “Because of the mate bond?”
His eyes glowed faintly gold in the dim light. “Yes. And no. The bond is nature. But what I feel? That’s choice.”
Warmth flushed her skin.
Before she could respond, the air changed—sharply, violently.
A low growl vibrated through the clearing. Leaves rustled, branches thrashed, and something moved between the trees with predatory silence.
Kael reacted before she even processed the danger. He stepped in front of her, one arm thrown back to shield her, his posture dropping into a lethal crouch.
“Stay behind me,” he warned, voice suddenly edged with steel.
A figure appeared at the tree line.
Tall. Cloaked. Shadowed.
And smiling.
“Well, well,” the stranger drawled, voice like gravel wrapped in velvet. “The Moon’s chosen bride.”
Amara froze.
Kael snarled—a deep, primal sound that seemed to shake the snow from the branches overhead.
“Step away,” Kael thundered. “Now.”
The stranger chuckled, lifting one hand in mock surrender. A silver ring glinted on his finger—etched with symbols Amara didn’t recognize.
“I only came to take a look,” the man said. “Hard to believe the rumors were true.”
“What rumors?” Amara whispered, barely audible.
The stranger’s gaze slid to her, cold and assessing.
“That the lost bloodline has awakened.”
Kael lunged.
But the man vanished—slipped backward into the dark with supernatural speed, as if the forest itself swallowed him.
Silence slammed back into the clearing.
Amara’s breath shook. “Kael… what bloodline? Who was he? What did he mean?”
Kael didn’t answer.
He turned to her slowly, his chest rising and falling like he was holding himself together by force. His golden eyes were burning—burning with fear, fury, and something else she couldn’t name.
“Amara,” he said, voice low and trembling, “I need you to listen to me.”
She nodded, heart hammering.
“You’re not just my mate.”
He took a breath as if confessing a sin.
“You are… something far more dangerous.”
Her world tilted.
“What am I?” she whispered.
Kael looked into her eyes with a truth that shattered the silence.
“You are the last heir of the Moonbearer line—the one prophecy says will either save us…”
His voice broke.
“…or end us all.”
The forest went still.
And nothing in Amara’s life would ever be the same again.
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- Writer
