KAEL
Two months later.
I knew it before Mashik even spoke.
The moment he stepped into my room, I smelled it on him—truth, bitter and sharp, carried in the folds of his silence.
He waited just inside the doorway, hands behind his back, eyes lowered.
“She’s alive,” I said.
Mashik nodded, “Yes, Alpha.”
The room went quiet. Just the crackling of the fireplace, the creak of wood settling under the wind. Still, the world tilted.
“How long have you known?”
“I confirmed it this morning,” he said. “She’s using a false name—Cera. Lives above a carpentry shop, in the city of Windmere, human territory.”
My jaw clenched, “Any man?”
“There is one,” Mashik admitted.” A human, he seems harmless. Watches over her, but—
He paused.
“But what?” I asked, my voice already roughening.
Mashik’s eyes
