CHAPTER ONE: Lunar Scars
Kael Donovan
I felt the weight of the night air pressed in around me—tense, sharp, like the memory of a blade slicing through flesh. I stood on the edge of the balcony, my eyes fixed on the glittering skyline of the human city. It felt distant, and artificial. A place where strength didn’t earn respect, but money did. Influence did. Here, power had nothing to do with blood or dominance.
But no matter how high the buildings reached, this city was still a cage. One I had built with my own hands, to keep my past locked away, to bury the man I used to be.
I had once been Alpha. The Alpha so respected, feared and unchallenged.
Until the shocking incident.
Until the betrayal.
Until the lies.
Until she died, and my world crumbled.
The wind whispered between the buildings, but I lightly registered the sound. My thoughts were miles away—back in the packlands, where ghosts of my past still clung to the trees and howled in the night.
Even in exile, my name lingered in the shadows: Kael Donovan. The broken Alpha, The traitor, and The exile.
I flexed my hands, and the old ache flared—scars sliced across my palms like brands. Reminders of what I’d lost... and what I had survived. They weren’t just wounds. They were warnings.
I closed my fists. Not in fear. Not anymore.
The future was what loomed now.
Here comes my twins, Aria and Elias.
They were the only pieces of me that mattered.
The only reason my heart stay glued to the mother of my children.
The only reason I still drew breath in this hollow place.
When they were born, I swore an oath that I would protect them, and Keep them safe. I promise to hide them from the world that killed their mother and cast me out like a rogue. I would burn the world to keep them from harm.
But fate—damn fate—never tires of bleeding me dry.
And tonight… I felt it.
That creeping pull of something coming.
They were coming for them.
The wind grew colder, cutting deeper. The kind of chill that didn’t just brush your skin—it warned you. And I knew. I knew this.
The past was rising again.
And like before… it would all begin with betrayal.
Seraphine Vale. I didn’t know her. Not really.
But somehow, the threads of our lives had tangled.
She lived hidden, tucked away in a grove just on the edge of human territory. The packlands were far behind her, just like me, she had run. Just like me, she was haunted. I didn’t need to know her history to see it written in the way she held herself.
They said she was cursed, rejected and unwanted.
I knew the feelings. I felt it whole.
But something about her had changed. She had changed.
She wasn’t just some lost soul trying to survive in a world that forgot her.
No—there was power in her. Power awakening.
I had tracked magical traces to her grove. The signs were faint, but familiar. They smelled of the twins, my twins.
I didn’t expect to find her standing there, bathed in moonlight, one hand against an ancient oak, as if the earth itself was answering her call.
And when our eyes met, something shifted.
I stepped into the clearing. “Seraphine Vale.”
My voice carried like a command.
“Where are they?”
“She flinched—just slightly. Remorse flickered in her eyes before she masked it behind calm defiance.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, soft but steady.
I stepped closer. I wasn’t trying to intimidate her, it came naturally.
“Don’t lie to me.” My voice lowered, heat rising in my chest, a growl close to the surface.
But she didn’t retreat, She stood bold like a soldier.
Then, she looked straight into me—as if she could see the cracks beneath the surface.
“There’s nothing you can take from me that hasn’t already been lost,” she whispered.
That hit harder than I expected.
She didn’t speak like someone afraid.
She spoke like someone who’d already been broken—and was still standing.
Something passed between us then. An understanding.
But it didn’t matter.
Not when my children were out there.
“Where are my children?” I asked again, my teeth clenched.
The wolf beside her growled, low and warning. My instincts flared—I shifted, ready to defend, to strike if needed.
But then… the air changed.
Something rippled through it, invisible but powerful.
My skin prickled. My pulse quickened.
Something was coming.
And I had no choice but to face it—whatever it was.
