Chapter 77

Isla POV

The moon hadn’t set when I returned to the compound, but the air already smelled of mourning. Blood, smoke, and the metallic bite of fear clung to the corridors like ghosts that refused to leave. Every step echoed too loudly against the stone, and every shadow looked like it might move if I turned away.

Tristan hadn’t spoken a word since the fight.

He’d shifted back, grabbed a cloak, and walked ahead of me the whole way home bleeding, silent, furious in a way that frightened me more than any enemy ever could.

When we reached the courtyard, he stopped so suddenly that I nearly collided into him.

“You shouldn’t have gone out there alone,” he said, voice low but sharp enough to cut.

I swallowed hard. “If I hadn’t, we wouldn’t have known about the rogues until it was too late.”

He turned to face me then, and the look in his eyes made my heart stutter. Not because it was cruel but because it was tired. Bone-deep tired.

“And what if you hadn’t come back, Isla?” he asked quietly. “What then? What would I tell them? That their Luna went looking for a ghost and got herself killed?”

His words burned, not because they were harsh, but because they were true.

Still, something inside me flared stubborn, aching, alive.

“I couldn’t just sit here and do nothing,” I said, my voice trembling. “He was”

“Don’t.” Tristan’s tone softened, but his eyes stayed hard. “Don’t say his name right now.”

Silence fell between us like a blade.

He took a slow breath, the rise and fall of his chest uneven. “I’m not angry that you care,” he said after a moment. “I’m angry that you still let it guide you. That bond whatever it is clouds your judgment.”

My throat tightened. “You don’t understand.”

His jaw worked once, twice. “Then make me.”

I opened my mouth, then closed it again. How could I explain something I didn’t even understand myself? The bond was supposed to fade. It wasn’t supposed to burn through me every time he was near. It wasn’t supposed to ache when he left.

But it did.

“I feel him,” I whispered instead. “Even when I try not to. It’s like… a heartbeat that doesn’t belong to me.”

Tristan looked at me for a long moment too long before stepping closer. The air shifted. The distance that usually shielded us felt suddenly paper-thin.

“Then maybe it’s time to cut it out,” he said softly. “Before it kills you.”

I should’ve flinched. Instead, I looked up at him and saw something flicker across his face — something that wasn’t just anger. Something like fear.

Not for himself. For me.

But before either of us could say another word, a voice called from the end of the corridor.

“Alpha! Luna!”

It was Lyra. Breathless. Wide-eyed.

Tristan turned sharply. “Report.”

“The scouts found tracks,” she said. “North ridge. Fresh ones. They think the rogues are regrouping.”

Tristan nodded once. “Double the patrols. And have the healers prepare for possible injuries.”

Lyra hesitated, her gaze flicking toward me. “There’s something else, Luna. The signal stones—some of them started glowing again. But not all. It’s like something’s interfering.”

Tristan’s head snapped up. “Interfering how?”

“They hum when you get near them. Like they’re reacting to magic.”

I felt a chill crawl up my spine. Magic hadn’t touched these lands in decades. Not since the blood pacts were sealed.

Tristan exhaled slowly. “Check every boundary line. I want a full report by dawn.”

Then, to me his tone gentler now “Get some rest, Isla. Please.”

He didn’t wait for my answer. He turned and strode toward the command wing, cloak billowing behind him like smoke.

I stood there until Lyra shifted awkwardly beside me.

“Do you think he’ll come back?” she asked in a small voice.

I didn’t answer right away. My gaze drifted toward the forest, where the trees swayed in the moonlight like they were whispering secrets I wasn’t meant to hear.

“He already has,” I murmured.

Sleep didn’t come.

Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the blood on Kieran’s hands — and the look in his eyes when he told me to run.

He hadn’t been lying.

Whatever else had changed in him, that truth had not. He’d saved me. Again.

I rose from the bed before dawn, unable to stay still any longer. I wrapped a cloak around my shoulders and stepped onto the balcony. The forest loomed below, a sea of silver and shadow, vast and unknowable.

Somewhere out there, he was still moving. Still breathing. Still fighting whatever darkness had claimed him.

I didn’t know if he was my enemy anymore.

I didn’t know if he was my salvation either.

All I knew was that he wasn’t gone.

And that scared me more than anything.

Kieran

Ronan’s laughter had long since faded into the distance, but his words wouldn’t stop echoing.

You hesitated.

He was right.

I had.

Every instinct screamed at me to fight, to finish what I started, to end Tristan and burn the world that rejected me. But when I saw her when Isla’s scent hit the air, sharp and soft all at once everything inside me faltered.

I couldn’t kill him with her watching.

Not when her heart still beat inside my chest like it belonged there.

I sat by the river now, hands submerged in the freezing water, watching crimson trails curl away from my skin. The blood wasn’t all mine. Some belonged to wolves who’d attacked. Some maybe didn’t.

The moon hung low, pale and silent. I stared at my reflection and barely recognized the creature staring back.

“You’re losing focus,” Ronan’s voice came from behind me, calm, almost amused.

“Focus isn’t what I need right now.”

He circled until he stood in front of me, his eyes catching the light like fire through glass. “Then what is it you need, brother?”

I looked past him, toward the forest’s edge. “Time.”

Ronan chuckled. “Time won’t change what you are. You can’t unmake a monster.”

“Maybe not.” I rose slowly, water dripping from my hands. “But I can decide what kind of monster I’ll be.”

He tilted his head, intrigued. “And what kind is that?”

“The kind that still remembers what he’s fighting for.”

Ronan’s smirk faded. “She’s the reason you’ll fall.”

“Or the reason I won’t,” I said quietly.

For a heartbeat, neither of us spoke. Then he sighed and turned away. “You can’t protect her from what’s coming. The rogues are restless, the barriers are weakening, and the magic buried in those woods is waking up again. When it does, it won’t care who you love.”

“I’ll find a way,” I said, though I wasn’t sure who I was trying to convince — him or myself.

Ronan looked back once, his voice softer this time. “You always were the hopeful one.”

He vanished into the shadows before I could respond.