Chapter 83

Isla POV

The world didn’t end the next morning.

It should have it felt like it might. The air was too still, the fog too heavy, the sky holding a silence so loud it pressed against my ribs. Even the birds that usually nested near the pack walls had gone quiet, their absence echoing like a held breath.

When I stepped out onto the balcony, the forest looked half-asleep and half-awake that strange, shimmering line between dream and memory. Somewhere beyond those trees, Kieran was still out there. Watching. Guarding. Waiting.

The bond hummed faintly beneath my skin, not in warning this time, but in rhythm. A quiet, steady pulse. Like a heartbeat I could almost mistake for my own.

I let my fingers curl around the railing and exhaled. “You’re too close again,” I murmured into the mist. “You’re going to drive him insane.”

But the truth?

Tristan already was not from rage or jealousy, but from not knowing which part of me belonged to him anymore.

By midday, the packhouse had come alive again. Warriors trained in the yard, scouts sharpened weapons along the wall, and Lyra moved through the corridors like a storm in motion fast, efficient, impossible to ignore.

She found me in the kitchen, sleeves rolled, flour dusting my forearms as I kneaded dough like my sanity depended on it.

“Still pretending this is stress therapy?” she asked, leaning against the doorframe.

I didn’t look up. “If I hit it hard enough, it stops talking back.”

Lyra chuckled, crossing her arms. “You’ve been quiet since the ridge. Tristan says you barely slept.”

“Tristan says too much.”

She tilted her head. “He’s worried.”

“He’s always worried.”

Lyra stepped closer, her voice softening. “Not like this. You scared him, Isla. You went out alone and came back with magic on your skin and Kieran’s scent all over you.”

That made me pause. The dough collapsed slightly under my palms. “I didn’t ask for that.”

“I know,” she said. “But it doesn’t change what it means.”

“And what does it mean?”

Lyra sighed, rubbing the back of her neck. “That something’s changing again. The balance. The way the air feels around you. Tristan feels it. Everyone does.”

I met her eyes finally. “Then maybe it’s time we stop pretending it’s something I can control.”

She studied me for a long moment, then smiled faintly. “Maybe it’s time we stop pretending you’re meant to.”

Later, when the fog began to thin, Tristan called for a meeting in the council chamber.

The map from yesterday lay spread across the table, pins marking the borders and the ridges where the runes had appeared. The air smelled of ink and steel.

He didn’t look at me when I entered. He didn’t have to I could feel the tension radiating off him, quiet and sharp as a blade being honed.

“Any movement from the northern line?” he asked one of the scouts.

“None, Alpha. The forest’s gone quiet again. But the animals they’re acting strange. Deer migrating south, wolves howling out of season.”

Tristan nodded slowly, then turned to me. “And you? Did the bond change last night?”

I hesitated. “It didn’t flare. Just pulsed.”

“Pulsed how?”

“Like it was steadying itself. Like something’s aligning.”

Tristan’s jaw flexed. “Or preparing.”

“Tristan”

He slammed his hand against the table. “You think I don’t feel it too? That pull every time he’s near? You think I don’t see the way your eyes change when you talk about him?”

The room went still. The scouts shifted uncomfortably. Lyra’s gaze flicked between us, silent but watchful.

I swallowed hard. “Then maybe stop treating it like something I chose.”

For a moment, the Alpha faded and all that was left was the man. Tired. Angry. Fractured in places he didn’t want anyone to see.

“I’m trying to keep you safe,” he said, quieter now. “Even if it kills me to do it.”

The words hit harder than they should have.

I took a breath. “And what if I don’t want safe?”

His eyes darkened. “Then you’ll die before you ever figure out what you want.”

Silence filled the room again, thick and heavy.

Lyra cleared her throat gently. “We should focus on the borders.”

Tristan didn’t look away from me for a long moment then he exhaled and nodded. “You’re right. Dismissed.”

I left before he could say anything else.

The forest behind the packhouse was damp and quiet, dew still clinging to every leaf. My boots sank slightly into the soft earth as I followed the narrow path toward the training fields.

I didn’t expect to find anyone there. But I did.

A young wolf barely old enough to shift stood at the far end, holding a broken blade in trembling hands. His name was Aiden, one of the new recruits Tristan had taken in after the border raids.

He looked up when he heard me. “Luna.”“I’m not your Luna,” I said gently.

He smiled, shy and uncertain. “You talk like one.”

That caught me off guard. “What does that mean?”

He shrugged. “The others they listen when you speak. Even Alpha Tristan does, sometimes.”

I laughed softly. “That’s generous of you to assume.”

Aiden’s expression sobered. “You make them believe we’ll survive whatever’s coming. That counts.”

For a moment, I didn’t know what to say. Then I took the blade from his hands and examined the crack along its edge. “You can’t fight with this,” I said. “It’ll split the moment you hit bone.”

He looked down, embarrassed. “It’s all I have.”

I met his gaze. “Then I’ll find you something better.”

He hesitated. “Alpha won’t like that.”

“Then we’ll pretend he didn’t notice.”

A flicker of hope crossed his face. “Thank you.”

As he left, I caught sight of the faint shimmer of light along the treeline. Gold. Flickering. Fading.

The bond pulsed again.

I didn’t need to call his name.

He was already there.

Kieran stepped out from between the trees, his cloak damp with mist, his expression unreadable.

“You’re reckless,” he said quietly.

“So are you.”

He tilted his head, the faintest hint of a smile touching his lips. “You shouldn’t come this close. He’ll feel it.”

“I don’t care.”

“Yes, you do.”

He was right, but I didn’t answer. Instead, I took a step closer. “What did you mean yesterday about me? About the stones reacting because of who I am?”

His gaze flickered to the runes burned faintly into the earth. “You’re tied to the first bond the one that existed before the Moon chose her wolves. The magic that made us more than beasts.”

I frowned. “That doesn’t make sense.”

“It does to the ones who remember.”

“Remembering again,” I murmured. “You keep saying that.”

He reached out slowly, almost cautiously, until his fingers hovered near mine. “Because the world is trying to wake up what it buried. And when it does, it will look for the heart it was bound to.”

I met his eyes. “Mine?”

“Yes.”