Chapter 38 Thirty eight
Morning came slowly, pale and uncertain.
Harper shifted restlessly beneath her blankets, her body tangled in sheets that suddenly felt too tight, too heavy. Sleep had taken her, but it had not been kind.
She was standing in the courtyard.
The Bloom Moon hung impossibly large above her, swollen and silver, casting sharp shadows across the stone ground. The house behind her was silent, empty. No lanterns. No flowers. No people.
Only wind.
And him.
Koda stood several feet away, his back turned to her. His shoulders were broader than she remembered, his presence darker somehow. The air around him felt wrong—charged, unstable.
“Koda?” she called.
He did not move.
She stepped closer. “Why are you here?”
Slowly, he turned.
His eyes were not the warm gold she knew.
They were darker. Harder. Almost black at the edges.
“You left me,” he said.
The accusation struck like a physical blow.
“I didn’t,” she argued, shaking her head. “I couldn’t—”
“You chose,” he interrupted, his voice echoing unnaturally across the empty courtyard.
The ground beneath her feet began to crack.
“You chose him.”
Harper’s chest tightened. “That’s not true.”
But even as she said it, the memory of Kai’s lips brushed across her mind.
Koda stepped closer.
With every step, the sky above seemed to darken further.
“You let them chain me,” he continued, his voice low and furious. “You let them cage me like an animal.”
“I didn’t have a choice!”
“You always have a choice.”
His eyes flashed.
The moon above them fractured suddenly, splitting in half like shattered glass. Silver light rained down around them like falling shards.
“You’re not mine,” he said, the words colder now. “And I’m not yours.”
Her heart dropped.
The courtyard dissolved.
Darkness swallowed everything.
Harper’s eyes snapped open.
She gasped sharply, bolting upright in bed. Her breathing came fast and shallow, her chest rising and falling as if she had run miles. Sweat clung to her forehead and the back of her neck.
It was just a dream.
Just a dream.
She pressed her palm against her chest, trying to steady her heartbeat.
The room was dim, early morning light barely creeping through the curtains. The house was quiet, still sleeping after the exhausting preparations from the night before.
Harper swallowed and slowly turned her head toward the empty side of the bed.
Except—
It wasn’t empty.
“What were you dreaming about?”
The voice was calm.
Familiar.
Too familiar.
Harper froze.
Her mind refused to process what her eyes were seeing.
Koda was lying beside her.
On her bed.
His head resting casually against her pillow as if he had always been there.
Her eyes widened so fast they burned.
For half a second, she couldn’t breathe.
Then she screamed.
The sound tore out of her throat before she could stop it. She shoved him with all the strength she had, scrambling backward toward the headboard as if distance could make him disappear.
Koda hit the floor with a thud.
“Ow,” he muttered dryly.
Harper stared down at him, her entire body trembling.
This wasn’t real.
It couldn’t be real.
He was locked in the dungeon.
Chained.
Imprisoned.
She had seen him.
“You’re not here,” she whispered.
Koda blinked up at her from the floor, mildly offended. “That’s a rude thing to say to someone who just fell off your bed.”
She shook her head rapidly. “No. No, this is another dream.”
“If this is a dream,” he replied calmly, pushing himself up onto one elbow, “then you have a very violent subconscious.”
Her breathing grew uneven.
He looked real.
Too real.
His hair was slightly messy, falling over his forehead. There was no sign of chains, no bruises from iron restraints. He wore dark clothes, simple but clean. His eyes—
His eyes were golden.
Clear.
Controlled.
Not like the ones in her dream.
“How did you get out?” she demanded, her voice shaking between fear and disbelief.
He rose slowly to his feet, brushing imaginary dust from his shirt. “You scream like that often in the morning?”
“Answer me!”
Her voice cracked slightly.
He studied her carefully now, noticing the sweat on her skin, the panic in her eyes.
“You were dreaming about me,” he said quietly.
“That’s not the point!”
“It is to me.”
She slid off the bed, putting it between them like a barrier. “You were chained.”
“Not anymore.”
The simplicity of his response made her stomach drop.
“What do you mean not anymore?” she whispered.
Koda’s expression shifted slightly. Something darker flickered beneath the surface.
“The chains were made to hold something else,” he said slowly. “Not me.”
Her heart pounded louder.
“You broke them?” she asked.
“Yes.”
The single word hung heavy in the room.
Harper stared at him as if seeing him for the first time.
Breaking those chains wasn’t normal.
They were ancient restraints.
Forged to hold creatures stronger than ordinary wolves.
“You could have gotten killed,” she murmured.
His gaze sharpened. “By who?”
“The guards. My father.”
At that, something almost like amusement touched his lips.
“He told them to stand down.”
Her breath hitched. “He did?”
Koda nodded once.
Silence settled between them, thick with unasked questions.
Harper’s mind was racing too fast to keep up. If he was free… if the Alpha had stopped the guards… then what did that mean?
“Why are you here?” she asked finally.
His gaze didn’t waver from hers.
“Where else would I go?”
The answer unsettled her more than anger would have.
“This is my room,” she said faintly.
“I noticed.”
She flushed slightly despite herself.
“How did you even get in?”
“Door.”
“I locked it.”
He gave her a look.
Her stomach flipped.
“You can’t just show up in my bed,” she said, trying to regain control of the situation.
He stepped closer—not threatening, not aggressive—just present.
“I wasn’t going to wake you,” he said quietly. “You were shaking.”
Her breath faltered.
“You were saying my name.”
The confession made her chest tighten painfully.
“I wasn’t,” she whispered.
“You were.”
She didn’t know what frightened her more—the fact that he had heard her, or the fact that it was true.
The dream replayed in her mind.
You chose him.
“You look different,” she said suddenly.
His brow lifted slightly. “Different how?”
“Stronger.”
A faint smirk tugged at his mouth. “I am.”
There was no arrogance in it.
Just fact.
Her pulse refused to calm down.
“You shouldn’t be here,” she said.
“And yet,” he replied softly, “I am.”
The tension in the room shifted again, heavier now. Not playful. Not teasing.
Intimate.
The Bloom Moon ceremony was tonight.
The realization hit her like a physical weight.
He stepped even closer, stopping only when there was barely any space left between them.
“Why were you afraid in your dream?” he asked quietly.
Her throat tightened.
“You were angry,” she admitted before she could stop herself.
His expression softened almost imperceptibly.
“At you?” he asked.
She nodded faintly.
He lifted a hand slowly, hesitating for a fraction of a second before brushing a strand of hair away from her damp forehead.
His touch was warm.
Real.
“I’m not angry at you,” he said.
The sincerity in his voice made her chest ache.
“You don’t even know what I dreamed,” she whispered.
“I don’t need to.”
His hand lingered for a moment longer before dropping.
Harper searched his face, trying to reconcile the image of him chained in darkness with the man standing in front of her now.
“You’re really free?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“And you’re not going back down there?”
His eyes hardened slightly at that. “No.”
Silence stretched again.
The house beyond her door was beginning to stir faintly. Footsteps in distant corridors. Voices waking.
Soon everyone would know.
Soon everything would change.
Koda’s gaze never left hers.
“Tonight,” he said quietly, “the moon will rise.”
Her heartbeat quickened.
“And?” she asked.
“And we’ll get our answer.”
The words settled between them like a promise.
Or a threat.
Harper swallowed.
Her room suddenly felt too small to contain everything that was about to unfold.
And standing inches away from her—
Was the boy who had once been chained beneath her house.
Now free.
And waiting.