Chapter 20 My Brother

Chapter 20 My Brother
I don’t remember when I started screaming again.

Only that the sound tore out of me when I felt the ground shake.

Heavy footsteps. Too heavy to belong to any of the men in the house. The air split open with a pressure so immense it forced the breath from my lungs all over again. I curled instinctively, arms over my head, waiting for the forest to finish what it started.

“Kaela.”

The voice cut through the noise like a blade.

Low. Controlled. Furious in a way that did not need to raise itself to be deadly.

I sobbed harder.

“No,” I cried hoarsely, scrambling backward on my elbows. “Don’t touch me. Please. I’ll leave. I won’t come back, I swear.”

The ground shifted beneath me, leaves and soil dragged away as something large knelt. The scent hit me next. Smoke. Iron. Night air crushed into something sharp and unmistakably him.

Azran.

I shook so violently my teeth rattled. “It’s still here,” I babbled, words tumbling over each other. “It knows my name. It hurt me. I didn’t mean to come, I didn’t, I just needed to breathe.”

Strong hands closed around my wrists.

I screamed.

“Look at me,” he ordered.

I fought him, panic exploding fresh and wild. I clawed at his arms, sobbing, nails scraping skin. “Don’t,” I begged. “Please don’t make me look, it’s watching, it’s watching—”

He tightened his grip just enough to make me still.

“Kaela,” he said again, slower this time. Not softer. Anchoring. “It’s gone.”

I shook my head violently. “No. It’s lying. It always lies.”

His hands moved then, not restraining but enclosing. One arm came around my back, pulling me against his chest whether I wanted it or not. I screamed again, body locking in terror, until his hand cradled the back of my head and pressed my face into his shoulder.

The world stopped shaking.

His heartbeat thundered beneath my ear. Steady. Furious. Real.

“You’re bleeding,” he said, voice turning dangerous in a way that made the forest feel tame by comparison.

“I didn’t listen,” I whispered, words breaking apart. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“I know,” he said.

That frightened me more than anger would have.

He shifted, lifting me effortlessly despite my wounds, despite my struggling. My arms clutched at his coat without permission, fingers digging in like he was the only solid thing left in a world that had turned predatory.

The forest groaned.

Azran stopped.

I felt it then. The way the air recoiled from him. The way the shadows retreated deeper between the trees, no longer bold, no longer playful.

His body went rigid.

A sound rolled out of his chest, low and vibrating, not quite human. Not quite anything I had words for. The ground trembled beneath us.

“Look at what you did,” he said to the forest, voice carrying a promise that made my blood run colder than fear ever had. “Touch her again and I will burn you down to the roots.”

Something hissed in response. Angry. Begrudging.

Then silence.

Azran turned away without another word, carrying me back toward the house. My vision blurred, pain finally catching up to shock. I clung to him weakly, exhaustion dragging me under.

The last thing I registered before darkness took me was the way his grip tightened.

Not possessive.

Protective.

And absolutely unforgiving.



Chapter — Kaela

I came back to myself in fragments.

Heat first. The crackle of fire somewhere nearby. The smell of iron and antiseptic and something sharp that burned my nose. I was draped over his arms, my cheek pressed to a chest that rose and fell like a restrained storm.

Azran didn’t put me down right away.

He carried me through the house as if the floor itself was unworthy of touching me. Doors opened without being touched. Voices stopped. Someone tried to speak and thought better of it.

When he finally set me down, it wasn’t gently.

Not cruelly either.

Just… final.

I was on the couch in the living area, blankets thrown over me, my wounds already tended in a way that told me this wasn’t the first time he’d done this. My shoulder burned, my back throbbed, my palms were wrapped tight. I felt small. Contained.

Azran paced.

Back and forth. Back and forth.

Each step struck the floor with measured restraint, like he was counting seconds between violence. His hands were fisted at his sides, knuckles pale. He didn’t look at me. That was worse than if he had.

I swallowed. My throat hurt. “Azran—”

He turned so fast I flinched.

“What,” he said quietly.

Not a question. A warning.

“I didn’t mean to,” I rushed out, panic crawling back up my spine. “I just needed air. The house felt like it was closing in and I thought if I just went a little closer, just to see—”

He crossed the room in two strides.

His hand closed around my arm, fingers biting just short of pain, hauling me up from the couch so abruptly my feet barely touched the ground.

Fear hit me sharp and familiar. My heart stuttered.

“Did you think,” he said, voice low and shaking now, “that rules are suggestions.”

I shook my head, tears blurring my vision. “I didn’t know what it was. No one tells me anything.”

“That forest is not curious,” he snapped. “It is not neutral. And it is not forgiving.”

He shoved me back onto the couch, leaning over me, one hand braced beside my head. His presence swallowed the room. I could feel the fury rolling off him now, thick and dangerous.

“You stepped into a boundary you were explicitly told not to cross,” he continued. “You bled because of it. You screamed because of it. And if I had been one minute later, Kaela—”

He stopped.

His jaw clenched so hard I heard his teeth grind.

My voice came out small. “Something whispered my name.”

That did it.

His hand slammed into the wall above my head, wood splintering. I cried out, curling in on myself, every instinct screaming submission and survival.

“No,” he said sharply. “Do not say it again.”

I shook, staring up at him. “Why. Why does everyone keep stopping me when I ask questions.”

“Because answers get people killed.”

Silence fell heavy between us.

My chest hurt. Not from the wounds. From the pressure of everything unsaid. I forced the words out anyway. “Ian said something. About a tag. About hell. About you.”

Azran’s eyes went cold.

“That name,” he said slowly, “will not be spoken in my house again.”

“Then tell me,” I begged. “Please. I don’t know what I’m walking into. I don’t even know what almost killed me.”

He straightened abruptly, turning away from me like I disgusted him. His hands dragged through his hair, pacing resumed, faster now.

“The thing you felt,” he said, voice flat, “is not the forest.”

My breath caught.

“It is what lives inside it,” he continued. “What is bound to it. What answers only to blood and hate.”

I swallowed hard. “Is that what the tag is.”

He scoffed, a sharp, humorless sound. “No.”

Then, quieter. “It’s who.”

I looked up at him, heart pounding. “Who.”

He stopped pacing.

Slowly, deliberately, he turned back to me. His expression was carved from stone now. No softness. No restraint. Only decision.

“You will not step foot outside this house again,” he said. “Not the grounds. Not the garden. Not the edge of the trees. You will not open a window without permission. You will not wander. You will not test boundaries.”

“That’s a cage,” I whispered.

“Yes,” he said. “And it’s the only reason you’re still breathing.”

My nails dug into the blanket. “You said something lives out there. Something that knows me.”

His gaze sharpened. “It knows you because it knows me.”

My blood went cold.

“And if you ask about it again,” he added, voice dropping, “if you say its name, or mine in the same breath, I will make sure you never see the forest again.”

I swallowed, barely daring to speak. “Who is it, Azran.”

His eyes darkened.

“My brother,” he said.

The word landed like a death sentence.

And before I could ask anything else, he turned away, leaving the answer hanging in the air like a blade waiting to fall.