Chapter 69 THE WOLF WHO LOST HER
KAEL'S POV:
The moon looks wrong tonight.
Too sharp.
Too bright.
Too close.
It hangs over the SilverMist border like a blade pressed against the throat of the sky, gleaming with a coldness that sinks into my bones. I stare up at it, breath fogging in the frigid night air. My wolf paces inside me, restless, agitated, slamming against the walls of my mind with a desperation I’ve never felt from him.
He’s been like this since yesterday.
Since the moment I felt it, the faint tug on the mate bond I thought I severed.
The bond I broke with my own hands.
My pride.
My fear.
My unforgivable mistake.
It’s barely there now. It's thin as a spider’s thread, trembling like something trying to cling to life. But it exists. It breathes. It pulls.
And it is enough to tear something open inside me.
“Selene,” I whisper.
Her name tastes like guilt.
Like regret.
Like blood.
The wind shifts, bringing the sharp scent of pine, cold stone, and faint wolf musk from the perimeter scouts. My Beta approaches from behind, footsteps cautious, as though afraid that any sudden movement might shatter me.
“Alpha... Alpha! Tge scouts report strange lights in the Shadow Woods.” He clears his throat. “Some think it’s magic. Others think it's–”
“Her,” I say.
He hesitates. “Do you want us to approach—”
“No.”
A beat of stunned silence.
“No one goes near that place.”
“Then what do we do?”
What do we do?
When the woman I cast aside, the Luna chosen for me by the Moon Goddess herself is somewhere inside that cursed forest? Alone. Afraid. Changing. Suffering.
What do we do when the bond I shredded now tries to stitch itself back together on its own, humming with a foreign energy that terrifies me?
My wolf snarls, clawing at my ribs.
Mate. Hurt. Ours.
“No,” I growl under my breath. “I rejected her.”
My wolf snaps at me, his voice a visceral snarl through the link.
We were WRONG.
I grit my teeth so hard my jaw cracks. I can’t show weakness. Definitely not here, not in front of my men who believe I am steel, unbreakable, unmoved.
But Selene…
Selene always saw straight through me.
I step forward and grip the border marker until my knuckles turn bone-white. The cold metal digs into my palms, grounding me in a reality I no longer trust.
A flash of silver erupts somewhere deep within the Shadow Woods.
My breath stops.
Another surge follows brighter and wilder. The surge is so powerful the ground trembles beneath my feet. The wolves stationed along the border lift their heads in unison, howls rising in a chorus of fear and confusion that pierces the night.
My heart slams against my ribs.
The bond pulses again. It is weak this time around but undeniable. It drags my lungs tight.
“Selene…” I breathe. “What are you doing?”
A vision slams into me without warning.
Silver light.
Her scream—raw, torn from her lungs.
Her body lifted off the ground in a storm of Moonfire.
Her hair snapping like silver flames.
The forest bowing around her as if recognizing a queen or a monster.
Pain ricochets through me.
I stagger, dropping to my knees.
My Beta rushes to me, reaching out, but I shove him back with a snarl.
“She’s changing,” I rasp. “She’s becoming something.”
“Alpha, you’re shaking—”
“Silence!”
I press a hand over my heart, right where the bond throbs like a bruise. It feels too big, too fast, too alive. As though it’s trying to escape my chest and chase her into the darkness.
I rejected her.
I threw her aside.
I told myself she was weak because I couldn’t bear looking at the weakness in myself.
I let her suffer because I didn’t want to face what loving her meant.
And now—
And now the forest blazes again with blinding silver.
This time the light does not flare—it expands. It ripples outward like a shockwave, bending the trees, warping shadows, splitting the night open.
I feel her agony.
Her fear.
Her surrender.
And the moment her scream fractures the air—
a sound only the mate bond lets me hear—
I break.
“Selene…” The name rips out of me in a choked gasp. “Selene!”
My wolf howls—a broken, wounded roar that vibrates through my entire body.
We come. We come NOW. MOVE!
I stagger to my feet, fueled by something raw and primal. I take a step toward the forest—
My Beta grabs my arm again. “Alpha, don’t. The woods—”
I snarl, more beast than man. He stumbles backward, eyes wide with shock.
“Nothing in this world,” I growl, voice shaking with rage and terror, “will keep me from reaching her.”
The moon pulses overhead—slow, eerie—casting long, trembling beams across the ground. The trees shiver like they fear what approaches. The air thickens, every breath scraping like shards of cold glass.
The bond pulses again.
Stronger.
Clearer.
Needier.
And then—
I feel her.
Not her pain.
Not her scream.
Something else.
A power awakening.
An identity shifting.
A destiny unraveling.
I gasp sharply.
“She’s not just changing,” I whisper. “She’s becoming something impossible.”
Garron’s voice cracks. “What does that mean?”
“It means…” I swallow hard, heart hammering, “the Moonfire didn’t kill her.”
I stare into the forest—into the ancient dark where she vanished, where I let her vanish—and feel something inside me split.
“She’s becoming the thing the Moon Goddess feared,” I say quietly. “And the thing she might have been waiting for.”
A tremor rolls through the earth. Mist curls around my ankles like ghostly fingers. The trees sway, pointing inward, as though gesturing—inviting—warning.
I take another step.
“I still love her,” I admit, the words leaving me like a confession, like a wound. “I never stopped.”
My wolf presses against me, grief and longing woven together.
Ours. GO.
I inhale sharply, tasting cold, ancient air.
And then, I step into the forest.
The shadows close instantly around me, swallowing sound, warmth, and light.
And everything else disappears.