Chapter 36:The Weight of Secrets
Fianna’s POV
The forest had always been my sanctuary.
It wasn’t just the silence, or the way the moonlight threaded through the branches—it was the feeling of belonging here, away from walls and voices that demanded too much of me.
The trees didn’t care about who I was.
They didn’t ask why I wore another name.
They didn’t whisper Fianna like it was both curse and crown.
And yet tonight, even the forest felt different.
The wind carried scents that didn’t belong: smoke, iron, and something sharp I couldn’t name. The leaves whispered like they knew a secret I hadn’t yet uncovered. My wolf prowled under my skin, restless, uneasy, her instincts pricking like thorns.
Still, I walked.
Each step deeper into the woods was supposed to calm me, but instead, the weight in my chest only grew heavier.
Kael.
His name echoed in me like a drumbeat I couldn’t silence. His eyes, that impossible shade that burned through my walls. His voice, low and steady, carrying truths I didn’t want to hear. The way he looked at me—as if he had already seen every scar I kept hidden and still refused to look away.
I hated him for it.
I hated myself more for the way a part of me wanted him to keep looking.
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A branch snapped behind me.
I froze, pulse spiking, hand slipping instinctively to the dagger beneath my cloak. My wolf surged forward, her teeth bared, demanding a fight.
Another step.
Deliberate. Unhurried.
“Careful,” a voice murmured.
My breath caught. I knew that voice.
From the shadows, Kael stepped forward, his form carved by moonlight, his presence swallowing the space between us. He didn’t move like someone caught sneaking—he moved like someone who owned the path, like he had been waiting for me all along.
“Still so quick to bare your claws,” he said, eyes glinting, a flicker of amusement in his tone. “But tell me, Fianna… will you cut me? Or yourself first?”
I didn’t lower the blade. My hand trembled, but not with fear. Rage. Defiance. Confusion.
“Stop following me,” I bit out.
Kael tilted his head slightly, studying me the way a predator studies prey. “If I stopped, would you really be safer? Or would you simply feel more alone?”
His words struck something deep, too deep, and for a heartbeat I couldn’t breathe. I forced myself to stand straighter, to mask the crack in my chest.
“You don’t know me,” I whispered. The words were supposed to sound firm, but they came out broken at the edges.
Kael stepped closer, slow and deliberate. Every inch closed between us made the air heavier, hotter. I could feel the warmth radiating from him before he was even within reach.
“I know you better than you want me to,” he said softly.
My wolf pressed forward, caught between bristling fury and something dangerously close to recognition. I shoved her down, clawing for control.
“You don’t get to speak my name,” I snapped, voice sharp as glass. “You don’t get to look at me like you already own the ending of my story.”
For the first time, Kael’s expression shifted. His jaw tightened, his smirk faltered—not with anger, but with something else. Something steadier. Patience. Resolve.
He leaned in just enough that his breath ghosted against my ear, and every hair on my body rose.
“Run from me if you want, Fianna,” he murmured, my real name slipping from his lips like a vow. “But even in the dark, I’ll find you.”
I shoved him back with more force than I meant to, my dagger flashing between us. Fury crackled in my veins, burning with something that wasn’t entirely hatred.
“You’re wrong,” I hissed. “You don’t know how dangerous it is to stand this close to me.”
His eyes glowed faintly in the dark, wolf bleeding through. His smirk returned, sharper now, but beneath it burned a heat I couldn’t name.
“Then prove it,” he challenged.
The forest went still around us, like the trees themselves leaned in to listen. My pulse thundered in my throat. My wolf clawed at me, not to fight him, but to answer him.
And that terrified me more than anything.
Then it came.
A howl.
Long, sharp, splitting the night wide open.
I froze, every nerve in me catching fire. My hand tightened on my dagger until my knuckles ached.
Kael’s gaze snapped toward the sound instantly, his entire body shifting, sharpening, becoming the predator his blood demanded him to be. His stance screamed danger, his wolf rising with lethal intent.
But my chest—my chest cracked o
pen.
Because I knew that howl.
Not his.
Not mine.
One of mine.
My past had found me.