She saw it.
All of it.
The shame I buried beneath fur and fangs. The moment my life ended and began again—branded, cursed, exiled like a rabid beast. My soul laid bare in that dream-walk the forest forced her through. And still…
She touched me.
She didn't run.
She whispered to me. "I saw you, i saw what they did to you."
A boy forced into a beast."
Those words.
They burned more than silver ever could.
I lifted my head slightly from the moss-covered earth and turned toward her. Sophie. The girl whose life I had nearly destroyed before I even knew her name. The girl who cried over her dead parents on a rain-slicked road while I hid behind trees—watching, trembling, unable to move.
The guilt twisted in my gut again. I never forgot her face that day.
So small. So broken. So familiar because i do see her at windhollow, without letting people see me. Mostly when she and some of her friends i guess, do go to for herb gardening.
Even now, years later, fate dragged us back to each other like two magnets caught in a cruel loop.
"You were the curse," I once told myself.
But maybe… maybe you were the cure.
The forest stirred uneasily. The leaves whispered like they could read my mind. Ever since she entered this cursed land, it had started changing. Its shadows flickered in strange patterns. Its ghosts whispered louder. The dead stirred in their roots.
My presence once terrified this place.
But now her presence unnerves it.
Together, we unbalanced its ancient laws.
Even the spirits are watching us now.
She had fallen asleep again, her head resting lightly on a rolled blanket, one hand clutching the blade the silver-eyed man gave her. She didn't know yet—how that weapon was crafted from the same moonstone my people used to bind wolves to the oath of the pack. Nor did she realize it was humming every time she touched me.
That sword was meant for me.
But she didn't wield it like an enemy.
She held it like a confused protector.
Fates are cruel like that.
I lowered my head near her side. Close… but not too close. Her warmth made me forget the cold that had ruled my exile.
And I began to remember—
The night the Alpha banished me.
The look in his eyes when he realized I couldn't control the shift yet. That I was too powerful, too wild, and too tied. The girl whose face destiny and mine hunted me before I even met her.
"You will not return," he said. "Not until she forgives you.
Not until the forest itself bends to your soul."
I didn't understand what he meant back then.
But now, watching Sophie sleep beneath the star-lit branches of this cursed jungle, I do.
She is the key.
To my redemption. To my return. To… everything.
But how can I ask forgiveness for a sin I solemnly committed?
How do I confess that the monster who killed her parents might have been me?
Even if I didn't intend it.
Even if I wasn't in control.
Would she still look at me the same?
Or would she take that blade and finish what her grief started?
The wind shifted.
I stood slowly, hackles raised.
Something's coming.
No.
Someone.
Another test.
The crow returned again — but it wasn't alone.
This time, a robed figure walked behind it. Tall. Hooded. Carrying a staff made from bones and wild vines.
Not a spirit.
Not a wolf.
A forest druid.
One of the ancient guardians. Forgotten by most. Feared by all.
I snarled low under my breath.
They only come when a destiny is about to unfold.
And they don't like interference.
Especially not from cursed wolves… or broken girls with blades they shouldn't carry.
I glanced back at Sophie, still sleeping. A leaf had fallen on her cheek. She mumbled something in her dream. My name?
Kael.
The way she said it…
It didn't sound like fear.
It sounded like hope.
I turned back toward the druid.
If he lays a single hand on her, I'll burn this forest to the roots.
She's mine to protect.
Even if she never chooses me.