The pack returned to its routines.
Or at least, it pretended to.
Training resumed. Patrols doubled. Meetings stretched long into the night. Wolves spoke in lowered voices, as if saying things too loudly might make the coming war arrive faster.
But for Aria, nothing felt normal anymore.
She moved through the days like someone walking through water — every step slower than it should be, every thought heavier.
The bond hadn't faded.
If anything, the distance had made it sharper.
She felt him in strange moments.
When the wind shifted direction.
When the moon rose.
When she woke suddenly before dawn with her heart racing for no clear reason.
It was like a quiet ache she couldn't escape.
She sat now on the wooden steps behind the pack house, watching younger wolves train in the fading afternoon light. Their laughter carried across the clearing, bright and careless.
She wondered when she had last felt that way.
"You're distracted."
Her father's voice came from beside her.
Aria straightened automatically.
"I'm fine," she said.
Alpha Kingston studied her for a long moment. His expression was not unkind — but it was firm. Unyielding.
"You are my heir," he said.
"You cannot afford to be ruled by emotions."
She wanted to argue.
Wanted to say that this wasn't just emotion. That the bond felt like something written into her bones.
But she had spent her whole life learning when silence was safer.
"The Blackwells are mobilizing," he continued.
"Our scouts report increased movement near the northern border."
A chill ran through her.
"Do you think they're preparing for war?"
"I think," her father replied carefully,
"that centuries of hatred don't disappear because the Moon Goddess makes a mistake."
The words stung more than she expected.
Mistake.
Was that what she was now?
What they were?
Aria watched a young she-wolf stumble during training and burst into embarrassed laughter. Something tightened painfully in her chest.
"I tried," she said quietly.
"To reject him."
"I know."
The simple acknowledgment surprised her.
Alpha Kingston rarely admitted uncertainty.
"For now," he went on,
"distance is our strongest weapon. Bonds weaken without contact."
Aria nodded.
But deep down… she wasn't convinced.
Because every night, when she closed her eyes, she could still feel Kael.
Still see the way he had looked at her before he left.
Still hear the words he hadn't been able to say.
Later that evening, as she walked alone along the edge of the forest, the moon rose full and bright above the trees.
A sudden wave of emotion hit her so strongly she had to stop.
Not her emotion.
His.
Rage.
Frustration.
Something dangerously close to grief.
The realization stole her breath.
The bond wasn't fading.
It was evolving.
And somewhere far beyond Kingston territory, Kael Blackwell was feeling it too.