Chapter 3: The Border Incident
Kael moved like smoke through the woods, silent and fluid. The wind whispered through the trees above him, rustling leaves like murmured warnings. The scent hit him first—lavender tinged with embers, clinging to the underbrush like perfume and ash. His wolf senses sharpened immediately. This wasn't just lingering magic.
It was her.
She had been here.
Kael crouched low near a clearing, nostrils flaring as he inhaled the residual magic in the air. The fire had been recent—he could feel the lingering heat in the charred earth beneath his palms. A scorched tree root still crackled faintly, its blackened tip glowing with residual energy.
Not wildfire. Not natural. This was flame summoned by intention—power molded by emotion.
And that emotion was fear.
He shifted, bones cracking and reforming as he shed his wolf form, becoming man once more. Bare-chested and scarred, his breath steady despite the fury coiling in his gut. His long dark hair was damp with sweat, clinging to his forehead as he examined the clearing.
"Why here?" he murmured, more to the woods than himself.
He touched the bark of the burned tree, and a whisper met his ears—a hum like a voice, soft as silk.
"Kael..."
He froze, turning sharply, eyes glowing silver. The voice had no source, no origin.
But he had heard it.
His jaw tightened. His wolf stirred beneath his skin, pacing restlessly.
This wasn't a witch with ordinary power. She had touched something deeper—primal. Something forbidden.
His hand grazed the blackened ground again and found it: a rune etched in the dirt, still glowing faintly with magic. It pulsed beneath his fingertips. Not just any sigil—an ancient one. Older than the witch clans. Older than the war.
It was a teleportation rune, hastily carved, likely in panic. But the surrounding glyphs didn't match the common lexicon of witches.
They were elemental. Untamed.
"She's not just powerful," Kael muttered. "She's... untrained."
He stood slowly, rising to his full height, silver eyes scanning the trees. His pulse thrummed, not with fear, but anticipation.
Then, voices.
Soft. Feminine. Approaching from the west.
Kael stepped silently into the shadows, cloaking himself in the thrum of the woods.
Two witches entered the clearing. Young, probably apprentices, their dark robes too clean, their posture too rigid. They were nervous. The taller one glanced around with wide eyes, while the other knelt to inspect the rune Kael had just examined.
"She was here," said the first. "I told you I felt the surge."
"Virella's going to lose it," said the second. "Selene keeps using the magic. She's going to bring the wolves down on us."
Kael's breath hitched.
Selene.
A name. A name to match the fire.
"She can't help it," the first replied, softer now. "It's not just her fire... it's something else. Something deeper."
The second witch stood. "She's marked. You know that, right? The crescent appeared during her last trial. That's why Virella hides her."
"Moon-marked," the first whispered. "But that means—"
Kael was already gone.
He moved like a shadow, a phantom through the trees. His heart pounded louder than his footfalls. The moon-marked. The one with lavender and fire. The one from his dreams.
Selene.
Everything in him shifted. War no longer felt like the priority. This wasn't just a powerful witch.
This was fate.
And fate had a name.
He raced back to his territory, wind whistling past his ears, and something inside him—something ancient—howled with longing.
He didn't know where she was, but he would find her.
Not to destroy her.
To protect her.
To know her.
To make her his.
Because Kael finally understood something the Moon Goddess had tried to show him all along:
This war would not be ended by teeth or fire.
It would end with them.
Together.