Kael did not interfere in Hunts.
That was the rule he had lived by since blood first crowned him Alpha of the Redmoon Pack. The Moonbound Hunt was sacred—brutal, yes, but necessary. Wolves learned who they were under pressure. Mercy had never built empires.
And yet.
He stood at the edge of the forest long after the clearing had emptied, the echo of silver light still burning behind his eyes.
Saphira of Silverlight.
The princess should have been forgettable. Soft. Another sheltered Alpha's child thrown into ritual for the sake of pride.
She was none of those things.
Kael had felt it the moment she ran.
Not fear—restraint.
Wolves hunted with instinct. She moved with intention. Every step measured. Every breath controlled. Not weak… contained.
That was what unsettled him.
Back at Redmoon territory, the pack sensed his distraction before he spoke. Alphas didn't need words; their wolves mirrored them. The restless pacing. The tension coiled beneath the skin.
One of his generals finally broke the silence.
"You protected Silverlight's princess," the wolf said carefully. "Their Alpha will see it as provocation."
Kael's jaw tightened.
"Alpha Roderick already sees my existence as provocation," he replied flatly.
He turned away, gaze lifting toward the moon cresting the trees. Its glow painted the scars across his back—old, deliberate, earned in wars the councils preferred to forget.
Roderick believed Kael had killed Elara.
The lie had outlived her.
Kael remembered Elara clearly.
Not as a victim.
But as a force.
Her hands glowing faintly as she healed warriors from both packs during a border skirmish long ago. The way she had looked at Kael—not with fear, but with warning.
"If they discover what you are," she had said softly, "they will either chain you… or make you a god."
He had never told anyone what she meant.
He had never told anyone how she died.
Kael's fingers curled slowly into a fist.
The girl—her daughter—carried that same stillness. That same hidden power humming beneath the surface.
A healer.
The realization hit him like a blow.
He had felt it when he stood near her. The unnatural calm of the forest. The way the air bent, listening. Healing magic was ancient. Rare. Dangerous in the wrong hands.
And Silverlight had no idea what they were sitting on.
Which meant Saphira was in more danger than she realized.
Kael had not saved her because she was a princess.
He had saved her because the Hunt would have exposed her.
And once exposed, the world would never let her live quietly again.
Later that night, Kael stood alone at the boundary stone between Redmoon and Silverlight lands—the invisible line soaked in generations of blood. He could feel it: the pull of destiny wolves pretended not to believe in.
The moon climbed higher.
"Find her," he murmured to the darkness—not as an order, but a vow.
Not to claim her.
Not to control her.
But to make sure the truth reached her before the lies destroyed her, the way they had destroyed Elara.
Far away, in Silverlight territory, Saphira dreamed of red eyes and silver light—and woke with her heart racing, her wolf stirring for the first time.
Two alphas.
One secret.
And a bond the moon had already begun to weave.