The room felt smaller now, as if the air itself had thickened, pressing against Sienna's skin.
Kael stood too close, just far enough that she could pretend she wasn't affected by him, but close enough that she could feel the quiet power radiating from his body. The flickering fire behind him cast his features in shifting light and shadow, making him look both untouchable and dangerous.
Sienna clenched her hands beneath the blanket wrapped around her.
She needed to get out of here.
Now.
Her gaze flickered toward the door. The second man, the one with the scar still stood there, arms crossed over his chest like a human barricade. If she ran, he would catch her before she made it two steps.
She swallowed, turning back to Kael. His golden eyes watched her like a predator waiting for his prey to make a move.
"I don't need your protection," she said, forcing steel into her voice. "I can take care of myself."
Kael's lips twitched, as if amused. "That's why you were bleeding out in the woods?"
Sienna bristled. "I was outnumbered."
"You were outmatched," he corrected smoothly.
Her jaw tightened. "You don't even know me."
His expression didn't change. "Don't I?"
Something about the way he said it made her stomach twist.
She couldn't explain it, but there was an undeniable pull between them. It wasn't the mate bond, not the way she had imagined it anyway. She had always thought finding a mate would feel… different. Softer. A slow unraveling, not this sharp, suffocating force that made her feel like she was standing on the edge of a cliff.
She took a deep breath. "Why did you bring me here?"
Kael didn't answer immediately. He moved instead, circling the chair he had been sitting in, his movements measured. Controlled.
Then..
"You know what you are, don't you?"
Sienna stiffened.
His voice was calm, but there was something beneath it. Something unreadable.
She hesitated. "I'm a wolf."
Kael's gaze darkened. "You're more than that."
A chill ran through her.
Her father had never spoken of the whispers. Of the looks she had gotten from the elders. Of the way the pack's conversations had gone quiet when she entered a room.
But she had known.
She had always known.
She just didn't know why.
Sienna swallowed. "I don't know what you're talking about."
Kael exhaled slowly, like he was debating how much to tell her.
"Your birth was marked by prophecy," he said at last. "You were never meant to live past your first shift."
Her heart slammed against her ribs.
She opened her mouth to speak, to demand an explanation but the scarred man by the door cut in first.
"The rogues were hunting you for a reason," he said. His voice was gruff, edged with impatience. "They weren't just trying to kill you. They were trying to fulfill the prophecy."
Sienna's skin went cold.
Sacrifice.
The word had been whispered to her in the woods.
Her hands curled into fists. "Why?"
Kael's gaze flickered toward the other man. A silent command.
The scarred man sighed and turned toward the door, pulling it open. "If she's staying, she needs to know the truth."
Kael didn't respond, but something in his stance shifted.
Sienna tensed as the door swung open, revealing an older man standing just beyond it. His long gray coat hung over his broad shoulders, his expression grave.
The moment his eyes landed on her, something flickered behind them, recognition.
Sienna's pulse spiked.
Who was he?
The man stepped inside, his boots clicking softly against the wooden floor. His piercing gaze locked onto Kael's. "She doesn't know."
Kael didn't speak.
The older man sighed and turned to her. "Do you know what the Moonbound Curse is?"
Sienna shook her head slowly.
The man studied her for a moment, then said, "It's an ancient prophecy. One that speaks of a wolf born under the blood moon. A wolf destined to either bring balance to our kind… or destroy us all."
The air in the room shifted.
Sienna's breath caught in her throat.
"That's not.." She swallowed. "That can't be me."
The man's gaze softened, but he didn't look away.
Kael, however, was watching her carefully, his expression unreadable.
The weight of his silence was suffocating.
Sienna's mind raced, piecing things together.
The whispers. The stares. The rogues hunting her.
The way Kael had looked at her when he said she belonged to him.
She shook her head, stepping back. "No. I'm just a wolf."
Kael's voice was quiet when he spoke. "You're my wolf."
Her stomach twisted.
"I'm not yours."
His jaw tightened, but he didn't argue.
Instead, the older man sighed. "Whether you accept it or not, child, you were meant to die last night."
Sienna flinched.
The fire crackled, the only sound in the suffocating silence.
The truth pressed down on her, sharp and relentless.
She had never belonged to her pack. They had always known what she was. Always feared what she might become.
And now…
She looked at Kael.
At the man who had saved her. The man who claimed her as his own.
Her throat tightened.
"Am I a threat to you?" she asked quietly.
Kael's golden eyes burned into hers.
"No."
A pause.
"But you're a threat to everyone else."
Sienna's pulse pounded in her ears.
She had spent her whole life being ignored, pushed aside, treated as if she were nothing.
But now she wasn't nothing.
She was something.
Something worth hunting. Something worth killing.
And Kael… Kael was the only thing standing between her and death.
Her breath trembled as she spoke the words she had never thought she'd say.
"What happens now?"
Kael didn't hesitate.
"Now, you stay with me."