Chapter 2 2.

The cold was no longer an enemy; it was a shroud. As Elara moved deeper into the Forbidden Wastes, the wind transitioned from a biting gale to a rhythmic pulse that seemed to sync with her own slowing heartbeat. The Silver Moon territory was a smudge of grey on the horizon, a cage she had finally escaped, even if the price of her freedom was her life. Her thin tunic was soaked through, clinging to her skin like a second, freezing layer of ice, yet the agonizing fire in her chest-the remnant of Kaelen's rejection-burned hotter than any fever.

​She stumbled over a protruding root, falling face-first into a drift of waist-deep snow. For a moment, she didn't try to get up. The silence of the forest was absolute, a mirror to her own internal world. This was where she was meant to end. A defect, a mute, a wolf-less girl dying in the shadows of the pines. It was a poetic conclusion to a life spent in the peripheral vision of others.

​Get up.

The voice was louder now, vibrating in her skull. It wasn't the soft, maternal whisper of the Moon Goddess. It was sharp, jagged, and carried the weight of a thousand years of resentment.

​They stole your voice, Elara. They stole your birthright. Will you let them take your breath, too?

​Elara pushed her palms into the snow. As she did, a strange silver light pulsed beneath her skin, faint but unmistakable. Where her fingers sank into the white powder, the snow didn't just compact; it vaporized, leaving behind small, scorched circles of earth. She forced herself to her feet, her breath coming in ragged, visible plumes.

​The forest changed as she crossed the invisible border into the Rogue King's domain. The trees here were different-massive, twisted black oaks that seemed to watch her pass. The air grew heavy with the scent of ozone and ancient earth. It was a place of power, unrefined and lawless.

A low growl vibrated through the trees, stopping her in her tracks.

From the shadows emerged three wolves. They weren't the sleek, well-groomed guards of the Silver Moon. These were monsters. Their fur was matted with old blood and dirt, their eyes glowing with a feral, crimson light that spoke of madness and the long-term loss of their human halves. Rogues. The true scavengers of the wastes.

The largest of the three, a mangy grey beast with a scarred muzzle, stepped forward. He didn't see a fated mate or a Pureblood heir. He saw a meal. He saw a weak, rejected girl who smelled of Silver Moon's scent and fresh heartbreak.

Elara backed away, her heel catching on a stone. She wanted to scream, to find the voice she had kept locked away since she was eight years old, but the muscles in her throat remained frozen. The grey wolf lunged, his jaws snapping inches from her throat. She threw her hands up instinctively to protect her face.

A shockwave of pure, white energy exploded from her palms.

The blast sent the grey wolf flying backward, his body slamming into a black oak with a sickening crack. The other two wolves yelped, skidding to a halt, their predatory instincts suddenly eclipsed by a primal fear. Elara stared at her hands. They were glowing with a terrifying, ethereal radiance. The "defect" was gone. Something else was taking its place.

The remaining rogues recovered, their hunger outweighing their caution. They crouched, preparing to spring from both sides, pinning her in a pincer movement. Elara closed her eyes, waiting for the impact.

​It never came.

​Instead, a sound ripped through the forest-a howl so deep and resonant that it felt like the earth itself was screaming. It wasn't just a sound; it was a physical force that knocked the wind from the rogues' lungs. The two wolves immediately dropped to their bellies, their tails tucked between their legs, whimpering in absolute submission.

A massive shadow detached itself from the darkness of the trees.

He didn't shift into a wolf. He didn't need to. Caspian, the Rogue King, walked into the clearing on two legs, looking every bit the nightmare the packs warned their pups about. He was towering, his broad shoulders draped in the heavy pelt of a prehistoric bear. His hair was as black as the midnight sky, falling over a face that was a masterpiece of harsh angles and jagged scars. But it was his eyes that held Elara captive-they were a piercing, molten gold, swirling with a power that felt like a localized thunderstorm.

Caspian didn't spare a glance for the rogues. He walked toward Elara, his heavy boots crunching in the snow. Each step he took radiated an aura of such intense dominance that Elara found herself falling to her knees, not out of weakness, but because the very air demanded it.

The rogues tried to flee. With a flick of his wrist, Caspian didn't even look at them. A wall of shadows erupted from the ground, lashing out like whips and pinning the wolves to the trees.

"You hunt in my woods," Caspian's voice was a low, gravelly baritone that vibrated in Elara's very bones. "And you hunt something that does not belong to you."

He stopped a few feet away from her. The scent of him hit her then-rain, iron, and a dark, intoxicating musk that made her inner soul stir for the first time in eighteen years. The thread that Kaelen had severed was nothing compared to the tether that suddenly slammed into place between her and the man standing before her. This wasn't a mate bond. This was something older. Something darker.

Caspian knelt in the snow, bringing himself level with her. He reached out a gloved hand, his fingers hovering just inches from her cheek. He was looking at her not as a broken girl, but as a long-lost treasure.

​"The Mute of Silver Moon," he whispered, his eyes searching hers. "They told me you were a defect. They told me you were nothing."

He touched her skin. At the contact, a jolt of electricity surged through Elara. The silver glow in her veins flared bright, illuminating the dark woods. Caspian's eyes widened, a smirk playing on his lips-a dangerous, predatory expression that wasn't directed at her, but at the world that had cast her out.

​"They threw away a sun because they were afraid of the light," he murmured.

​Elara looked at him, her lips trembling. She tried to form a word, any word, to thank him or to ask who he was.

​Caspian placed a thumb over her lips, silencing the struggle. "Don't. You don't need to speak for me, Elara. I have spent a century listening to your silence. I know exactly what you want to say."

He stood up, offering her his hand. It wasn't a command. It was an invitation.

​"Kaelen thinks he rejected you. He thinks he left you to die in the cold." Caspian's voice turned lethal, his gaze shifting toward the direction of the Silver Moon pack. "He didn't reject a mate. He rejected a goddess. And I am going to make him watch as I crown you in the ashes of everything he loves."

Elara reached out, her small, pale hand disappearing into his large, scarred palm. As he pulled her up, the shadows that had been pinning the rogues suddenly dissipated, and the wolves fled into the night, howling in terror.

​Caspian pulled her close, his arm wrapping around her waist to support her. The warmth radiating from him was more than just body heat; it was the warmth of a hearth in the middle of a blizzard. For the first time in her life, Elara didn't feel like an outsider. She didn't feel like a mistake.

​"Come," Caspian said, turning her toward the heart of the mountains where a fortress of black stone rose against the moon. "We have much to do. Your wolf is screaming to be let out, and I have a kingdom that has been waiting for its Queen."

As they walked together into the dark, Elara felt a strange sensation in her throat. The seal was cracking. The silence was beginning to itch. She looked up at the Rogue King, the man who had claimed what an Alpha had thrown away, and she knew that when she finally did speak, the world would tremble at the sound.