Chapter 5 Chapitre 5

*The Broken Alpha* – Pain is never a burden one can bear alone. It seeps into every fold of the soul, until the heart becomes as broken as the bones of a beaten wolf.

Kael wasn't a man of words. He wasn't one to open up, expose his weaknesses, or confide. And yet, that night, something irreversible happened. Maybe it was Raven's proximity, her silent, persistent aura. Maybe Kael, beneath his airs of a fallen Alpha, couldn't bear to be silent any longer.

They were in the common room, a dark room lit only by the flickering glow of the fire. The other wolves in the pack were all busy, each immersed in their own concerns. But there was a palpable tension between Kael and Raven, a quivering of the air, as if everything would shatter under the pressure of the inevitable.

He looked at her, a strange glint in his eyes, as if he had made an inner decision. The words that were to follow were heavy, ready to explode, but he had hidden them for too long.

"You want to know why I'm here? Why I'm like this?" he asked, his voice hard but broken, as if just saying the words was tearing him apart.

Raven, frozen, crossed her arms over her chest, mentally preparing herself for what he was going to say. She had seen the scars in his soul, the cracks hidden beneath his cold and distant gestures. But she had never imagined that this past so dark, so tortured, would be the one that made him the Alpha he was today.

He turned his gaze to the window, his expression inscrutable. "I had a pack. A real one. Before all this." His gaze hardened. "A group of loyal, strong wolves. They were my family. Then... everything changed." He lowered his head, fists clenched against his thighs. "I lost everything I had. My pack, my power, everything I had built. And it was my fault."

Raven looked at him wordlessly, the weight of her words filling the space between them. She waited, knowing he wouldn't say more if she didn't encourage him.

"The traitors..." he finally whispered. "The traitors infiltrated. They manipulated my pack members, sowed dissension, lies. I didn't see it coming." He paused, as if the mere memory of the betrayal made him falter. "They killed my brother. Then they banished me." He breathed. "A fallen Alpha, with no pack, no power. Just a man, with nothing."

The words he had just spoken collided violently with the walls of the room. Kael had been broken long before he was a fallen Alpha. But he was also a survivor. And that past, that burden, marked him in the same way that the scars left by war had.

Raven, as she listened, felt her own burden grow. She understood better now. Kael's coldness, his aloofness, was not simply the result of a brutal nature. It was fear, the fear of losing herself again, of loving and losing, of being betrayed once again.

"How did you survive?" she asked softly, almost in a whisper, as if her words might shatter the fragile balance between them.

He turned to her slowly, his dark eyes shining with a rare intensity. "I had to rebuild myself, surround myself with those who were willing to fight alongside me." A bitter smile played on his lips. "And I had to abandon everything I was."

Kael's words resonated in Raven's mind, striking a chord. She too had lost a lot, just like him. But she hadn't discovered it all yet. Not understood it all yet.

As she lost herself in her thoughts, the world around her seemed to fade. The shadow of betrayal loomed closer and closer. She had fled her pack, left behind her life, her dreams. And now, here she was, in this foreign world, a world where war seemed inevitable. But Kael wasn't her only secret. There were others. Secrets that would soon catch up with her.

The next night, while she was in the infirmary preparing a remedy, a figure slipped stealthily inside. She looked up and recognition struck like lightning. A wolf from her rival's pack.

"What are you doing here?" she asked in a tense voice, her fingers clenching the herbs she was preparing.

The scout looked at her without a word, his gaze shifting. Then he spoke, his voice almost inaudible. "They know where you are." His eyes shone with palpable fear. "They're close."

Raven's blood ran cold in her veins. Future Luna wasn't wasting any time. And this time, things would be different. This time, she knew Raven wouldn't be able to escape so easily.

Raven jumped to her feet, her heart pounding in her chest. But before she could say anything, the scout turned abruptly, disappearing into the shadows of the forest. Only one word crossed Raven's mind: run.

But she barely had time to think about her escape before the door burst open. Kael entered, his face impassive, but the tension in his body betrayed his worry. He didn't need to ask questions. He knew.

"They're coming for you." His words were sharp as blades. "And I won't let them take you."

Images from her past rushed through Raven's mind. The mysterious Alphas. The ones she'd met under the Blood Moon. The ones who still hunted her, the ones whose faces lurked in the shadows. They hadn't come simply to find her. They'd come to possess her.

But the truth, the most perverse, the most inexplicable, was that Kael seemed involved too. There was something between them, a connection she couldn't explain, an invisible force that pushed her to get closer to him, to seek the truth in his arms. A truth she wasn't ready to accept.

Kael looked at her, his eyes sharpening, more intense. "You're not alone in this." His words, heavy with meaning, finally hit home with a force she couldn't ignore. "Those who hunt you... they're part of my past."