Chapter 5 Elara's POV

Not the scroll, not a message, not even the necklace.

Me!!!

Kael didn't ask questions.

He didn't demand explanations or hesitate like I half expected him to. He just grabbed my arm and pulled me straight through the gate into the stone hall. His pace was clipped.

Not loud, not unhinged,

But deadly.

Lena followed close behind, giving orders into the comm in her palm as she ran.

"Full lockdown. South wing, seal it. Rotate patrols to the eastern hallways. Tell Vane to prep the holding cells."

Holding cells.

I stopped moving.

Kael didn't.

"Kael," I snapped, yanking my arm from his hand. "Are you taking me in?"

He finally turned.

"No," he said. "I'm keeping you alive."

"By locking me up?"

"By hiding you where they won't look."

His jaw was tight. His eyes didn't move from mine.

"You're not being arrested, Elara," he said. "But someone gave the East your scent. They didn't break in to negotiate."

I blinked once. Then twice.

"My scent?"

Kael nodded. "I caught it on one of the scouts. Your old coat. The one you left in the southern barracks."

"I haven't worn that coat in a month."

"Exactly. They've had it. They planned this."

The coat, The necklace, The scroll.

All pieces, All bait.

I felt my stomach tighten as something clicked into place. A memory.

The lavender.

Maren.

The way she looked at me like I was already dead the second I stepped into the compound.

"She's framing me," I whispered.

Kael's voice was hard. "No. She's feeding them your name so she doesn't have to kill you herself."

He looked at Lena. "You know the hidden cell in the wine vault?"

She nodded. "Yes. It's off-grid."

"Take her. Stay with her. Don't open the door for anyone except me."

Lena didn't argue.

She just reached for my wrist and started pulling.

But I didn't move.

I stared at Kael instead.

"You're not coming?"

"I'm going to find Maren."

The vault was colder than I remembered.

It used to hold the finest wine in Blackthorn before the war, and now it was nothing but racks of dust and darkness. Lena unlocked a panel behind the oldest shelf, revealing a small room with no windows and reinforced steel walls.

She stepped inside with me, locked the door, and leaned against it like it would fall down if she didn't hold it.

"You okay?" she asked after a long silence.

"No."

She didn't push.

Didn't talk.

She just sat with me on the cold floor, shoulder to shoulder, like she used to when we were girls and the world outside was too loud.

I felt something tighten in my chest.

It wasn't fear or guilt,it was something else.

Like the beginning of hate.

Because this wasn't some random scout mission gone wrong.

This was deliberate.

And if someone inside our walls had orchestrated it, then I wasn't just a target. I was a threat.

They feared me.

And if that was true...

Then maybe it was time I gave them a reason.

It took Kael less than an hour.

He came back without blood on him - which surprised me - but his expression was darker than when he left.

He dismissed Lena with a nod and didn't speak until we were alone.

Then he said, "Maren's gone."

"Gone where?"

"Packed her bags and left before sunrise. No note. No explanation. Her staff is missing too. Her quarters were stripped. She ran."

I leaned back against the wall, staring at the floor.

"She knew we were closing in."

Kael nodded.

"And the Council?"

"Half of them believe she's innocent. Say there's no proof."

"Of course they do."

He didn't argue.

Just crouched in front of me.

"Elara."

I looked up.

"I need to ask you something. And I need the truth."

I nodded once.

His eyes didn't blink.

"Why did you bury the pendant?"

I felt a small lump in my throat.

He waited.

So I told him.

"It was Orin's. After the raid, I found it in the rubble of our home. I thought maybe-just maybe-it meant he'd survived. But no one could find him. Nobody, no scent, nothing."

I swallowed.

"I wore it until it made me sick. Then I buried it because I couldn't carry the weight anymore."

Kael's voice was quiet. "Did you ever believe he was alive?"

"Every day for two years."

"And now?"

I shook my head slowly. "Now I think someone else has his body or worse, his name."

Kael stood.

He didn't offer me a hand.

Didn't touch me.

But he stood closer than he needed to, and he looked at me like I wasn't just a soldier in his pack.

Like I was something he didn't quite know how to handle.

"We're going to find out who helped her," he said. "And when we do, I'm going to burn this whole lie to the ground."

"With me?"

He nodded.

"With you."

By nightfall, four more scouts had been caught on our land.

All dead before they could speak.

One carried a map. Hand-drawn. It showed the vault. My vault.

Whoever had sent them, they didn't want to scare me.

They wanted to drag me out in chains.

Kael called an emergency meeting of the remaining Council members. Lena and I stood off to the side while Kael paced in front of the fireplace.

"You all swore loyalty to this land," he said coldly. "But someone has made a deal behind our backs."

Silence.

Kael held up the map.

"This was found on a dead scout tonight. Tell me -who gave away the location of one of our oldest war bunkers?"

Still silence.

Then Councilman Doran cleared his throat. "You're saying one of us is a traitor?"

Kael stared at him down. "I'm saying this map didn't draw itself."

Doran bristled. "You have no proof it came from this room."

Kael stepped forward.

"You're right. I don't. Not yet."

He turned slowly, letting his eyes sweep across every face.

"But the next one of you who tries to move against my pack - or against Elara - will not get the courtesy of a trial."

Gasps.

Then muttering.

But no one challenged him, not openly.

He dismissed them with a nod. As they filed out, I caught Councilman Doran glaring at me just a little too long.

I didn't forget it.

Neither did Kael.

That night, he didn't send me back to the vault.

He kept me in the war room. Said it was safer.

We didn't talk much.

Just stared at maps and shifted the pieces on the board, looking for patterns, for motives, for any sign of what was coming next.

Sometime around two in the morning, I leaned back in the chair and let out a breath.

"I hate this."

Kael didn't look up. "I know."

"Not just the betrayal. I hate that I don't know who to trust anymore."

He was quiet for a long time.

Then he said, "You can trust me."

I looked at him.

Really looked.

And for the first time since I'd come back to Blackthorn, I believed it.

Not because I wanted to.

But because I had to.

Because if we didn't trust each other - really trust - then we were going to lose more than just a seat at the table.

We were going to lose the entire war.

I leaned forward, elbows on the table.

"What happens if they come again?"

He didn't hesitate.

"Then I stop being the Alpha they're used to."

At dawn, we got word.

The East wasn't done.

They'd crossed the border again - this time further north. Past our farthest outposts.

They were coming.

But they weren't coming for the vault or the Council.

They were coming for me.

We suited up.

Kael ordered Lena to guard the North Pass. Vane took the eastern flank.

I stayed beside Kael, flanked by two wolves I barely knew.

He didn't say much as we rode out, but I could feel the heat rolling off him.

Anger, restraint, purpose.

He pulled up short at the ridge before the forest thinned.

Then he looked at me.

"You still think you're the one being hunted?" he asked.

I frowned. "Aren't I?"

Kael stared out into the trees.

Then, in a voice like steel, he said-

"No. Not anymore."

Because that's when we saw them.

Not just a few scouts this time.

A full war party.

Armed, moving very fast.

But behind them, far in the shadows, stood someone I hadn't seen in four years.

He was taller now.

Thinner.

Scar on his cheek.

And around his neck?

The real pendant.

Orin.

He was Alive.

Or not.

Because the look in his eyes?

That wasn't my brother anymore