Chapter 3 ECHOES OF THE PAST

Chapter 3 – Echoes of the Past

The wind was cold, biting. Yet she stood unmoving, staring at the headstone like it might whisper back to her if she waited long enough.

Elara James had known loss long before she knew love. She'd been just ten when her mother vanished into the woods outside Greyhollow, never to return. The town claimed wolves, but Elara had always felt something deeper had taken her. That loss shaped her - a quiet, observant soul with a fire that rarely burned on the surface, but scorched when it did.

Now 22, Elara worked as an intern journalist at The Greyhollow Chronicle. She was persistent, curious - too curious, her aunt always said. The kind of curious that drew her into forbidden stories about the woods and the secrets buried beneath the moonlight.

That night, after placing fresh flowers on her mother's grave, she returned to her small apartment on the edge of town, unaware that fate had already placed her name in the hands of creatures older than time.

**

On the other side of Greyhollow's dense pines, in the shadows of Mount Yvaren, Lucien Draven paced the cold stone of the hidden den. His black cloak whipped with each step, as if it too shared his rage.

"Two centuries," he growled, his voice a sharp echo in the silent chamber. "Two centuries, and still no trace of him."

He turned sharply toward Mira, his second-in-command, a slender werewolf with pale eyes that never blinked long enough to betray emotion.

"We've searched every settlement from Ashmoor to Ravenhill," she said calmly. "If he's hiding, he's doing it well."

Lucien's jaw clenched. His silver-tipped claw flexed at his side, and he looked into the fire pit, seeing not flames - but his father's body, torn and lifeless from that cursed moon switch.

"He wore no crest," Lucien muttered. "No pack. Just rage. Just... confusion." His amber eyes flicked up. "That wolf wasn't here by choice."

**

In the human world, that wolf was now known as Kael.

The once-proud warrior from the werewolf planet Lunaris now lived quietly among humans. He'd taken on the role of a remote IT contractor, a perfect cover that kept him away from crowds, away from suspicion.

Kael had learned to suppress his wolf, to adapt - painfully. In Greyhollow, he was known as "Mr. Vale," the reclusive software developer. But in the dead of night, when the moon tugged on his soul, he would vanish into the woods, alone, his howls lost in the wind.

He knew what he had done - unintentionally, yes - but the blood of an Alpha was still on his hands.

"Stay hidden. Stay quiet. Don't love," he whispered to himself every morning. It had worked for years. Until now.

**

Koran, Lucien's scout, crouched on the edge of town, amber eyes narrowing as he watched Kael from afar. Koran was loyal - not out of love, but out of blood debt. Lucien had saved him from a rogue pack war in the Barrens of Vorn. Now he served, but he questioned.

"That man," he whispered to himself, "he moves like a ghost, but there's power there. Old power."

Beside him stood Thorne, a younger, more aggressive wolf with scars down his neck - marks from battles he barely survived.

"If he's the one," Thorne grinned, "I say we drag him back to Lucien. Let him taste regret."

Koran didn't reply. Something about Kael unsettled him. He'd seen eyes like that before - in elders. Wolves who had seen too many wars.

**

Meanwhile, Elara had just uncovered a strange journal in her late father's attic. Dusty, wrapped in aged leather, and bound with a claw-shaped clasp. Inside were tales of moon rituals, werewolves, and something called The Moon Reversal.

Her breath caught as she turned a page.

"Once every two hundred years, the moons of Earth and Lunaris align and swap spiritual influence. With that, comes chaos - or destiny."

"What the hell is this?" she whispered.

The final page was unfinished, but the last line read:

"When the displaced one meets the heart of Earth, balance may return - or war shall rise."

A knock snapped her from the journal. She opened her door.

Kael stood there, soaked from the rain, holding out a USB stick.

"Package from the network," he said, a slight smile. He'd offered to fix her aunt's internet earlier that week.

Elara narrowed her eyes. "You're... Vale, right?"

"Kael Vale," he nodded.

Their hands brushed briefly.

And something ancient stirred between them.

**

Back in the den, Lucien gazed into the flames.

"Prepare them all," he ordered Mira. "Koran. Thorne. The Blood Fang twins. We march at the next full moon."

Mira tilted her head. "You believe he's still here?"

Lucien's eyes burned. "I feel him. Like poison in my veins. He's here. And he's not alone."

-

Mira remained silent for a moment, studying her Alpha's face. The firelight cast shifting shadows across his sharp features, making him look even more beast than man. His scars-old and earned-seemed to pulse in the light, reminders of the night everything changed.

Outside, the wind howled. The night carried with it a scent - faint, almost forgotten - but it stirred something primal in Lucien. He stepped away from the flames and approached the stone wall that overlooked the valley below. Greyhollow, the human town, blinked in the distance, lit with soft yellow glows and quiet streets.

"They don't even know what lives beneath them," he said quietly.

"No," Mira replied. "But they will. If war comes again, they'll feel it. Just like before."

Lucien's gaze lingered on the horizon. "This time, we don't wait for a rift. We control it."

He turned to Mira, his voice colder than the mountain air. "Send word to the Blood Fang twins. I want the old magic reawakened. If he's here... we'll need more than strength. We'll need the forgotten arts."

Mira's eyes widened, just slightly. "You'd risk summoning the Veiled?"

"If it means dragging him from the hole he's hiding in," Lucien growled, "yes."

Down in the forest, Koran and Thorne watched as Kael turned away from Elara's apartment and disappeared into the trees, his coat flapping behind him like a shadow fading into the wind.

"He's no ordinary wolf," Koran whispered, more to himself than to Thorne. "There's something broken in him. But also... something ancient."

Thorne cracked his knuckles and smirked. "Doesn't matter. Broken or ancient, he'll bleed the same."

Behind them, two more figures emerged - twin werewolves with matching red tattoos down their arms and glowing yellow irises that shimmered in the dark. The Blood Fang twins, recently called out of exile.

"You've been watching a ghost," one of them said, voice like gravel and ice.

The other added, "And ghosts always come with stories to burn."

Meanwhile, inside Elara's apartment, the journal still lay open on her bed. The ink shimmered faintly under the moonlight spilling through her window. Her fingers hovered over the final line again, rereading it.

"...balance may return - or war shall rise."

A chill swept the room, making her look toward the trees outside. For a brief moment, she thought she saw silver eyes in the dark.

Then they were gone.

And deep within her chest, something stirred. Something that had been waiting-dormant-for generations.

She didn't know it yet, but she was more than a curious girl.

She was the key.

To Kael's future.

To Lucien's rage.

To the fate of both worlds.

And the Moon Rift was coming again.

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