Chapter 4 THEY'RE COMING FOR ME

"Aria..."

I turned in a slow circle, eyes wide, but there was no one behind me.

The voice hadn't come from the woods. It hadn't come from Kael. It had come from inside my head-echoing, ancient, male. And it knew my name.

Kael stepped forward. "What did you hear?"

My lips parted, but the words were stuck behind the thump in my chest. The air was different now-sharper, colder. The trees no longer whispered. They waited.

And then, as if the forest exhaled-

A howl split the sky.

But this time it wasn't from the Shadowfangs. It wasn't even wolf.

It was something else.

Something wrong.

Kael grabbed my arm, yanking me away from the altar. "We're not safe."

I ran with him, thorns ripping at my jeans, the night roaring around us like a tidal wave. Whatever was coming, Kael feared it. And if he was scared, that meant I should be terrified.

We burst out of the woods at the edge of the pack's territory-just in time to see it.

Smoke.

The cabin I'd been staying in was on fire.

A figure stood in the flames. Cloaked. Tall. And when it turned, I saw its eyes-silver and cracked like glass.

And behind him, crawling out of the dark like shadows come to life, were rogues.

"Go to the others," Kael growled. "I'll handle them."

I didn't move. "You can't take them all."

"I've fought worse."

"Not with me here."

He hesitated.

And that was his mistake.

Because in that moment of hesitation, the silver-eyed rogue vanished-blinked out of existence-and reappeared behind us.

Kael whirled.

Too slow.

Claws sliced through his shoulder-deep, brutal, tearing his coat and skin.

Blood hit the dirt.

Kael didn't scream.

He roared.

Shifted mid-air, bones snapping, fur exploding through his body in one breath. His wolf was massive-pitch black with that single golden eye still gleaming.

He charged.

I stood frozen, the world moving in warps and pulses.

The rogues poured forward.

And still, I didn't run.

Because something inside me-something coiled deep and ancient-was rising.

I felt it in my bones. In the mark. In my blood.

Power.

My veins lit up like wildfire, and before I could question it, I opened my mouth and screamed-not in fear, but in instinct.

And the trees answered.

The wind bent.

The flames pulled backward like a reverse breath.

And every rogue in a ten-foot radius stumbled back, claws clutching their heads like my voice was shattering glass inside their skulls.

Kael paused mid-fight, his fur blood-soaked, panting.

He looked at me. Eyes wide. Shocked.

Not afraid.

But something close.

"Aria," he whispered. "You're not just marked..."

I turned to him, still glowing, the scream fading from my lips like a final note.

"I know," I said, my voice cracking with truth.

"I'm not just a key."

The silver-eyed rogue. The one in the fire.

I saw him again, but younger. In chains. Beside another child. A girl. Pale. Blonde.

My age.

She turned toward me, and I saw my own face reflected in hers.

"Sister."

That was all she said.

And then the vision snapped.

Kael was beside me now. Wolf form gone. Bleeding. His hands on my shoulders.

"Aria. Are you seeing things again?"

"I think... I think there's another like me."

Kael's breath caught.

And then, grimly, "Then it's already begun."

I glanced back at the burning woods. The rogues were gone.

But the message was clear.

They weren't trying to kill me.

They were trying to wake me up.

And now?

I was wide awake.