chapter 2 ~ Kael

The forest shifted.

It was slight — a hush in the wind, a change in the weight of the silence — but I felt it like a burn under my skin. I always did, when something touched the edge of fate.

I was already awake. I never really slept. Not the way humans did. Not the way I used to. Sleep was a mercy I lost the night the curse took hold.

It had been years — maybe decades. I stopped counting after the pain stopped surprising me.

I stood beneath the old pine, my breath visible in the cold, heavy air. Every nerve in my body was tense, tight, alert.

She was here.

I didn’t know how I knew. Only that something had clicked into place. Like the earth exhaled… and I breathed in *her*.

I didn't see her. Not yet. But I could feel her. A heartbeat — not hers, mine — reacting as if her presence was carved into it long ago. A pull. A thread.

The red string.

I had stopped believing in it. At least, I told myself I had. A foolish tale tied to fate and soulmates, spoken in the old tongue when wolves still ruled under moonlight.

But now… my curse stirred. The inked runes along my ribs burned faintly — a reminder of the magic I could never escape. The red thread was tied. Someone had entered the forest who wasn’t meant to. Someone *meant for me*.

*No.* I clenched my fists. Fate was cruel. She would not come now. Not when I had nothing left to offer but darkness and regret.

Then it happened.

A sound. A *click* — distant but sharp. A camera.

I turned, eyes narrowing toward the edge of the trees. She was there, somewhere. Not close enough to see me, but close enough to *feel* me.

I let my wolf rise just beneath the surface. Not to change — not yet — but to sense. To taste the shift in the wind.

And then… the trigger.

The air around us — it rippled.

Not wind. Not sound.

But memory. A sudden flash of something not mine — a girl, alone in a field, laughing at nothing, staring at the sky like it held her whole future.

*Her* memory.

The thread had connected.

And if I felt it — she did too.

I pressed my hand to the tree bark, grounding myself, even as my pulse roared like a storm. For the first time in years, I didn’t feel alone in this forest. Not fully.

But fate has claws. It does not play nice.

And I knew this was just the beginning.

The curse whispered in my ear like it always did:

“She is yours. But you are a warning she will never be ready for.”

And still… I took a step toward the clearing.

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