She didn't dodge.
She couldn't.
Her eyes stayed locked on the lifeless body cradled in her arms, while the arrow sliced through the air with the quiet, cruel grace of death itself.
But something faster than death intercepted it.
A blur of movement, a flash of silver, and the arrow shattered mid-air, splintering inches from her throat.
She looked up, gasping — heart thundering.
Kael.
Standing like a god carved from vengeance, cloak billowing behind him, eyes wild and glowing like wildfire in the moonlight.
He didn't speak, not at first.
He looked at the body — the rogue — lying in a twisted heap in her arms, his chest no longer rising, his secrets silenced.
"Did he touch you?" Kael asked, his voice calm but coiled with venom.
She stood slowly, clutching the bloodied hairpin in her fist like it was the last piece of her sanity.
"He tried to warn me," she whispered, not caring how broken she sounded.
Kael took a step closer, face unreadable, like a mask made of storm clouds and shadows.
"Warn you about what?"
She opened her mouth to answer, to confront him, to scream every doubt clawing at her chest — but her voice died in her throat.
Because his hands…
His hands were smeared with fresh blood.
Not from the rogue.
But older.
Darker.
Dried in streaks across his sleeves, thick around his knuckles, like he'd buried his fists into something — someone.
"What did you do?" she asked, her voice shaking under the weight of the silence between them.
Kael looked down at his hands, then back at her, eyes unreadable.
"They sent someone to follow you," he said, as if that explained everything.
"Did you kill them?"
"I had to."
Her breath caught like a thorn in her throat.
He stepped closer, too close, and she didn't move — not out of trust, but because her fear had crystallized into something colder.
"What did the rogue say to you?"
Her fingers tightened around the hairpin, her nails digging into her palm until she felt her own blood mix with her sister's.
"Does the name Lilith mean anything to you?" she asked softly, watching his reaction like a hawk.
Kael flinched — just barely.
But she saw it.
That tiny break in his perfectly sculpted mask.
"Where did you hear that name?"
"She was the last word he said before he died."
Kael turned his back to her, jaw clenched, a storm raging behind his eyes.
"You were never supposed to hear that name," he muttered.
"Why?"
"Because knowing it puts you in danger."
"I'm already in danger," she snapped, her voice rising with every truth denied to her.
He turned then, and for the first time, he didn't look like a prince, or a mate, or even a man.
He looked like a weapon forged in secrets and sharpened by regret.
"Lilith was my mother," he said finally, his voice hollow.
Seraphina staggered back.
His mother?
That couldn't be possible.
Lilith was the name of a curse — a story told to scare pups around fire pits, a legend soaked in blood and betrayal.
"She died during the Purge," she said, though her voice shook with disbelief.
Kael's smile was bitter.
"She didn't die."
Silence hung heavy like a noose between them.
"She started the Purge."
Kael's confession struck like lightning through the heart of everything she thought she knew.
Seraphina's mind reeled, struggling to fit the jagged truth into the fragile puzzle of her past, each word from his lips feeling like it shattered another corner of her trust.
"You're telling me," she began, her voice tight with barely contained rage, "that your mother—the most feared woman in werewolf history—is still alive?"
Kael's eyes were dark, unreadable, but the flicker of shame beneath them was impossible to ignore.
"Yes."
"And she was the one behind the Purge?"
He didn't answer with words.
He didn't need to.
The silence screamed louder than any admission.
Seraphina took a shaky step backward, the wet earth sucking at her boots like it didn't want to let her go.
"So everything… everything I lost…" she whispered, her vision blurring with fury and grief.
"My sister burned alive."
Kael's jaw tightened.
"My pack scattered like dust."
His hands curled into fists.
"And all this time—" she choked, voice cracking under the weight of betrayal, "—you knew?"
"I didn't know until last winter," he said, each word heavy with agony, "when I found a letter meant for my father… in her handwriting."
A chill slithered down her spine.
"She's not just alive, Seraphina. She's gathering followers."
Her heart clenched like a trapped animal inside her chest.
"Why are you only telling me now?"
"Because I couldn't be sure what side you'd choose."
That broke her.
Not the betrayal.
Not the lies.
But the doubt.
After everything they'd been through, after the bond that had nearly destroyed her sanity, he still didn't trust her.
She laughed, hollow and bitter.
"Of course. I'm just a 'weak' mate, right?"
Kael looked away.
"You think I'm blind?" she hissed.
"You treat me like glass—fragile, breakable, disposable."
"You don't know what she's capable of," he said quietly.
"And you don't know what I'm capable of," she snapped, her voice trembling with fury.
For a moment, the forest around them seemed to hold its breath, the shadows leaning closer, listening.
"I want to see her," she said finally.
Kael blinked.
"No."
"I want to see the woman who ruined my life."
"No, Seraphina."
"I want to look her in the eyes and make her remember the lives she turned to ash."
"She's not someone you can threaten."
"I'm not here to threaten her."
"Then what?" he demanded.
"I'm going to kill her."
The words hung between them like lightning waiting to strike.
And in Kael's eyes, she finally saw it—fear.
Not for himself.
For her.
"You don't know what war you're walking into."
She stepped forward, inches from his chest, her breath warm and furious against the cold air.
"Then teach me."
Kael's hand lifted, almost like he would touch her, but fell halfway, fingers twitching with restraint.
"I'll take you to her hideout," he said at last.
"But if we do this, there's no turning back."
Seraphina's eyes were steel.
"There was never a way forward anyway."
And somewhere in the woods behind them, a low growl echoed — not human, not animal — something else entirely, watching, waiting, listening.
Unseen in the trees, a silver eye blinked once… then vanished.