Chapter Seventeen Caleb's POV
The night bled silver.
Moonlight spilled through the canopy in fractured shards, staining the forest in pale glow and shadow.
Every tree looked sharpened at the edges, every root like a waiting snare. The air was cold enough to bite, thick with pine resin and damp earth, but beneath it—beneath everything—was her.
Hazel.
The forest stretched endlessly ahead, a blur of trees and shadows that refused to stay still. My wolf—Adam—paced beneath my skin like a caged thing, claws scraping at my ribs, breath hot and furious.
He strained toward every whisper on the wind, every broken trail, every lingering trace that even resembled her.
Every scent on the wind whispered her name.
And gods, I was tired of pretending I couldn't hear it.
"Focus," I muttered, dropping into a crouch beside the trail.
Blood.
Not fresh—but not old enough to be forgotten. Wolf blood, sharp and metallic. Not hers. My chest loosened by a fraction at that realization, even as tension coiled tighter down my spine.
Shadow wolves.
Scouts. Bounty ranks. Magnus's enemies—or his tools, depending on which lie he was telling today.
I'd torn through two of them already. Their bodies lay broken somewhere behind me, swallowed by darkness and leaves. But they kept multiplying like rot, slipping through the forest in pairs and trios, always watching, always testing.
Magnus would've told me to burn the forest if it meant finding her faster.
The thought twisted bitter in my chest.
Magnus was in a coma now, lying in a bed that smelled of antiseptic, iron, and regret. His mind silent for the first time in my life. And I didn't know if that silence was a curse… or mercy.
She's close.
Adam's growl rolled through me, low and violent, vibrating through bone and blood. I inhaled deeply.
Pine. Smoke. Wet bark.
And then—
Wildflowers.
My pulse skipped.
Roses.
Hazel's scent wrapped around me—soft, stubborn, defiant. Familiar enough to hurt. It slid into my lungs and settled there like a promise I didn't want to remember keeping.
My claws flexed.
And then—
A voice.
Not mine. Not Adam's.
"Still chasing ghosts, my lovely Alpha?"
My hand froze mid-motion.
The forest went wrong.
Shadows shifted where they shouldn't.
Darkness stretched and folded in on itself, moving too fluidly, too deliberately. The air thickened, humming with something old and watching.
"Who's there?" I demanded, rising slowly.
"Tch. You don't remember me?"
A laugh unfurled through the trees—silky, amused, poisonous. It slid into my thoughts like smoke into a sealed room.
"Poor thing," she purred. "You think Hazel's family was guilty? You think the Thorns destroyed your pack?"
"Shut up." My voice came out hoarse, scraped raw by too many nights without rest. "I don't need this."
Helena.
Her presence pressed in from all sides, invisible yet suffocating.
"Magnus taught you well, didn't he?" she continued softly. "Fear what you don't understand. Hate before you question."
Heat flooded the air. My vision blurred.
Images slammed into me without warning—
Wolves howling beneath blood-red moons. A girl with red hair—Hazel—kneeling in the dirt, blood soaking into the earth beneath her.
A man—me—holding her broken body, begging the goddess for one more lifetime. Promising to be reborn. Promising to find her again.
It was me.
It had always been me.
I staggered back, breath tearing from my lungs.
"No. That's—"
"—the truth," Helena whispered.
I could almost feel her breath brush my neck, cold and intimate. "Selene made you both to balance me. You are her weapon, Caleb. Her perfect little pawn."
"Lies!" I roared.
My claws burst free, slashing through air that rippled like water. Power cracked outward, splintering bark, shaking the ground beneath my feet. "You're dead. You were locked away."
"Oh, love…" Her voice softened, mockingly tender. "Even cages can't contain divinity."
The world twisted.
Trees bent inward, their trunks curving unnaturally. The moon flared blinding white, flooding my vision until everything burned—
And then—
Silence.
No forest. No wind. No Adam.
I stood in an endless void, the ground beneath me shimmering like liquid glass. Every step echoed. Every breath felt borrowed.
Then came the light.
Not Helena's.
This light was calm. Vast. Sacred.
And when she stepped forward, the void bowed.
Selene.
The Moon Goddess herself.
Her beauty was terrifying—light and shadow intertwined, mercy and judgment woven into every line of her form. She looked at me like she had known me longer than time.
"Caleb Benjamin Blackmoor," she said gently. "My Golden Alpha reborn."
My knees nearly buckled. "I'm not your anything."
"You are," she replied simply, walking closer.
"You and Hazel were chosen before time remembered itself. Two halves of a soul split to mend what Helena broke."
The space around us rippled.
Past lives unfolded like torn pages—
Hazel, bloodied yet radiant, standing before armies.
Me—the first Golden Alpha—swearing to protect her even in death. Our hands reaching through fire, through war, through centuries… always falling apart.
"Stop." My throat burned. "I didn't ask for this. I don't want it anymore. I don't want anything to do with Hazel in this life."
"You don't have to." Selene's eyes shimmered with a pity that hurt worse than anger. "The bond between you and Hazel isn't instinct. It's memory. Divine memory. When you feel her pain, it's because you've felt it before. When you crave her touch, it's because your souls have already known each other—too deeply to forget."
I shook my head, stepping back. "You think that justifies what she did? What her family did?"
Selene's voice dropped—soft, precise, lethal.
"Seems to me like you're in denial."
The void cracked.
"Your grandfather twisted history. He took Helena's corruption and made it your inheritance. The Thorns were never your enemy. They were your shield."
My chest caved inward.
Images tore through me—
Magnus standing over a ritual circle, whispering names soaked in blood. Hazel's family slaughtered.
Betrayed. Burned. My younger self, being told the Thorns murdered my parents—and believing it because the truth was unbearable.
"Magnus lied to me," I whispered.
"He loves himself more than his pack," Selene said quietly. "More than truth."
Her words cut deeper.
She showed me everything.
My father trying to stop Magnus. Magnus killing my parents. Hazel's entire bloodline wiped out. Helena chained and siphoned for power. Royal families complicit. Corrupted. Watching.
Everyone I thought was innocent… wasn't.
Everyone I hated… didn't deserve it.
I collapsed to my knees. My claws retracted, leaving only shaking hands.
"What do you want from me?" I asked.
"To remember," Selene whispered, touching my forehead.
Light exploded.
Pain followed.
And for one perfect, unbearable heartbeat—I saw Hazel as she truly was.
Not my enemy. Not the girl who ran.
The woman I once died for.
The void shattered.
I gasped awake in the forest, lungs burning, heart slamming against my ribs.
My men's voices echoed faintly somewhere nearby, but they sounded distant, unreal.
All I could think about was her.
Hazel.
Her laugh. Her eyes. The bond burning between us like unfinished destiny.
And Helena's voice lingered, smug and faint.
"See, my lovely Alpha? Even gods play games."
I stared up at the moon, jaw clenched.
If Selene wanted me to remember, then fine.
But I would find my own truth.
Even if I had to burn every lie that built my world to get it.
"I'm sorry, Hazel," I whispered into the night.
"I'll make it right. Somehow."