Silence holds the training yard long after the danger passes.
It is not peaceful.
It is the kind of quiet that follows disaster—heavy, stunned, afraid to move in case something worse wakes up.
Lyra is the first to stand.
Her legs tremble, but she forces them straight, refusing to let the pack see weakness. Her throat burns where his fangs almost were. The ghost of pressure lingers there, intimate and violating, as if the bond itself is reluctant to let go.
Every eye tracks her.
Then they shift.
To Caelan.
He hasn't moved.
He stands where he tore himself away from her, shoulders rigid, head bowed, breath still uneven. The Alpha's power rolls off him in unstable waves—no longer explosive, but cracked, leaking through the seams.
The pack smells it.
Memory.
Guilt.
Fear.
An elder steps forward slowly. "Alpha… what happened?"
Caelan lifts his head.
There is no rage in his eyes now.
Only ruin.
"I remember," he says.
The words ripple through the yard like a shockwave.
Murmurs rise instantly—confused, alarmed, frightened.
"Remember what?" someone asks.
Lyra turns sharply toward Caelan, heart slamming.
Don't, she thinks.
Not like this.
"I remember killing her," he says clearly.
The yard erupts.
Shouts. Gasps. Snarls of disbelief. Several wolves take an instinctive step back from Lyra, eyes wide and uncertain.
"She's alive—" "That's impossible—" "The bond—did you feel that—?"
Lyra feels it then.
The shift.
Not in Caelan.
In the pack.
She is no longer just an outsider.
She is a ghost that walks.
"She was executed by council order," Caelan continues, voice rough but steady. "I carried it out."
The elders freeze.
Maeric's face drains of color.
"That execution was sealed," he says sharply. "You were sworn to silence."
Caelan laughs softly.
It's empty. Broken.
"You should have made sure she stayed dead."
That does it.
Two guards move toward Lyra at once—not aggressively, but protectively, uncertain which direction danger lies.
Caelan sees it.
Something dark flashes across his face.
"Don't touch her," he growls.
The command is pure Alpha.
The guards stop instantly.
Lyra exhales shakily.
"This is what happens now," she says quietly, stepping forward. "They'll fear me. You'll resent me. And the council will try to bury this again."
Her gaze locks with Caelan's.
"But you don't get to pretend it didn't happen."
He nods once.
"I won't."
The admission costs him visibly.
Maeric recovers first. "This changes nothing," he snaps. "If she returned, it's unnatural. Dangerous. The pack cannot—"
"She stays," Caelan cuts in.
Maeric stiffens. "Alpha—"
"She stays," Caelan repeats, louder now. "And if anyone here thinks about finishing what you ordered me to start—"
His power surges.
Stone cracks beneath his boots.
"—they answer to me."
The threat is unmistakable.
Lyra stares at him.
Not gratitude.
Not forgiveness.
But something close to disbelief.
Later, the yard empties slowly, wolves whispering in tight clusters. No one meets Lyra's eyes. No one challenges Caelan again.
They are afraid.
Good, Lyra thinks dully.
They should be.
That night, Caelan does not take her to his chambers.
He takes her to the council archive.
Torches flicker against stone as he unlocks a sealed door no one has opened in decades. Dust coats everything. The smell of old parchment and regret fills the air.
"This is where they hid it," he says quietly. "Your name. Your sentence."
Lyra's throat tightens.
"And you?" she asks. "Where did you hide?"
He doesn't answer right away.
Then: "In duty."
She steps past him, fingers brushing ancient scrolls.
"You don't get absolution," she says softly. "Not yet."
"I know," he replies.
The bond hums between them—no longer screaming, no longer burning.
Wounded.
Alive.
Dangerous.
Caelan watches her move through the shadows of the archive, a woman he once loved, once condemned, and almost claimed again out of terror rather than choice.
"I won't touch you," he says suddenly. "Not until you tell me I can."
Lyra pauses.
She doesn't turn around.
"That might never happen," she says.
"I'll live with that."
The bond tightens—not in protest, but in acknowledgment.
Outside, the moon rises over a pack that no longer trusts its Alpha and a woman who refuses to stay buried.
And between them, something fragile and furious begins to take shape.
Not forgiveness.
Not love.
But truth.