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"Her skin is so dark."

For a moment, she thought the wind had carried these words from unseen voices.

It took her a full breath to realize—

The words came from them.

The warriors?

They were not speaking aloud, yet she heard them. Clear as if they had murmured into her ear.

This was not the first time she had heard whispers in the air.

Most of the time, it was a bird asking for a seed, or a mouse looking for a burrow—small voices, wild and fleeting. The kind she had always understood, the kind that had never startled her.

But never from a human.

Never like this. In clear sentences.

Her fingers curled slightly at her sides, not in fear, but in awareness.

She did not know why the gods had shaped her this way, why her ears caught words never spoken, why she understood the voices that lived beyond sound.

But as she looked at these men who were wolves, at their unreadable expressions, she knew that her storm was looming on the horizon.

Chapter 12

Seren

Seren stood motionless, her keen eyes studying the towering man before her. There was something about him—something familiar, like they had met in another life. He observed her just as intently, his sharp gaze not missing the way she held herself, poised yet unafraid. There was a flicker of recognition in his azure eyes before it was gone. He was larger than the others, his presence a weight in the air, pressing on those around him. And though she was young, she understood instinctively—this was their leader.

Before either of them could speak, the sound of rapid footsteps broke the moment.

"Seren!" The voice was raw, trembling.

Mamma.

Her Pappa tried to hold her back, but she wrenched free, her coiled hair spilling loose in the struggle. Winded and dishevelled, she ran to her daughter's side and threw herself between them, her breath heaving.

"I am Seren's mother. You will not speak to my daughter without me present."

The pack bristled at her defiance, though none moved against her. The leader—Draken, she now understood—remained utterly still. His stare bore down upon her mother, calculating, assessing. The nervous man behind her had frozen, glancing between them as though expecting the earth to crack open beneath his feet.

Seren reached out and touched her mother's arm, her small hand warm against trembling skin. "Calm," she said softly. "Let's listen."

Her mother exhaled shakily but did not move away.

Seren turned back to Draken, then at the wall of warriors behind him—tall, muscled, untamed. These men were nothing like the ones from her village. They were... wolves. And they were giants.

She tilted her head like a princess. "Shall we sit?"

A flicker of surprise crossed Draken's face, quickly hidden. A single brow lifted as if weighing the proposal. Then, with a slight incline of his head, he sat upon the thick earth, his men following suit. The unexpected civility caused murmurs to ripple through the gathered pack.

As Seren and her mother took their places, Seren cast a glance up at the warriors surrounding them. "What do they feed you to make you this big?" she mused.

An involuntary chuckle rolled through the pack, low and amused. Even Draken let out a startled laugh, though he quickly stifled it.

"Do you know who I am?" he finally asked.