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Chapter four

Tristan

S erena's skin had been fire under my touch, a searing confirmation that left me reeling as we reached the mountain compound. My pack watched, their suspicion a palpable scent as we crossed the stone gates. Inside, moonlight filtered through crystal skylights, the air heavy with pine and sage…and something deeper, like the mountain exhaled secrets it had buried for centuries. She didn’t belong here, and yet I couldn’t bring myself to put her back in that cell.

My birthmark tingled where it met hers. The mark flared beneath my skin—not painfully, but insistently, like it was waking up.

It felt like a question, the kind you can't un-ask.

The revelation haunted me as I led her deeper into our stronghold, through the ancient corridors carved directly into the mountainside.

Stone pillars loomed overhead, etched with symbols of our lineage, wolf insignias guarding the path.

The runes shimmered subtly as we passed, like they were catching moonlight that wasn’t there.

The mountain’s energy had changed. Not loud.

Not angry. But aware. As if it, too, recognized her.

I should have returned her to the dim confinement where the rest of her pack languished, where she would pose no risk to us or herself.

But something in me balked at the thought.

I knew her father, Alaric, the alpha of the Silver Ridge pack.

And I knew the rumors about how he treated his daughter.

A long shadow cast by obligation stretched before me. As a formidable alpha, I suddenly found myself unsure. Unsettled. I could hear the whispers ripple through my pack like a gust of winter wind. They did not trust her. They wondered why I did. As did I.

Her footsteps were soft but unyielding behind me, echoing through the stone passages.

I stole a glance back at her, catching the glint of her fiery hair in the moonlight—a living flame, too wild to be snuffed out.

Her hazel eyes caught mine with a knowing intensity.

I turned away, my resolve slipping like sand through my fingers.

She was fire in a place carved of earth and stone—wrong, or right in ways I didn’t yet understand.

In my private chambers, I watched Serena's eyes take in the room.

They were drawn with a curiosity that matched my own toward her.

I could almost hear the pack's murmurs through the thick stone walls.

They would think I was compromised. Weak.

The space around us seemed to shrink under the weight of our silence, charged and volatile.

“You've moved me up in the world, I see.” Her voice cut through the tension, sharp and ironic. She traced her fingers along the wooden frame of the bed—a gesture so casual it felt almost intimate.

“Don't get used to it,” I said, more gruffly than intended. I turned to the broad window, its crystal panes like the eyes of some indifferent god. Moonlight spilt over us, too bright and too cold.

“And here I thought you were starting to like me.” Her words dripped with sarcasm, but beneath it, I heard something more. Was it doubt? Hope?

“Why are you doing this?” she pressed. I could feel her eyes boring into my back, burning hotter than before.

Because I'm a fool, I thought. Instead, I said, “You're more use to me alive and talking than silent in a cell.”

A flicker of something—was it pain? anger?—crossed her face, but she quickly masked it with a sly smile. “Sounds like your version of sweet talk, Alpha.”

I looked at her then, truly looked, and was startled by the pull I felt toward this woman whose very existence threatened all I had sworn to protect. “You shouldn't be here, Serena.”

“Too bad. Looks like I'm stuck with you.” She twirled a lock of her hair, an almost nervous gesture that betrayed her defiance. My wolf prowled under my skin, pacing. Claim. Protect. Destroy. The urges warred, primal and loud, refusing to be silenced. “Or are you the one who's stuck?” she laughed.

The words echoed through me, lodging somewhere deep. She couldn't possibly know how right she was. My eyes fell to her wrist, to the mark I now knew was like my own. Its crescent shape seemed to taunt me, daring me to understand what I refused to.

I was on dangerous ground. More dangerous than my pack could fathom.

Serena, cursed and cast out, was supposed to be a pawn in this ancient game, not the player who threatened the board itself.

If she was truly the one bound to the mark—then I was standing on a knife’s edge between salvation and annihilation.

A wrong move, a wrong choice, and the mountain might not forgive me.

No. I had to silence the thought. I could not afford to believe it. I could not risk believing it.

But with each moment she stayed, with each breath she took in my world, I felt the pull of her destiny weaving tighter around me, a knot I was not sure I wanted to untie.

I left her standing in the center of my chamber—a wildfire in a stone temple, too bright, too dangerous. As the door clicked shut behind me, I realized the sanctuary had gone silent again. But it was a different silence. The kind that settles before something shatters.

I headed for the ancient caves deep beneath the compound, deep enough where Serena’s scent could no longer penetrate my senses.

I needed to breathe. I needed to speak to Morrigan, the pack’s seer.

Pushing deeper into the caves, I could smell the herbs and spices she was known for, and I knew I was getting closer.

The air grew thick and strange in Morrigan's chamber, as if time bent and buckled around me.

Dried herbs swayed from the ceiling, casting long shadows on the walls.

The heavy scent of sage clung to my lungs, leaving a ghost of prophecy with every breath.

She appeared from nowhere, like an apparition in her own haunted chamber, violet eyes searching me with a knowing that cut too deep.

“You are troubled, Alpha,” Morrigan said, her voice like wind through hollow bones. It was neither question nor statement, but something more potent—a glimpse.

“Tell me what you see.” My words came out rough, barely cutting through the thickness of the air. “What is this about the girl?”

She stepped closer, her movements fluid and slow, as if choreographed by the cosmos themselves. The deep violet of her eyes never wavered, unsettling in their focus. “The girl with the matching mark. You know who she is.”

“I don’t know anything,” I said, the admission tasting bitter on my tongue. “But when I touched her... something happened.”

The air around us vibrated, charged with a silent anticipation.

I pushed back my shirt, exposing the birthmark on the back my shoulder.

Its pale crescent shape and stars stood out against my tan skin, a reminder that pulsed with uncertainty.

I felt Morrigan's eyes on it, then on me, her gaze so intense it seemed to bore into the truth I couldn’t yet see.

“And hers is the same?” Her voice was a careful weave of disbelief and understanding, threading the line between them with expert precision.

“When we touched, they glowed.” I searched her face, hoping for a sliver of clarity in her inscrutable expression. “Tell me what it means.”

A smile tugged at her lips, more haunting than reassuring.

She circled me, each step deliberate, an orbit of wisdom and mystery.

Her fingers brushed the air near my mark, as if she could feel the energy sparking from it.

“You are linked to the celestial, Tristan. Your bond was written long before you drew breath.”

Her words struck like a chill in my spine, sending shards of revelation through me. The prophecy was real. It wasn't a whisper of old wolves, but something that breathed and lived, wrapping itself around my world with each moment she spoke.

“Celestial?” I echoed, my voice trailing after the thought like a lost shadow.

“The moon has marked you, both of you. Not as a curse, but a protection,” Morrigan said, her tone dipping into something softer, almost tender.

Protection. The word hung between us, alien and familiar at once. Was that what this was? Not a chain, but a shield? A way to keep the world at bay until she found her way to me, her supposed counterpart?

“You speak in riddles, Morrigan.” My frustration was a living thing, my wolf straining against its tether. “Is it true? Is she...?”

She leaned in, her hair silver in the dim light, the lines of her face etched with age and agelessness. “Fated. Cursed with unrest until she finds her mate. Until she found you.”

The chamber seemed to narrow around us, its weight oppressive with the enormity of what she suggested. The girl who was supposed to bring ruin to my pack, to be nothing more than leverage in this ancient vendetta, was destined for me?

I stepped back, reeling from the impact. “And what about my pack? What does this mean for them?”

Morrigan's smile faded, replaced by a look of deep contemplation. Her voice dropped to a whisper, one I felt rather than heard. “A gift for her, a burden for you. The stars align, but their light is sharp.”

Her words left marks of their own, ones I couldn’t hide under clothes or duty. The risk was greater than I could have imagined. It wasn’t just my heart on the line but the heart of the pack, the essence of what we were. The thought was terrifying. Exhilarating.

“Tristan,” Morrigan called, drawing me back from the edge of my own spiraling thoughts. “What is in you cannot be undone.”

The room was closing in, her truths an avalanche of stardust and prophecy, burying the doubts I wanted to cling to. I needed air. I needed time. But time was a luxury that felt as fleeting as the shadow of a passing moon.