Arlena Voice

Pain didn’t feel sharp anymore. It felt familiar. Like waking up in your own skin after years of sleeping in someone else’s clothes.

The arrow that missed Ronin had been a warning. The next one wouldn't.

We dropped low and moved like shadows through the forest—tight formation, every breath quiet, every step calculated. I no longer stumbled. I didn’t need to be dragged. I followed their rhythm and matched it. We were becoming a pack, even if the world refused to name us as one.

I could smell them now. The scent of the Shadow Guard. Too clean. Too cold. Like metal polished for a ritual. And laced beneath it, Kael’s scent.

It hadn’t changed.

It still made me nauseous.

They were close. We didn’t speak, not with words. Ronin's hand brushed mine once—a silent question. I nodded. Lucien winked like it was a game. Dagan didn’t look back. He didn’t need to.

The forest opened just enough for a fight.

They hit us with smoke first. A flash-bomb that popped and spat silver mist across the trees, meant to disorient. I heard them moving through it—boots on bark, growls half-muzzled. They thought I’d freeze.

I didn't.

Lucien caught the first one mid-leap, dragging the guard down with a twist and a whisper that ended in a snap. Ronin took the second with brute force, a headbutt followed by a blade through the thigh. Dagan vanished like wind and reappeared behind a third, dragging him back into the mist with a gurgling scream.

Then one came for me.

You don’t forget the man who marks you.

Kael stepped through the fog like it parted for him. He didn’t wear armor. He didn’t need to. His power walked ahead of him, cracked through the air like a whip. My knees should have buckled. But they didn’t.

“You’re still alive,” he said. “They said you wouldn’t last the night.”

“Sorry to disappoint,” I spat.

He looked me over like I was a thing he’d once thrown out and now missed for all the wrong reasons. “You’ve changed.”

“You haven’t.”

“I didn’t reject you for fun, Arlena. I did it to protect you.”

“That’s a convenient lie.”

“It’s the truth.” He took a step forward. “If I completed the bond, the curse would have killed me.”

“Maybe that would’ve been a mercy,” I said.

Kael winced, just slightly. “I wanted to tell you. But the Queen—she forbade it. She said if you knew, you’d still try. You were raised to believe duty came before life.”

He wasn’t wrong. But I wasn’t that girl anymore.

“What do you want?” I asked.

His eyes flared. “To finish it. To explain. To take back what was torn from us.”

Ronin growled behind me. “You can’t have her.”

Lucien laughed. “She’s not a fucking token, Prince Charming.”

Dagan said nothing, but the dagger in his hand spun lazily, like it had a favorite throat in mind.

Kael looked at me. “They marked you.”

“Not like you did.”

He pointed to my neck. “Your mark is still there. Dim, but alive. Which means the bond isn’t broken.”

“No,” I said. “It’s evolving.”

He flinched. “That isn’t possible.”

I stepped closer. “Neither is surviving the forest. Neither is loving three men instead of one. Neither is being more than what you were bred to be. And yet, here I am.”

He blinked slowly, like he was seeing me for the first time.

“I never meant to hurt you.”

“But you did.”

A pause.

“So what now?” he asked.

“Now,” I said, raising the dagger Lucien gave me, “you bleed like the rest of them.”

Kael moved fast. But not faster than Dagan.

Steel sang. Sparks flew. And suddenly it was no longer a standoff. It was war.

I moved on instinct, ducking a blow from a second guard, slashing at his thigh. Ronin was already on his third, roaring as he shattered bone with his bare hands. Lucien danced circles around two more, blade flashing like poetry turned violent.

Kael reached for me again. And this time, I let him.

Our hands met.

And for one brutal heartbeat, I felt everything.

His regret. His fear. His buried longing.

But also his hunger for control.

It was poison in a kiss. I tore my hand free and snarled.

“You don’t love me. You love what I unlock.”

“That may be true,” he said, eyes hollowing, “but you still belong to me.”

“No,” I said. “I belong to myself.”

With one savage thrust, I drove the dagger into his side.

He gasped.

And I whispered, “Tell the Queen her spell failed.”

Kael staggered back, bleeding, barely standing. Ronin caught my arm before I collapsed.

“You did good,” he said.

“I’m not done,” I whispered.

Lucien whistled, dragging a wounded guard by the collar. “We’ve got a problem. Reinforcements coming. A lot of them.”

Dagan narrowed his eyes. “Too many for a rescue.”

“What, then?” I asked.

He turned slowly to me, voice colder than winter steel.

“They’re not here to save Kael.”

“Then why are they here?”

Dagan looked down at Kael’s wound. At the magic bleeding out like black ink.

“Because he led them to the gate. And now the Queen knows where you are.”

My stomach dropped. “You mean this was a trap?”

Lucien cursed under his breath.

Ronin’s jaw tightened. “Not for us.”

“For who, then?”

“For you,” Dagan said. “You’re not just her mate. You’re her heir.”

My blood ran cold.

Ronin nodded grimly. “Welcome to the war, Arlena.”