The moon had seen him break.
It watched every night as Killian Hayes stood motionless at the edge of Blackthorn Ridge, where the earth ended and the wild began. The same spot he'd stood on the night he lost everything — the night his mate died in his arms and his wolf went silent.
Five years.
Five years without a shift.
Five years without a howl.
Five years without a pulse that wasn't his own.
Blackthorn Ridge had learned to adapt to a hollow Alpha.
The pack carried on in trembling silence. The elders no longer called upon his wisdom. Warriors fought without him. Mothers stopped offering their pups toward his guidance. The mate-bond mark on his neck — once a symbol of eternal union — had withered into a ghostly scar.
He didn't lead anymore. He watched.
Tonight, the forest below whispered. The leaves trembled, restless. Even the moon felt closer somehow — heavy, watchful, intrusive. But it didn't matter. The world could burn, and Killian would not move unless someone dragged him from this edge.
Then the wind shifted.
And everything stopped.
One inhale. One impossibly, wrongfully, beautifully familiar inhale — and the world slammed back into him all at once.
Scent.
Not memory. Not dream. Not grief.
Scent. Fresh. Real. Alive. Soft, but savage. Sweet, but biting. Like wild lilies crushed beneath silver rain, tinted with something he once craved more than life itself:
Her.
Killian didn't breathe — he devoured the air, inhaling again, searching for the trace that made his ribcage tighten against a heart that should've stopped beating years ago.
No.
The sound escaped him in a whisper — a denial laced with panic. It couldn't be.
He locked onto the direction the scent traveled from, muscles coiled, every dormant instinct roaring to life, snarling against reason. He'd long forgotten what instinct even felt like anymore. But his wolf — the wolf he'd sworn was dead — was awake. Clawing. Snarling. Demanding to hunt.
Every inch of him ached with recognition. The bond — the very one he'd buried with Alina — was waking back up from its grave.
No. This was a trick. A test. A hallucination forged from memory and pain.
But beneath that thread of denial… was something far more dangerous:
Hope.
The kind that made even an Alpha want to fall to his knees.
Killian staggered one step forward, then another, fingers digging into the stone ledge beneath him. He could swear he heard her laughter — soft and echoing, just like before. The kind that used to pull him out of the darkest places. The kind he now relived only in nightmares.
"Killian?"
He jerked, snapping back. Marcus stood behind him, breath shallow, eyes sharp the way only a Beta's could be when danger trembled in the air. He smelled it too. The shift. The crackling, pulsing shift.
"You feel that?" Marcus asked, voice low.
Killian said nothing. He barely heard him. All he could feel was that scent searing his veins, pulling something fierce and feral from within.
Marcus's eyes widened. "Killian…"
"I know," he gritted out.
He didn't need to explain. Didn't need to speak the unspoken truth. Marcus knew. The whole pack might soon feel it — the awakening of something forbidden. Something primal.
Killian stepped off the ledge, eyes locked on the woods below. His voice was gravel, wrecked, raw.
"She's here."
Marcus's breath caught. "But she's—"
"Dead," Killian finished. "I know."
A beat passed. A beat too long.
Something changed in the air.
Then… he said two words no wolf ever wanted to hear from their Alpha:
"Or not."
Behind them, someone screamed in the distance.
Not just any scream.
A human scream.
Female.
Frightened.
Close.
Killian didn't hesitate.
His wolf — silenced for five years — tore free from whatever grave he'd buried it in.
And Killian Hayes finally moved.
His feet hit the earth below with a force that sent shockwaves up his spine, bones stretching, breath breaking — not into a shift, not yet, but into something close, something lethal. His senses exploded. Dirt. Pine. Rain. Blood. And her. Always her, threading through it all.
The forest parted for him, the shadows leaning back as if they remembered what it meant when an Alpha fully woke — and bowed in silent, startled respect.
He could hear her heartbeat in the distance. Fragile. Wild. Breaking. The same rhythm he'd laid next to years ago — beating faster now, frantic.
That was the moment he realized two things, and both hurt in ways only buried love could:
One — she wasn't a memory.
Two — she was in danger.
He tore through the underbrush like a storm, bark splitting in his wake, the earth clawed up beneath his boots. His mind was a battlefield of denial and need. But instinct… instinct won.
His wolf was pulling him forward, urging him faster.
Then — silence.
No heartbeat. No scream. Just… stillness.
He skidded to a halt, chest heaving, breath thick with her scent but no direction, no trail. She was close — painfully close — but hidden. Like the bond itself was messing with him. Testing if he deserved to find her.
A twig snapped behind him.
Killian spun — fangs threatening to break through.
But it wasn't her.
Ethan Greenwood — confused, terrified, holding a flashlight that flickered against the trees.
"What—" Ethan stammered, stumbling backward when Killian's eyes flashed in the dark. "Who are you?"
Killian didn't answer.
Because as Ethan spoke…
Killian finally saw it.
On Ethan's jacket.
Her scent.
Stronger.
Fresher.
Recent.
Killian's voice was a blade.
"Where is she?"
Ethan flinched. "W-what? Who?"
Killian took one step forward.
The ground shivered underfoot.
"Where the hell is she?"
Ethan stared — and in that moment, something flashed in his eyes.
Recognition.
Fear.
But not of Killian.
No.
Of the truth.
And Killian realized — painfully, savagely — that Ethan wasn't just some human man.
He was with her.
She wasn't hiding.
She was already here.
Already close.
Already tied to someone else.
And the Alpha's world…
cracked.
Before Ethan could speak, the wind carried her voice — faint, breathless.
"Ethan?"
Killian froze.
She was near.
Very near.
And the forest, the night, the bond itself...
held its breath.